Tarik Skubal, the two-time American League Cy Young Award winner, posted a 2.45 ERA across 11 postseason innings for the Los Angeles Dodgers, yet critics wrote off the back-to-back champions after a four-game NLCS sweep.
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In an interview with Los Angeles Times reporter Maddie Lee, Skubal pushed back on doubters who believe the Dodgers’ championship window has closed.
“I don’t feel that at all. It’s hard to win the World Series, and this group has done it the last two seasons. I think this group is incredibly talented,” Skubal said.
After grueling through 162 games in the regular season, and then another month of postseason – of course, it’s hard. Yet, the Dodgers’ haters got their talking point when the Brewers scored 21-11 against Los Angeles and won Game 4 by a score of 6-4 on October 15. Skubal counters that the club’s back-to-back championships still carry weight with the doubters.
In an interview with Sonja Chen from MLB.com, Skubal refused to talk about his plans for free agency.
“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.”
Silence makes perfect sense. According to agent Scott Boras, Skubal wants around $40 million per year, and according to MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand, the front offices think Skubal will be worth more than the $325 million that Dodgers right-handed pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto got for 12 years.
Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman praised the lefty at the season-ending press conference, saying he “can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time.”
The impact shows in the numbers.
Acquired from the Detroit Tigers prior to the August 3 deadline in a trade involving three prospects, Skubal recorded a 5-2 record with 70 strikeouts and 13 walks in 62 innings, helping the Dodgers achieve 100 wins.
October began on a strong note. Skubal held the Atlanta Braves to one run on two hits across six innings with seven strikeouts in NLDS Game 1, a win that set the tone for the series.
Eight days later, Skubal took the loss in NLCS Game 1, yielding two runs over five innings against the Brewers. His overall postseason line was a 2.45 ERA with 14 strikeouts and four walks across 11 innings.
Responsibility sat elsewhere.
An unreliable bullpen and inability to hit in key situations contributed to the Dodgers’ defeat against the Brewers, who won a major league-leading 103 games on a budget that was nearly $200 million less than LA.
There was a bit of revenge involved in the series, too.
The Dodgers had swept the Brewers in the 2025 NLCS. The Brewers became the first franchise in Major League Baseball history to be swept in the playoffs and then sweep that same team the following year.
Apart from revenge, the payroll problem is larger.
The Dodgers have over $368 million in cash commitments and $387 million in CBT commitments for 2027, way above the $245.3 million hard cap proposed by the owners in May.
A lockout slated to start on Dec. 1 means that there will be more pressure. With a salary cap or enhanced CBT penalties in the next CBA, the Dodgers won’t have much space left to retain Skubal.
Depth softens the blow. Left-hander Blake Snell, right-hander Tyler Glasnow and Yamamoto all return, while two-way star Shohei Ohtani plans to keep pitching, with Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan and Gavin Stone among the in-house rotation options.
Skubal’s own résumé explains the demand.
He went 12-7 with a 2.72 ERA and 186 strikeouts in 158.2 innings this season, and since returning from flexor tendon surgery in July 2023, he owns a 50-20 record with a 2.47 ERA.