The best way to understand an MLB deadline trade is as a negotiated auction with imperfect information. There is no exchange where Detroit posts “Tarik Skubal for sale” and teams submit formal bids. Executives call and text each other, float packages, revise them repeatedly, and try to figure out both what Detroit actually wants and what competing buyers are willing to pay. MLB executives have described trade markets as a constant stream of calls and texts, sometimes including offers so unrealistic that the other GM simply dismisses them.
And Skubal is unusually useful as an example because this essentially just happened. Detroit traded him to the Dodgers on August 2, 2026, ahead of the August 3, 6 p.m. ET deadline, for Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith.
Here’s what the process looks like from Detroit’s side:
Weeks before the deadline: Detroit builds the decision tree
Scott Harris, Detroit’s president of baseball operations, isn’t initially asking, “What can I get for Skubal?” He’s asking, “Are we actually trading Skubal at all?” Detroit models several paths: contend and keep him, buy additional players, stand pat, or sell. In Skubal’s actual case, Harris said he had been preparing for both buying and selling for weeks but did not make the final decision until Detroit’s late-July homestand convinced him the current club wasn’t worth preserving at the expense of future value.
At the same time, Harris and GM Jeff Greenberg’s staff are doing valuation work. Detroit’s current baseball operations structure puts Harris above Greenberg, with separate senior leaders for scouting, analytics, player development and baseball strategy.
So internally you might have something like:
- Analytics: “Keeping Skubal gives us X additional playoff probability.”
- Pro scouting: “Here are the 40 prospects across contenders that we’d actually want.”
- Player development: “We think Dodgers prospect A has a 25% chance of becoming a 4-WAR player.”
- Financial/baseball strategy: “Skubal leaves after the season; what’s the value of keeping him plus the potential compensation pick versus selling now?”
That final issue was especially important with Skubal because he was scheduled for free agency after 2026. Detroit therefore wasn’t comparing “Skubal versus three prospects.” It was comparing roughly four months of Skubal + whatever postseason value he creates + potential draft compensation against the prospect package available now.
Two or three weeks out: teams start checking availability
Imagine Andrew Friedman of the Dodgers calling Harris:
“Scott, where are you guys on Skubal?”
Harris does not necessarily say, “We’re selling him.”
He might say:
“We’re listening. It would take something significant.”
Or:
“We’re not motivated to move him, but if you want to make us think about it, we’re willing to listen.”
That’s important strategically. Detroit wants buyers to reveal their willingness to pay before Detroit reveals its reservation price.
Other clubs are simultaneously calling. Yankees. Cubs. Braves. Brewers. Rays. Whoever believes an ace materially improves their October chances. Those were among the clubs publicly discussed as plausible Skubal fits this year.
The first offers aren’t usually “final offers.” They’re exploratory packages
Suppose the Dodgers say:
“Hope plus two lower-level guys.”
Detroit might respond:
“That’s nowhere close.”
The Dodgers ask:
“What gets us close?”
Detroit might counter:
“If we’re talking Skubal, River Ryan needs to be involved.”
Now Los Angeles understands something important: Detroit values Ryan highly.
Alternatively Detroit deliberately avoids naming players:
“We’re looking for two premium pieces plus another player we really like.”
That preserves negotiating leverage because once Detroit says, “Give us Hope and Ryan and we’ll do it,” Los Angeles knows the finish line.
This is where negotiations can become extremely nonlinear. One club may offer one elite prospect. Another offers four B/B+ prospects. Another offers an MLB-ready starter plus a teenager with huge upside. Detroit isn’t simply adding up MLB Pipeline rankings; its own scouts and models have proprietary valuations.
Meanwhile Detroit is creating a market, not negotiating with one team
This is the crucial part.
Suppose Chicago offers:
Cubs: Prospect A + Prospect B + Prospect C
Dodgers offer:
Dodgers: Hope + Ryan
Yankees offer:
Yankees: Prospect D + Prospect E + Prospect F
Detroit doesn’t necessarily tell Los Angeles:
“Chicago offered A, B and C.”
Instead Harris can say:
“We’ve got another offer we currently prefer. If this is where you’re stopping, we’re probably going another direction.”
Friedman now has to decide whether Harris is bluffing.
“What would we have to add?”
Harris:
“Another player we like.”
Dodgers:
“Who?”
Harris:
“Brady Smith.”
Now you have:
Hope + Ryan + Smith.
And Harris goes back around the market:
“We’ve got a package we’re prepared to take. If you want Skubal, now is the time to improve your offer.”
That’s how the seller creates an auction without publishing everybody’s bids.
Harris subsequently confirmed that this happened in substance. He described the Skubal process as a “bidding war” involving many organizations, said clubs reached what he believed were their maximum offers, and then added even more before Detroit selected the package it liked best.
Inside Detroit, the president isn’t doing this alone
For a Skubal-level transaction, Harris is ultimately the decision-maker, but dozens of people can touch the deal.
Greenberg can be talking with one club while Harris talks with another. Pro scouts are writing reports on every player being discussed. Analysts are running projections. Player-development personnel are evaluating mechanical or developmental issues. Medical personnel matter enormously, particularly when acquired players have injury histories.
That was directly relevant to the actual Dodgers package: River Ryan had returned from Tommy John surgery and was dealing with a hamstring injury, so Detroit wasn’t acquiring some abstract “No. 68 prospect”; it had to make an organizational judgment about his probability of becoming a significant major-league starter. Detroit also had considerable scouting familiarity with Hope from his time playing in the Midwest League against Tigers affiliates.
For a franchise player, Harris himself is likely involved directly with the corresponding president/GM at the critical stage. And in this case Harris and Friedman already had a trading relationship: their clubs had negotiated the aborted Eduardo Rodríguez deal in 2023 and completed the Jack Flaherty trade in 2024.
The final 48–72 hours become much more explicit
Earlier conversations sound like:
“What would something around Skubal look like?”
Now they become:
“We need your best offer.”
Detroit is trying to answer one extremely important question:
Has every serious buyer reached its true walk-away price?
That’s different from simply waiting until 5:59 p.m.
Harris made this point explicitly after the Skubal trade. He rejected the idea that Detroit automatically would have gotten more by waiting another 24–48 hours. His argument was that the clubs seriously pursuing Skubal weren’t waiting around to see whether cheaper alternatives disappeared; they were already pursuing Skubal specifically, and Detroit had pushed those bidders to their limits.
That’s a subtle but important trade-market concept. If you’re selling an ordinary No. 4 starter, waiting can help because buyers may lose Plan A and suddenly pay more for Plan B.
Skubal was Plan A.
There wasn’t much reason for the Dodgers to say, “We’ll see whether somebody else is available first.”
Once Harris thinks he’s reached everyone’s reservation price, he chooses
Imagine Detroit’s board Saturday night looking roughly like this:
- Dodgers: Hope + Ryan + Smith
- Cubs: A + B + C
- Yankees: D + E + F
- Brewers: G + H + I + J
The front office assigns internal expected values and risk profiles to all of them.
Package 1 might have an expected value of 12 future WAR but enormous variance.
Package 2 might have 10 WAR but much more certainty.
Package 3 might include an MLB-ready player who helps immediately.
Harris isn’t necessarily choosing the package that Baseball America would rank highest. He’s choosing the package Detroit’s own organization values most.
In reality Detroit chose Hope, Ryan and Smith. MLB Pipeline had Hope No. 25 and Ryan No. 68 overall, making it an unusually prospect-heavy return for a player who would be a free agent after the season.
Then the negotiation turns into execution
At some point Harris tells Friedman, effectively:
“If it’s Hope, Ryan and Smith for Skubal, we have a deal.”
At that point both baseball operations departments lock down the exact terms and complete the transaction process. Player contractual rights have to be respected; for example, a player with a negotiated no-trade clause or MLB’s 10-and-5 rights can have veto authority over a deal.
Once everything is completed, the clubs notify the players and the trade becomes official. In the actual Skubal case, the deal came together late Saturday night while Detroit was playing the A’s, was formally announced Sunday, and Skubal was activated by Los Angeles on Monday.
So what is Scott Harris actually doing all day?
Picture Harris in a conference room with several phones going.
Greenberg says:
“Cubs just improved their package.”
An analyst says:
“Our model still prefers the Dodgers package.”
A scout says:
“I’d take Hope over anyone Chicago is offering.”
Someone else says:
“Friedman is calling back.”
Harris takes the call.
Friedman: “We’ll add Smith, but that’s it.”
Harris: “If that’s truly your best, give me a little time.”
Harris hangs up.
He calls Chicago.
“We’ve got something we’re comfortable accepting. If you’re going to improve your offer, now’s the time.”
Chicago improves slightly.
Detroit evaluates it.
Harris calls another bidder.
Same process.
Eventually the marginal improvements stop.
That’s the point Harris was describing when he said teams had essentially reached the point of “audible pain” in making their final offers.
And that’s the key distinction: the job isn’t merely to get good prospects. It’s to discover each buyer’s maximum willingness to pay without accidentally scaring everyone away or revealing Detroit’s minimum acceptable price.
For an asset like Skubal, Harris’s deadline job therefore looks surprisingly similar to an investment banker running a competitive sale process: identify qualified bidders → solicit indications of interest → narrow the field → push bidders against one another → demand best-and-final offers → compare risk-adjusted value → execute with the highest-valued bidder. The baseball difference is that the “currency” consists of human beings whose future values are enormously uncertain.