Why Dodgers remain coy on potential Tarik Skubal re-signing: Wish him nothing but the best
When it comes to top free agents, the Dodgers rarely tip their hand.At the outset of Tarik Skubal’s free agency this offseason, that remained the case once again.During an end-of-season press conference on Wednesday, less than a week removed from the team’s sweep at the hands of the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman carefully sidestepped a question about Skubal, saying a lot of words that offered no substantive indication of the club’s urgency level to potentially re-sign him.Friedman started by praising the two-time Cy Young Award-winning left-hander, whom the Dodgers acquired in a blockbuster trade deadline deal with the Detroit Tigers in August.“It’s not easy for a guy to get traded in the middle of a season to come to a new city, new clubhouse,” Friedman said.“You have set routines, and you have to make those adjustments.”The longtime top executive then complimented the way Skubal acclimated to his new surroundings, and the impact he made even in a year the Dodgers fell short of a World Series three-peat.“The way he was able to seamlessly transition, not just in terms of on the field, but in the clubhouse, I can’t say enough good things about the impact that he made in such a short period of time,” Friedman said.
“We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field.”What Friedman didn’t do, however, was say that the Dodgers would be all-in on Skubal this winter, or that they would do whatever it takes to lock him up in a free agency process that is expected to end with the soon-to-be 30-year-old breaking Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s record guarantee of $325 million for a pitcher.That wasn’t unexpected, of course.Even in the run-up to this year’s deadline, the Dodgers publicly downplayed how aggressive they would be for the superstar ace.Still, by playing it coy Wednesday, Friedman allowed a vacuum of speculation to develop about exactly where t...