Leaked details of Brewers' Tarik Skubal trade offer prove what Dodgers fans already knew

Postmortems have surfaced over the trade deadline, with the largest question that insiders are examining being how the Los Angeles Dodgers walked away with Tarik Skubal at a cost that seemed like it could be topped by most of the teams involved in the sweepstakes.

The Athletic's Ken Rosenthal was the latest to take readers inside the trade talks, specifically focusing on why the Milwaukee Brewers couldn't find common ground in trade talks with the Detroit Tigers.

The MLB insider noted that the Brewers refused to submit an offer that would net the Tigers both Jesús Made and Luis Peña. The idea behind that stance was rather simple: Milwaukee wasn't in a position to give up two top-100 prospects for a rental, even if said rental was the reigning two-time Cy Young Award winner.

Rosenthal didn't provide the exact offer the Brewers had for the Tigers, but included in his reporting that they sifted through various proposals, some of which did include Peña. The impression is that Made was off limits, but Milwaukee also may have been willing to include infielder Jett Williams in some of the proposals.

Efforts from the Atlanta Braves, Tampa Bay Rays, and New York Yankees were also mentioned, but it seems like outside of the Dodgers, the Brewers were the next closest team to landing Skubal.

Tarik Skubal always felt destined for Dodgers after one trade deadline reality

For a rental starting pitcher, Skubal was always going to be an outlier if he were to be moved at the deadline. The Tigers were one in a position where they could ask for not one, but multiple of the game's best prospects.

Above all else, that is where the biggest problem was for the Brewers. What makes Milwaukee the factory they have become is that they are constantly adding to their farm system through intelligent trades and scouting. For their model, it would be hard to maintain that level of success if they gutted the top of their farm system for a pitcher who was going to be out the door in a couple of months.

That's not to undersell what the Dodgers gave up. The Dodgers' package to Detroit may not have been what most were expecting, but it still included overall talent that wasn't going to be matched by any other team involved in the bidding. Milwaukee, with their varied platters of not-as-good prospects, clearly didn't match it. Logan Henderson was never involved. Neither was Jesus Made.

LA was in a position to make that sacrifice without taking a significant dent out of their farm system, and above all else, that is why they were the victors of the Skubal sweepstakes this summer.

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