In Detroit’s Valley of Darkness, a River of Hope

Something about the the gut-wrenching way Tarik Skubal’s final Tigers start ended — with Detroit coughing up a big lead as it desperately clung to its playoff hopes — made it easier both to accept that he’d be traded and to understand that dealing him would probably be the right move.

Indeed, it was a sobering microcosm of the team’s season for Skubal’s final inning to end awkwardly rather than in triumph, and then for things to go sideways in unexpected fashion. Like a lot of us, I picked the Tigers to make a deep postseason run. For several reasons, including so that I might look smart (not dumb, like they say, but smart), I hoped during the last several weeks that the Tigers would stay hot enough for it to make sense for them to keep Skubal. As the schedule reached this weekend’s checkpoint, and Detroit stumbled deeper into a very crowded AL Wild Card field, it became clearer what the front office had to do. Late on Saturday night, the Tigers traded Skubal to the Dodgers for Triple-A starting pitcher River Ryan, Double-A outfielder Zyhir Hope, and Low-A pitcher Brady Smith.

This is a standard return for an ace rental: three prospects, where one or two of them are comfortably Top 100-caliber talents, and a third that is either imminently useful, or (in the case of this trade) a deep projection player with exciting upside. When viewed from the Dodgers’ perspective, considering the context of the rest of their farm system (which has a ton of good outfielders) and their big league pitching situation (which doesn’t clearly have an immediate rotation spot open for Ryan) in mind, this is not a lot to give up for one of the few available big leaguers who can actually move their competitive needle. When viewed in an even more detailed light that includes the knowledge of the depth of other contenders’ farm systems, though, it feels like an even more reasonable price to pay. In this piece, I’ll examine what each of the new prospects brings to the table, explore how they fit into Detroit’s dream of continuing to contend (including this year), and consider whether Skubal’s other potential suitors could have reasonably done more to top this package.

On River Ryan

As our industry’s scoopsters pursued Skubal chatter in the days leading up to the trade, one of Detroit’s priorities was reportedly to land major league-ready starting pitching in this deal, and the club accomplished that with Ryan. A middle infielder and closer at Division-II UNC Pembroke, Ryan was selected by the Padres in the 11th round of the 2021 draft as a redshirt senior who turned 23 before he had even thrown a pro pitch. He DH’d a few times on the complex after the draft, but it was his work in an offseason bullpen session that impressed Padres pitching instructor Steve Lyons — right before Lyons left the org and became a scout for the Dodgers. MLB’s work stoppage from the end of 2021 through early March 2022 narrowed early-spring scouting looks exclusively to minor league players. It was during this window that pro-side scouts saw Ryan and immediately identified him as a sleeper prospect to target from the Padres because of his special athleticism, gorgeous delivery, and yet-to-be-refined pitch mix, the last of which could be explained by his career up to that point — injuries, two-way duty, small-school development — and provide reason to believe he was just scratching the surface. Before the regular season even began, before Ryan had thrown in a regular-season game as a Padres minor leaguer, he was traded to the Dodgers for corner infielder Matt Beaty. Here is the only footage I have (and the lone public footage I know to exist) of Ryan as a Padre, from October 2021.

By the end of his first pro season, Ryan had leapt from “developmental sleeper” all the way into the upper reaches of the Dodgers prospect list. In 2023 and 2024, the Dodgers hit the gas on Ryan’s innings count and promotion pace. He became a top-50 prospect in the sport and made his major league debut in July 2024. Then his UCL blew out.

He had Tommy John surgery in August 2024, which cost him all of 2025. Late last fall, once Ryan was at the point in his rehab where he could get on a mound and air things out, he looked awesome. The 2026 season would surely be the one in which Ryan, who turns 28 in two weeks, would seize hold of a big league rotation spot, right? Instead, Ryan has dealt with multiple hamstring issues this year, and though he’s looked great when healthy (more on that in a moment), these ailments not only prevented him from toeing the rubber at Dodger Stadium, but they’ve also prevented him from stretching out to work a starter’s load of innings for longer than three weeks at a time.

Healthy Ryan looks like a good team’s no. 2 or 3 starter. His fastball sits 96-100 with uphill angle and life, missing bats at an elite rate (34% this year). His four- and two-seamers have meaningfully different movement. Though his curveball is his only secondary pitch that has ever been able to generate plus miss, all four of them — an upper-80s slider and changeup, a mid-90s cutter, and low-80s curveball — have sharp, late movement and induce very weak contact. None of those pitches has surrendered an xwOBA higher than .240 when you combine Ryan’s 2024 and 2026 seasons of data to create a meaningful sample. Had he been healthy, Ryan would likely be in the Los Angeles rotation right now, maybe even ahead of some of his more famous teammates. At the very least, he would have played an integral role on a Dodgers postseason pitching staff.

As a person who has lived through Jacob deGrom, Nelson Cruz, Max Muncy, and many others older breakout guys, I don’t care all that much that Ryan is 28 when trying to project him out another five or six years and comparing him to other rookies on a prospect list. He is the major league-ready impact starter that the Tigers were hoping to get back in this trade. Is he likely to be a 6-WAR Cy Young type? No. But he should be a 3-WAR starter for most of the next half decade.

If he stays healthy.

The injury stuff here goes beyond the 2024 Tommy John and this year’s hamstring issues. Ryan fractured two vertebrae in high school. In college, he collided with a teammate and fractured his orbital bone, dealt with thoracic outlet syndrome, and missed several months to have a rib removed. He also experienced shoulder trouble in 2024 prior to his UCL disintegrating. These injuries are concerning, but it’s also kind of amazing how good he is given how little time he’s had to pitch and develop.

The Tigers are going to be able to use Ryan as soon as he’s healthy, and it would not be shocking if he were somehow still part of a playoff push this year. Their team is still very talented, their division — and the American League in general — is still muddy and mediocre, and baseball is still baseball. As I worked on the Dodgers Farm System Buyer’s Guide last week and talked to ops folks, a source told me the Dodgers were expecting Ryan to return from his most recent injury toward the end of August. He may come back late enough that he’ll retain rookie eligibility for another offseason, keeping him under club control for the next half decade.

It’s reasonable to wonder if Ryan’s decline phase will begin before his years of team control are complete, but for the next several years, he is now part of a rotation that, at the start of the season, many of us believed to be of World Series quality. Jackson Jobe is returning from injury soon, Reese Olson eventually will, Troy Melton is outstanding, Keider Montero has been efficient when given opportunities, and all of these guys have yet to enter their arbitration seasons. Though it is less clearly a World Series-contending rotation without Skubal and (presumably) Casey Mize, it is still a playoff-caliber group that should be relatively whole by the time Ryan returns, and even more so next year.

Zyhir Hope

Hope is the second-best prospect in the deal in my view, but certainly talented enough that you can feel free to call him a co-headliner. Drafted by the Cubs and signed away from a North Carolina commitment for just $400,000, he was part of the return package for Michael Busch during the 2023-2024 offseason. A shoulder injury limited Hope’s first full season of reps in 2024, but in the little bit of time he was healthy, he was hitting for sensational power (with elevated strikeouts) in the Low-A Cal League and Arizona Fall League.

When he arrived for his first Dodgers camp in Arizona in 2025, he was 40 pounds heavier than what he weighed for his initial player page specs (which continue to list him at only 193) because he had become much, much bigger and stronger. During 2025 spring training, Hope hit a ball 108 mph — in the cage, the opposite way, off a freaking tee. Assigned (very aggressively) to High-A Great Lakes when camp broke last year, he performed well above the league average even though he struggled with fastball whiffs. Hope managed only a 69% contact rate against them in 2025, which means he was missing High-A fastballs as often as hitters miss River Ryan’s heater, at roughly two standard deviations worse than the big league average. Despite this statistical indication of risk, and the fact that Hope’s added size was contributing to a slide down the defensive spectrum into below-average corner-outfielder territory, we chalked this issue up to a lack of prior experience and left an everyday grade on Hope on the Dodgers list in the fall, and on each subsequent update to the Top 100 list and org rankings.

This year, as Hope crushes Double-A at the age of 21, he has improved against fastballs. His contact rate is up from 69% to 78%, he’s cut his miss by a third, and he shows virtually no split when you isolate his performance against average big league velocity or better, which is pretty incredible. Aside from his spray against fastballs looking quite different than it did in 2025 (it’s much more opposite-field oriented this year), there hasn’t been a swing overhaul here or anything like that. A Dodgers source once told me they thought Hope had “a natural capacity to adjust,” that he just feels things out and can improve through exposure. He’s a good hitter with special strength and is going to provide potent power production in the 120 wRC+ area, with a couple of 30-homer seasons in the tank so long as the adjustments he seems to have made against fastballs this year represent a sticky, sustainable improvement.

His timeline for arrival likely begins in the middle of next year. He doesn’t have to be put on the Tigers’ 40-man roster this offseason. Fellow Top 100 Prospect Josue Briceño does, however, and he will likely be given an opportunity first should the Tigers need a corner power bat in their lineup. It’s possible Hope will crush in Toledo and kick down the door, but mid-June seems like the earliest possible moment the Tigers would feel justified in accelerating his roster clock ahead of its chalk 2027 timeline. The stretch run of next season, late enough that Hope would carry rookie eligibility into 2028, makes more sense. There exists a possibility that Ryan (who could return late enough to retain rookie eligibility into next season) and/or Hope, might net the Tigers a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick in each of the next two years via Rookie of the Year wins. The chance is remote, of course, but they’re on track to get two bites at the apple. And that’s before you consider the likelihood that Kevin McGonigle, the current major league rookie leader in WAR, could win the award this season.

Brady Smith

Finally, Smith was a favorite of mine from the 2023 Draft Combine, an athletic righty with plus fastball ride and advanced secondary pitches. The Dodgers got a deal done with him for just over $700,000 knowing Smith would need Tommy John during the 2023-24 offseason. Smith looked great for an inning or two at a time when he returned (and was a Pick to Click for me entering the 2025 season), but he developed forearm tightness in extended spring training and wasn’t sent out to an affiliate until late June, after which he was very wild.

This year, Smith has been better. He hasn’t had his peak velocity as he’s stretched out to work starter’s innings, but he’s throwing strikes and dominating with his changeup. I wrote more about him in that Dodgers buyer’s guide, but, in short, Smith has mid-rotation upside but is likely two or three years away from debuting, let alone actualizing his ceiling.

Where This Leaves the Tigers

As of this writing, the Tigers now have the third-most-valuable farm system in baseball, even though McGonigle is no longer considered a prospect. And, if Max Clark remains up for the rest of the season, McGonigle won’t be the only top-10 prospect in baseball that the Tigers will graduate by the end of the year. As I mentioned earlier, McGonigle might win Rookie of the Year and Dillon Dingler will get MVP votes.

Meanwhile, the dropoff from Skubal to anyone else is a downgrade in the rotation; the Tigers no longer have a guy who can, on his best days, win them the game on his own. His departure is a huge blow to their roster. They’ll need to replace him this year with some combination of a rehabbing Jobe, an elongated Drew Anderson, and hopefully a healthy Ryan. Even combined, that trio isn’t Tarik Skubal, but it’s also not bad. Detroit could still move pending free agents Mize and Gleyber Torres before the deadline, and it’s possible that the club exchanges them for near-ready prospects rather than younger ones. Considering all of this, I think there’s a chance Detroit stays in the AL Central mix this year even without Skubal.

What Could Other Clubs Have Done?

I am aware of, and internally participating in, the consternation around the Dodgers’ acquiring yet another marquee talent, even though I realize some of the others they’ve netted recently are producing like ordinary joes. I, too, wonder what other offers might have been, how much more other teams might have needed to add to present a better package, and whether or not that price would feel doable for me. This is especially true for both the Rays and Brewers, who boast contending major league rosters and the two best farm systems in baseball. Young, controllable big leaguers mean so much to these teams that they absolutely value them more than other clubs who are more readily able to traffic in expensive free agents.

In Milwaukee’s case, I think it was always going to be tough to swing this one. It would not have been smart for the Brewers to part with Jesús Made for two months of Skubal. Their next best prospects are either not as talented as the Ryan/Hope combo, or they do not meet Detroit’s desire for MLB-ready pitching. I have a hard time thinking the Tigers would have wanted Luis Peña to be the centerpiece of a trade in a year when he’s missed substantial time after collapsing in the dugout due to dehydration.

As for the Rays, while I understand they would be reticent to part with any of their top two or three prospects, their organizational depth is so ridiculous that they can’t possibly keep them all. While you still run into the talent gap problem (I think Ryan is considerably better than all but maybe one of the major league-ready pitchers in Tampa Bay’s system), it’s possible the Rays could have been creative and involved a third team. Team Three would need to be willing to part with a player the Tigers love and be motivated to collect a heap of mostly baked 45s and 50s from the Rays. This is all a hypothetical, magically made-up situation, of course. Given how late the Tigers had to give the team a good faith shot to claw back in it, it didn’t leave a lot of time for something this elaborate to come together.