On the eve of MLB’s annual trade deadline, the Dodgers are akin to a rich shopper at a flea market.
They have plenty of prospect capital in their highly-touted farm system to entice teams with, plenty of needs to fill out their talented but flawed first-place roster, yet few obvious places to look in a deadline season featuring few clear impact players.
As manager Dave Roberts said Sunday, there are many “paths” the team could go down in the next two days, and plenty of available options to bolster their injury-plagued outfit.
Yet, as the clock ticks down to Tuesday’s 3 p.m. PDT deadline, there is no clear hierarchy of targets they are after. No one player likely to assuage their growing list of concerns.
Read more: Dodgers avoid sweep against Astros, then continue to wait for trade-deadline action
Instead, people around the sport see the Dodgers as one of the wild card clubs of this year’s deadline: Capable of swinging an unexpected, last-minute blockbuster — or potentially content to make more marginal upgrades to a roster expected to get several key players back from injuries between now and October.
As Tuesday’s deadline nears, here are some possible trade partners to watch for.
The Dodgers and Tigers agreed to a headline trade for pitcher Eduardo Rodríguez last year — only for Rodríguez to veto it by invoking a no-trade clause in his contract.
Twelve months later, the Dodgers and Tigers seem like fitting trade partners again, with Detroit possessing the kind of quality starting pitching the Dodgers have coveted amid a wave of rotation injuries.
This week’s biggest prize for the Dodgers (or any other contending team) would be Cy Young front-runner Tarik Skubal. The 27-year-old left-hander is 12-3 this season with a 2.35 ERA, and would immediately rectify any worries about the team’s frontline pitching options come October.
The only problem: Most industry observers don’t believe that Skubal, who has two seasons of team control left after this year, will be dealt right now. Prying him away would require one of the bigger trade packages seen in recent memory — likely including several top prospects plus young MLB talent — and even…