Katie Woo reacts to Dodgers acquiring Tigers ace Tarik Skubal

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Rahimi & Grote Show 18 min 3 speakers 5 chapters transcribed 1 month ago

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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?

Unknown 0:01

You never know where life takes you. We don't know. He doesn't know.

Vinny Rotino 0:21

Ah, symmetrical there. That is Jason Bonetti, Tigers TV on the call. You know him well. And Tarek Skubal is now a Los Angeles Dodgers. So for more on the Dodgers who happen to be in town for a three-game series, we go to our hotline. That is where we find Katie Wu. Katie is the Dodgers beat writer covering the athletic and baseball at large. She is the co-host of the Dodgers Territory Podcast. She is at Katie J. Wu on X. Katie, thanks for joining us.

Katie Wu 0:50

Good morning and happy deadline day. It is still morning, right? Yeah, no, it's morning. Thanks for having me, guys.

Vinny Rotino 0:56

Yeah, typical baseball travel. Nobody knows what day it is and nobody knows what time it is. That sounds about right this time of year.

Katie Wu 1:04

Yeah, absolutely. We're all just here waiting for the 5 o'clock deadline and all of the deals that will trickle in right after that.

Marshall Harris 1:09

Katie, just to let you know, you are in the Central Time Zone today, and it is 11 o'clock, so just to update you on that so you don't miss your clubhouse or anything like that. Okay, how expected was it for you, following this team, to end up seeing that Tara Scouble is indeed a Dodger at the deadline?

Katie Wu 1:28

You know, about a month ago, early July, I think the Dodgers began their textbook downplay. And you could buy into that from afar because they were confident that Blake Snell, Tyler Glassnow, both missed most of the season with injuries, were going to come back. And Shohei Ohtani was still pitching. But then we come out of the all-star break. Ohtani discloses the left knee inflammation is not getting better. He's going to skip a start. uh and then he's not going to play in the all-star game that kind of raises a red flag we get out of the break he throws one bullpen shuts it down hasn't touched a ball since and right around then you start thinking all right well the dodgers have said all along they didn't feel like they had an acute need for their roster and they still maintain that snell glass now otani will pitch again this season but this is not a team that is willing to take risks when it comes to to

Katie Wu 2:14

its active roster and they have been very clear in their intent to three-peat so about a week you know from the deadline it became very clear that this is a move that they were going to try to make they could be aggressive they have the farm system to do it and uh it's the dodgers so you really can't rule them of anything if andrew freeman wants something he's going to go get it so he might not have felt that there was a need for scoogle on the roster but there was certainly a want So not at all surprised, much like the majority of the industry, when Scooble officially became a Dodger Saturday night.

Vinny Rotino 2:44

It's just such an embarrassment of riches when you talk about the names you just brought up as the downplay. Like, that's what makes this so unbelievable.

Katie Wu 2:54

Right, exactly. You think of the Dodgers rotation last year, and it's Yamamoto, Snell, Glassnow, Otani. And that was kind of what the Dodgers were thinking before, you know, there was some sort of uncertainty with Otani status. It's like, yeah, those guys did just fine for us last year. You know, they only just won us our second straight World Series. So the question was, you know, does Scooble even fit? And Andrew Friedman has maintained this. And it's crazy, right? We're talking about the best pitcher in the American League, maybe the best pitcher in baseball. Like, where would he fit in that rotation if everyone's healthy? But Andrew Friedman has said this over and over again. The Dodgers are only going to be aggressive when it comes to star players that can really change their odds of winning the championship.

Katie Wu 3:35

And there just aren't many of those caliber players out there. They already signed two of them in Edwin Diaz and Kyle Tucker over the offseason. And when all of a sudden Skubal becomes available, because for a while we weren't sure if the Tigers were going to put him on the market, Skubal is the only guy available right now that changes the Dodgers championship odds to go even higher than what they already were.