As the two-time defending World Series champions, the Dodgers were already considered juggernauts before they acquired superstar left-hander Tarik Skubal from the Tigers ahead of the Aug. 3 trade deadline. Although Skubal is unsigned past this season, the Dodgers parted with three prospects for the the back-to-back American League Cy Young winner in hopes he would make them borderline unbeatable in the playoffs.

With Skubal in tow, the Dodgers went on to finish with 100 wins, take the NL West for the fifth straight year and clinch a first-round bye in the postseason. Skubal helped the Dodgers dispatch the Braves in the NLDS, but their season and their bid to become the first National League team to win three World Series in a row came crashing down in the NLCS.

The small-market Brewers, whose cash payroll is almost $200MM lower than the deep-pocketed Dodgers’, outscored L.A. 21-11 en route to a four-game sweep. It wasn’t necessarily surprising that the Brewers won the series, as they entered the postseason off a major league-best 103-win campaign. In a pre-series poll, 59% of MLBTR readers picked the Brew Crew to prevail. However, it came as a shock that a Dodgers team with a star-studded lineup and rotation (Skubal, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow) didn’t put up a better fight.

The Dodgers’ offseason is underway much earlier than they expected when president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman executed the Skubal trade two and a half months ago. Their biggest question now is whether they will re-sign the soon-to-be 30-year-old Skubal, a Scott Boras client who looks poised to score the richest contract ever for a pitcher. That honor currently belongs to Yamamoto, whom the Dodgers signed out of Japan for 12 years and $325MM in December 2023.

The Dodgers, who haven’t shown much hesitance to dole out enormous contracts in recent years, can’t be disappointed with how the hard-throwing Skubal performed down the stretch. In 10 regular-season starts as a Dodger, he pitched to a 2.61 ERA with 70 strikeouts and 13 walks in 62 innings. Skubal was also plenty effective in two playoff outings, a Game 1 win over the Braves and a Game 1 loss to the Brewers. He recorded a 2.45 ERA with 14 punchouts against four walks in that 11-inning span.

While Skubal clearly adjusted well to the pressure-packed L.A. environment, he was unwilling to discuss his long-term outlook on Thursday night, saying (link via Sonja Chen of MLB.com): “I’m not going to comment on my future really at all. Today sucks, you know, and that’s kind of where my head’s at.”

Skubal would have taken the ball for Game 5 of the NLCS had the Dodgers forced it, but his time in their uniform may now be up. The impending lockout, which will begin on Dec. 1, plays a key role in his uncertain future. If the owners somehow convince the players to accept a salary cap in the next collective bargaining agreement, or if harsher penalties for teams that pay the competitive balance tax are implemented, it would seemingly decrease the Dodgers’ chances of keeping him. As shown on MLBTR’s Payroll Tracker (via contributor Ethan Hullihen), the Dodgers already have $368MM-plus in cash commitments and over $387MM in CBT commitments for next year. Those figures check in significantly higher than the $245.3MM hard cap the owners proposed in May.

If the Dodgers are unwilling or unable to retain Skubal, their rotation would still be in better shape than most teams’. Yamamoto, Snell and Glasnow will be back. Shohei Ohtani went through an injury-marred second half and was never healthy enough to pitch in the same rotation as Skubal, but he’s not planning to give up his two-way role. Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone (who missed the last two seasons with shoulder problems) are among other in-house rotation possibilities for next year. Those four pale in comparison to Skubal (most pitchers do), but the mega-talented club should go into 2027 on the shortlist of championship favorites even if he leaves. Do you think he will?

Photos courtesy of Jayne Kamin-Oncea and Katie Stratman, Imagn Images