Late Saturday night, the biggest trade candidate and one of the best pitchers in baseball came off the board, and he’s going to the two-time defending World Series champions. The Los Angeles Dodgers have acquired Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers for three prospects.

Here are the full trade details:

• Dodgers acquire: LHP SP Tarik Skubal
• Tigers acquire: OF Zyhir Hope, RHSP River Ryan, RHSP Brady Smith

The Dodgers are looking to threepeat and the Tigers are, for all intents and purposes, throwing in the towel on their season. Expect righty Casey Mize and second baseman Gleyber Torres, both rentals like Skubal, to move prior to Monday’s deadline. The Dodgers don’t have anything else to address before the deadline, really. Their roster is very well set now.

Tarik Skubal trade winners and losers: Dodgers just keep getting better; MLB scores easy (if faulty) narrative

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Dayn Perry

Here now are our grades for Saturday’s Skubal blockbuster.

Los Angeles Dodgers: A

Back-to-back World Series champions get back-to-back Cy Young winner. It’s that simple.

We needn’t overthink this. The Dodgers are trying to become baseball’s first back-to-back-to-back World Series champion since the 1998-2000 Yankees, and they just added the reigning two-time Cy Young winner to a team that went into Saturday with the best record in baseball. Furthermore, it cost them nothing off their major-league roster. That’s an easy, easy A.

As good as Hope is (and he’s very good), he was L.A.’s fourth-best outfield prospect behind Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero, and Mike Sirota. Ryan was no higher than seventh or eighth on their rotation depth chart. Smith is a Single-A lottery ticket with a very big arm, but is also the kind of pitching prospect a World Series contender should never sweat giving up to get a Skubal type. All things considered, this trade package represents minimal pain for the Dodgers. They dealt from positions of depth across the board.

The Dodgers have a comfortable 10-game lead in the NL West. They’re adding Skubal for the five to seven starts they hope he will make for them in the postseason. What he does in August and September is almost irrelevant. Here is the club’s rotation depth chart:

1. LHP Tarik Skubal
2. RHP Yoshinobu Yamamoto
3. RHP Shohei Ohtani (currently unable to pitch due to knee and biceps injuries)
4. LHP Blake Snell (rehabbing from elbow surgery)
5. RHP Tyler Glasnow (out with back trouble)
6. LHP Justin Wrobleski
7. RHP Roki Sasaki
8. RHP Emmet Sheehan
9. LHP Eric Lauer

The master plan likely has Skubal, Yamamoto, and Ohtani as the top three starters in the postseason, in whatever order. Glasnow and Snell are overqualified candidates to be the No. 4 starter. Wrobleski, Sasaki, and Sheehan have bullpen experience and can be impactful in that role. The Dodgers have depth and impact. It’s the game’s best rotation, at least on paper.

Detroit Tigers: C

The Tigers decided they would simply no longer like one of the best pitchers in baseball on their team.

In the end, the Skubal trade package looks like all the other rental ace trades over the last 20 years. The Tigers received one of the 25 or so best prospects in baseball (Hope), a strong second piece (Ryan), and a lottery ticket third piece (Smith). CC Sabathia (Cleveland to Brewers), Cliff Lee (Mariners to Rangers), Zack Greinke (Brewers to Angels), and David Price (Tigers to Blue Jays) were all traded for a very similar package. A top 25-ish prospect, a strong second piece, and a lottery ticket (or two).

Hope, 21, is tearing the cover off the ball in Double-A, slashing .293/.369/.530 with 23 home runs and 18 stolen bases. He’ll be ready to help the Tigers sometime next season, perhaps even on Opening Day. The long-term hope is that, well, Hope will join Max Clark, Dillon Dingler, and Kevin McGonigle to form the position player core of the next pennant-winning Tigers team.

Ryan, 28 next month, returned from Tommy John surgery earlier this year. He’s currently on the Triple-A injured list with a hamstring injury, but once he’s healthy, he’s a ready-made MLB starter who can step right into Detroit’s rotation. Ryan was so impressive in spring training that we made him one of our breakout picks for 2026. The only question is health (which is a pretty big question).

MLB Pipeline ranked Smith as the Dodgers’ No. 17 prospect before the trade and said he has “some of the best upside among Los Angeles’ starting pitching prospects.” The 22-year-old has a 4.36 ERA in 74 ⅓ innings split between two Single-A levels this year. Smith rounds out a strong trade package that aligns with the established precedent for a rental ace.

Why do the Tigers get a C then? Because they’re two games behind the third wild-card spot in the loss column, and they decided they would rather not employ one of the best pitchers in baseball the rest of the season. I understand the reasoning behind the trade. I do. You can’t let Skubal leave for nothing as a free agent. What’s the point of having all these wild-card spots and all this talk about competitive imbalance when teams behave like this?

History tells us the prospects aren’t going to amount to much. The best player — by far — to come out of the Sabathia, Lee, Greinke, and Price trades was Michael Brantley. The second best is probably Matthew Boyd. The Tigers put an inadequate roster around Skubal and that led to the trade. The return is fine. The reason it happened is a major bummer.

The Los Angeles Dodgers (69-42) made a blockbuster trade to acquire Tarik Skubal early Sunday morning, but before he debuts next week, the team will look to avoid being swept by the red-hot Boston Red Sox on ‘Sunday Night Baseball.’ Boston (59-51) is 22-4 since the start of July and won the first two games in this series. Jake Bennett (6-4, 2.74 ERA) will start for Boston, while Los Angeles counters with Emmet Sheehan (4-7, 4.95 ERA). 

First pitch is at 7:20 p.m. ET from Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles. The latest Dodgers vs. Red Sox odds list Los Angeles as the -165 favorite (risk $165 to win $100), with Boston at +141. The over/under is 9. Before making any Dodgers vs. Red Sox picks or MLB predictions, be sure to see the ‘Sunday Night Baseball’ predictions and betting advice from SportsLine’s proven computer model. 

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The SportsLine Projection Model simulates every MLB game 10,000 times, and entered Week 19 of the MLB season on a sizzling 39-23 run on all top-rated MLB picks. It also excelled at making home run prop picks in 2025, returning nearly 30 units of profit. Anybody following its MLB betting picks at sportsbooks and on betting sites could have seen strong returns.    

Now, the model has set its sights on Dodgers vs. Red Sox and just locked in its picks and MLB predictions. You can head to SportsLine now to see the model’s picks. Here are several MLB odds and betting lines for Red Sox vs. Dodgers:

Top Dodgers vs. Red Sox predictions

After 10,000 simulations of Red Sox vs. Dodgers, the model is going Under 9 total runs in over/under sports betting. The Red Sox have seen seven of their past eight games go under the total, while the Dodgers have gone under in three of their past four games. That’s in line with season-long trends as the Dodgers have a 54% Under rate, while Boston’s Under rate is 57%.

Eight of Bennett’s 11 starts have gone Under, and the model is projecting that he gives up just 2.4 earned runs through six innings. Neither teams clears five runs in the simulations as they combine for 8.5 runs with the Under hitting 54% of the time in simulations. Get the Red Sox vs. Dodgers money-line pick at SportsLine.

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How to make Red Sox vs. Dodgers picks

After simulating every pitch of Dodgers vs. Red Sox 10,000 times, the model also says one side of the money line has all the value. You can get that pick at SportsLine. 

So who wins Red Sox vs. Dodgers, and which side of the money line has all the value? Visit SportsLine now to see which side you need to jump on, all from the model that has crushed its MLB picks, and find out.

Triple H has been under the crosshairs of a lot of fan criticism over the last few years due to his booking decisions as the Head of WWE’s creative. The Game currently serves as the Chief Content Officer in the company and is responsible for a lot of major creative decisions there. He recently addressed the controversy regarding his process of determining which stars to push into the main event spot and major storylines.

One of the biggest fan concerns with WWE’s booking over the last few years is the lack of young talent in the main event spots. Even at this year’s WrestleMania, both main events featured wrestlers who have been active for more than 10 years and all past the age of 40. While in AEW, MJF held the company’s World title for the majority of this year and he just recently turned 30.

At the SummerSlam post-show, Triple H was asked about how some stars might feel like they are not receiving the main event spot that they should be in. The Game responded to the question by sending a message to the locker room about his mentality.

“And.. you know whenever anybody says like I don’t know why I’m not in that spot like, I don’t know, are you more over than Cody? Are you more over than Roman? Are you more over than Punk? Are you more over than Liv? IYO? Right? Those people are in that spot. Get there, start to make those crowd reactions happen. Whatever you need to make it happen, that’s what’s we’re all here to do. So um I love that mentality,” he said. [48:49 onwards]

There are a lot of young stars in WWE right now who are potential future WrestleMania main-eventers.

Triple H has teased that Nick Aldis might return to the ring again in WWE

Tensions between Nick Aldis and Gunther had been building up over the last few months ever since the Ring General joined the SmackDown roster. Things got out of control after both stars got into a physical altercation after the Night of Champions and Aldis cost Gunther the match at Saturday Night’s Main Event. Triple H announced the match between the two for SummerSlam at the Kickoff show for the Biggest Party of the Summer.

Aldis made his in-ring return for the first time in nearly three years but lost to Gunther. During the post-show, Triple H talked about the National Treasure’s return and stated that he might wrestle once again.

“I have to admit, I was emotional for him knowing him as a human being, and I was really excited for him. So, incredibly proud of him and what he accomplished tonight, and gunther as well. But as far as will it happen again? Never say never. I would have never said never about him being in there tonight, and here we are. So let’s see. Let’s see where it goes,” he said. [38:55 – 39:25]

It will be interesting to see if Nick Aldis will be competing more often in the WWE moving forward.