Brewers fans can't get over the simple reason Dodgers beat them in Tarik Skubal trade

There are still folks who believe that the Los Angeles Dodgers got off light in what they gave up to acquire Tarik Skubal from the Detroit Tigers. Well, mostly Brewers fans. The reality of the situation is the Dodgers gave up what it took to get Skubal, and that's what matters.

For a while, it seemed that the Brewers, long thought to be Los Angeles's chief competition for the ace left-hander, didn't make a serious offer for Skubal. That's not the case, though. Milwaukee was very much in the mix for Skubal and seemed to want him badly.

The Brewers offered up three prospects as well, with at least two ranking in the MLB Pipeline top 100. Reportedly, one of the three was shortstop Luis Peña, who ranks 18th in the top 100, and all three were hitters.

So it does actually appear that the Brewers went after Skubal pretty hard. There was just one problem. They seemed to ignore what the Tigers wanted in return.

Pitching is the real reason why the Dodgers beat out the Brewers for Tarik Skubal

Anyone who had been paying attention in the lead-up to the trade deadline knew that controllable starting pitching was the prerequisite to any Skubal deal from the Tigers' point of view. So if the Brewers offered up three hitters while the Dodgers gave up a package headlined by two arms in River Ryan and Brady Smith, well, it's clear why Detroit made this choice.

Brewers manager Pat Murphy seemed pretty annoyed at the narrative that Milwaukee wasn't serious about landing the ace.

“It isn't as simple as, 'That's a better package.' It's not as simple as that. There's a lot more, a lot more layers to it. To say the Brewers didn’t try is simply incorrect," Murphy told reporters.

He's not wrong. First, the idea that simply looking at publicly available prospect rankings is how teams decide on which prospects to acquire is naive, even if opinions likely don't deviate drastically from what the industry experts say.

Beyond that, there are the priorities of both sides. For the Tigers, they weren't blowing it up, but rather capitalizing on an asset that they'd otherwise lose for nothing other than a comp pick in a few months. Given where they were in the standings, holding Skubal in hopes of making a deep playoff run was foolish.

But if you're giving up one of the very best starters in the game, you're going to have a void in your rotation that must be filled. Getting a hurler who can grow alongside breakout star Troy Melton in the rotation and form a core for years to come with youngsters like Kevin McGonigle and Max Clark was a key for Detroit, so as good of a prospect as Peña might be, he's still a 19-year-old infielder in Hi-A, not exactly what the Tigers were looking for.

So, River Ryan made sense. Zyhir Hope, who could compete for a big league job next year, did too. There were some rumors that the Tigers would've liked Logan Henderson from the Brewers, but for Milwaukee, he's a key piece of their team now and therefore not available in a deal.

At the end of the day, the Dodgers won out because they were able to not only provide the talent that the Tigers craved but the specific type of talent they needed. That's where LA's advantage really showed through. Thanks to their impeccable scouting and development abilities, the Dodgers had a wealth of arms, ranging from Emmet Sheehan to Justin Wrobleski to Ryan, that fit the bill for Detroit. From there, it was just a matter of deciding which one.

So when Skubal said that anyone could have gone out and traded for him but didn't, he's partially right. Anyone could have engaged the Tigers, but whether or not they'd have the specific assets and willingness to part with those chips is a different story. The Dodgers could afford to part with whatever was necessary because there's always a next big thing waiting in the wings.

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