Brewers may force Dodgers into the Tarik Skubal overpay Andrew Friedman wanted to avoid

Last year, the Los Angeles Dodgers made short work of the National League's No. 1 seed, the Milwaukee Brewers, in the NLCS. Their star power simply overwhelmed a scrappy NL Central team built more for the summer than October, as the pitching staff gave up just four runs total in the four-game sweep.

A year later, and it seems like the same two teams may be destined for a rematch, both holding a commanding lead for the top two seeds in the Senior Circuit. Even though they aren't division rivals, that indirectly pits them against each other at the trade deadline, especially since everyone's wishlist is topped by the same target: Tarik Skubal.

According to The Athletic's Andy McCullough, that will likely result in a bidding war for the best pitcher on the market. McCullough seems to think it'll be the title favorites: "I bet the Dodgers wouldn’t be thrilled to see Skubal suited up for Milwaukee in October. That should tell you something."

Dodgers, Brewers have very similar reasons to go all-in on pursuit of Tarik Skubal

With the Brewers having recently lost Brandon Woodruff for the year (and still waiting on Kyle Harrison to return from a forearm injury), they certainly have a need for Skubal atop the rotation.

Likewise, the Dodgers don't know when Shohei Ohtani will pitch again and remain without Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. Skubal would make up for those absences, forming a devastating 1-2 October punch with Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

Truthfully, there's not much separating the Brewers and Dodgers right now in any facet of the game; they're tied with the best record in MLB at 67-40, and both are universally considered to have a top-five farm system in terms of prospect talent. The motivation and resources to make a Skubal-sized splash at the deadline are there for both organizations.

Perhaps the Dodgers get a slight edge in terms of financial wiggle room -- they're certainly more willing to take on the roughly $13 million still owed to Skubal this year -- but their quest for a three-peat is marginalized by the fact that the Brew Crew are still seeking their first title in franchise history.

That leaves us with only one real indication about who will win this race, via track record. Andrew Friedman has made a habit of splurging at the deadline for big-name talents, be it Yu Darvish (2017), Manny Machado (2018), or Max Scherzer and Trea Turner (2021).

The Brewers, meanwhile, "[Have] gotten to this point through discipline," per McCullough. They're not the type of team that tends to make these all-in moves focused around a single season.

That doesn't mean they won't try to inherit Skubal; they had great success pulling a similar maneuver back in 2008 with CC Sabathia and might be tempted to keep the best pitcher in baseball out of the Dodgers' hands in anticipation of a NLCS rematch.

But Friedman knows the stakes. If the Brewers submit a lofty bid for Skubal, he'll one-up it. There's too much on the line in this final pre-lockout season to do anything but go for it.

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