Conspiracy theories are afoot after Tigers-Dodgers Tarik Skubal trade oddities

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The trade deadline has come and gone and while the Detroit Tigers trading Tarik Skubal to the Los Angeles Dodgers feels like old news now, the more we learn about the deal the stranger it seems. We live in a conspiracy-minded world so naturally people are starting to theorize that there was some shady business that went down.

We’ve already learned that the Tigers reached out to the Dodgers first which is odd enough. One would think that with a trade chip as coveted as Skubal, they would simply let teams come to them, but to initiate that conversation suggests they may have always felt the Dodgers were the team they wanted to sell him to.

It doesn’t end there, though. Apparently the Tampa Bay Rays weren’t even really given a shot to make an offer for Skubal since Detroit wasn’t a fan of any of their prospects. The Tigers also had a higher asking price of the Milwaukee Brewers than they did for the Dodgers and also apparently asked for a player that the New York Yankees balked at in discussions.

Add it all up and it seems like the Dodgers were given special treatment in this whole process. Maybe the Tigers just really liked the prospects the Dodgers had to offer, but when a team has won two straight World Series titles and looks like it has a great chance at a third, not to mention the fact that its dominance is a big reason why there’s going to be a lockout, a lot of people are going to feel that something fishy is going on.

So whats the truth in all this? Has Scott Harris secretly been a Dodgers plant this whole time? For the conspiracy theorists, he did go to college at UCLA and Farhan Zaidi, who was a Dodgers executive for years, hired him as his general manager when he was president of baseball operations for the San Francisco Giants. Zaidi did return to the Dodgers after being fired by San Francisco. Maybe the plan all along was to get Harris in a position of power with Detroit so he could give the Dodgers a bargain for Skubal.

Tarik Skubal Tigers conspiracies have to do with Dodgers hatred

In reality though, a lot of this has to do with pure hatred of the Dodgers. They just seem to always get the best player and it drives the rest of MLB crazy. Whether it’s free agent Kyle Tucker or closer Edwin Diaz or Shohei Ohtani it just seems like they all end up with the Dodgers.

It feels wrong to have so much talent concentrated on one team and even though there are no guarantees that the Dodgers will win yet another World Series, their accumulation of all these players just feels like it shouldn’t be allowed somehow.

When something seems unfair or wrong the mind often goes to conspiracies. It’s only natural. It makes us feel like there’s some sort of order to everything when really it’s just random chaos out there.

Still, that’s not going to change the fact that a lot of people are unhappy with the Tigers for doing business with the Dodgers when it certainly seems like they did not give other teams the same shot. It will only get worse and there will be even more conspiracies if the Dodgers win another World Series so maybe the Tigers should be hoping another team comes out on top this season. 

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