2026 MLB trade deadline preview: Passan's intel on every team - ESPN

One of the biggest deadline trades this century is days away from happening. The Tarik Skubal sweepstakes has arrived — not officially from the Detroit Tigers, but telegraphed through the preparations of the interested teams with means to get him by the 6 p.m. ET deadline on Monday. In what is expected to have been Skubal's final outing with the team that drafted him and helped him develop into the reigning two-time American League Cy Young winner, the Tigers blew a 7-0 lead Wednesday and lost to Baltimore in 12 innings.

The defeat dropped Detroit to 51-58, 4½ games back of the final AL wild-card spot with five teams to leap. The math was always going to be difficult after the Tigers' dreadful May, and it finally caught up to them this week. If Detroit holds Skubal through the end of the season, when he could leave in free agency, the Tigers would reap only a compensatory draft pick in the 30thoverall range.

Considering the teams keen on Skubal, Detroit stands to return a hefty multiple on the value of that pick (around $10 million) in any trade return. The teams with the three best records in baseball — the Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays — also happen to have arguably the three best farm systems in baseball.

Skubal would cement the Rays as the AL favorite. If paired with Milwaukee's Jacob Misiorowski, he would give the Brewers the most fearsome lefty-righty combination since Randy Johnson and Curt Schilling pitched Arizona to the 2001 World Series title. And the Dodgers would add perhaps the best pitcher in the world to a team that has won the last two championships.

They're not the only ones vying for Skubal, of course. The team with the fourth-best record, Atlanta, would love to pair Skubal