Dodgers linked to massive trade that would alter MLB landscape
The Los Angeles Dodgers are always a team to watch. Over the last couple of years, they have made multiple groundshaking moves that have shaken up the entire landscape of baseball.
Once again this offseason, the Dodgers are being viewed as a team that could do just that.
After winning their second straight World Series, the front office does not appear to be complacent. At the very least, the rumor mill has connected Los Angeles to multiple moves that would give the team an even better chance at a three-peat.
One of those moves could be a blockbuster trade for Detroit Tigers superstar ace pitcher Tarik Skubal.
ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel took a look at 25 potential trade candidates across MLB. When it came to Skubal, the Dodgers were firmly listed as a team who could pull off a trade for him.
"Despite several executives believing Skubal will move, the Tigers have shown no sign of deviating from their position that the back-to-back American League Cy Young winner will stay in Detroit," they wrote. "Though he's a free agent after 2026 and contract extension discussions have gone nowhere, Skubal is the Tigers' centerpiece player, and Detroit intends to contend again next season."
It's possible that the Tigers simply decide to keep him in town. But, if they think that they could lose him for nothing, a trade would make much more sense.
During the 2025 MLB season in Detroit, Skubal made 31 starts. He compiled a 13-6 record to go along with a 2.21 ERA, a 0.89 WHIP, a 7.3 K/BB ratio, and 195.1 innings completed.
Adding that kind of a presence to the Los Angeles rotation would be unfair. The Dodgers would be viewed as close to a lock for a third straight championship.
Expect to continue hearing rumors pertaining to both Los Angeles and Skubal. Should the Tigers actually make him readily available, the Dodgers seem to be a very logical choice to end up landing him.
Did the Yankees Break Sonny Gray? Inside the Rift He Just Reignited
Sonny Gray did not tiptoe into the rivalry.
Meeting Boston media after his trade from the St. Louis Cardinals to the Boston Red Sox, Gray smiled and leaned right into the history between his new team and his old one.
“It feels good to me to go to a place where it’s easy to hate the Yankees,” he said, according to Boston Globe reporter Tim Healey.
Gray also made a point of saying his time with the New York Yankees changed him for the better, calling himself a better pitcher and even a better husband because of that experience.
For Red Sox fans, that’s catnip. For Yankees fans, it’s a familiar whine. Gray really was a bad fit for the Bronx, despite that some, including Gray’s former Yankees teammate, claim he was just mishandled.
The splits from 2018 show that Gray did not pitch well in the Bronx. During his time with the New York Yankees, Gray posted a 7.71 ERA at Yankee Stadium and a 3.62 ERA on the road, finishing his stint in New York with a 4.85 ERA overall.
That split helped cement the narrative that he “couldn’t pitch in New York.”
But former Yankees catcher Erik Kratz has been pushing a different version of the story. On Foul Territory and in later radio hits, Kratz said Gray’s biggest issue was a clash with then-pitching coach Larry Rothschild, who wanted Gray to lean more on his slider while Gray trusted his curveball and more feel-based pitch calling. Kratz described it as a “contradiction of pitch usage” that left Gray uncomfortable and less effective.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone flatly denied Gray's version.
Since the trade out of the Bronx, Gray has turned in multiple All-Star seasons, a career 3.58 ERA over 1,900-plus innings and a strikeout rate in the mid-20s, with advanced metrics like FIP and xFIP consistently painting him as a top-of-the-rotation arm.
Now he lands in Boston as a 36-year-old anchor.
The Red Sox acquired him from St. Louis after a 2025 season in which he went 14–8 with a 4.28 ERA and 201 strikeouts in 180 2/3 innings, and they reworked his deal so he’s guaranteed $41 million through 2027 while the Cardinals eat a big chunk of the cost.
So yes, Gray just gave the rivalry a fresh quote that will live on every time he faces the Yankees. If Boston lets him be the pitcher he believes he is, that “easy to hate the Yankees” line could be very relevant in October.
