MLB insider on top landing spots and trade packages for Tarik Skubal

Will Tarik Skubal be moved by the Aug. 3 trade deadline?

"Right now I’ve got the chances at around 70 percent," MLB insider Jon Morosi said Friday on 97.1 The Ticket. "Now, of course, it’s up to Scott Harris, it’s up to ownership, because when you’re talking about someone like Tarik Skubal it goes up to that level."

If they do indeed intend to trade him, the market appears to be working in the Tigers' favor.

"The most important thing, I think, in all of this is that the teams that you would want to be involved are involved, meaning teams that have a real reason to make a big-time trade and teams that have the prospects to get a deal done. And that’s principally the Dodgers, the Rays and the Brewers. Those are the three favorites," said Morosi.

The Dodgers have the deepest farm system in baseball, featuring nine top-100 prospects per MLB Pipeline. That includes three outfielders in the top 20 in Josue De Paula, Mike Sirota and Eduardo Quintero. They also have young, controllable starting pitching already in the majors, which the Tigers are said to covet in any trade for Skubal, in the likes of righty Emmet Sheehan and lefty Justin Wrobleski.

What could the Tigers get in return from LA?

"The three big names at the top of their system are Josue De Paula, Mike Sirota and Eduardo Quintero ... I believe that if you’re going to make this trade, you probably come away with one of those three and then importantly, you look at the major league rotation piece, if you’re going to trade Skubal now you have to find a way to upgrade next year’s rotation, and they do have someone in Emmet Sheehan who they could probably get back in the deal who is a right-now starting pitcher," Morosi said. "That, to me, is what you would insist on, at least one of those high-end outfielders and then a major league starter."

Others names to watch in the Dodgers' system include infielder Emil Morales, outfielder Zyhir Hope and infielder/outfielder James Tibbs III.

Regarding talks with the Brewers, "the big question," said Morosi, is whether Milwaukee would be willing to deal 19-year-old shortstop Jesus Madé, the No. 1 overall prospect in baseball who's currently in Double-A. It's unlikely but not necessarily out of the question as Milwaukee, which has been struggling to get over the hump in the National League, tries to win its first ever World Series and reach it for just the second time ever.

Pairing Skubal with Jacob Misiorowski at the top of their rotation would give the Brewers a real shot at taking down the two-time defending champion Dodgers.

The only reason that Madé could be included in that deal is that the Brewers "already have (21-year-old shortstop) Cooper Pratt at the major league level," said Morosi. "There are those, however, that say Madé is just so special and so next-level that they would not include him. I would say that it’s unlikely that by Tuesday Madé is a Tiger. I think the Brewers are very likely to keep him."

That said, the Brewers, like the Dodgers, have both controllable starting pitchers in the majors and high-level hitting prospects to where they could make "a pretty compelling offer (for Skubal) even if they don’t include (Madé)," said Morosi.

On the pitching side, right-handers Logan Henderson and Brandon Sproat and lefty Kyle Harrison make sense. And in terms of prospects, Morosi mentioned infielder Luis Peña, infielder/outfielder Jett Williams and outfielder Josh Adamczewski. Outfielder Luis Lara is another enticing piece, although the Brewers might not be willing to move him after calling him up to the majors.

"If the Brewers put Madé in there, they become the favorites," said Morosi. "It just probably becomes a question of internally how do they really feel about Cooper Pratt? If they feel like Pratt is their shortstop of the future, they've already got Brice Turang at second base, who’s elite, it’s a really fun topic. The Brewers have, I believe, enough elite talent to make this deal worth the Tigers’ while even without putting Madé in there. But if they do, my goodness, I think it becomes very difficult to say no to the Brewers."

The clock is ticking, with the deadline on Monday at 6. Harris and the Tigers took trade talks on pitchers Eduardo Rodriguez and Jack Flaherty down to the wire in years past, but Morosi does not believe they'll do so in this case "because, No. 1, if you trade Skubal first, it allows you to make other moves that you may want to make, and obviously he is their biggest chip by far."

And No. 2, "there are enough other starting pitchers out there (on the market) that teams will be able to say, 'Listen, if you are not gonna play ball here, we’ll move on to option 2, 3, 4 and 5 and we’re not going to circle back to you,'" said Morosi. "The industry, to some extent, is waiting on this to happen. So it does benefit everyone, mutually, to get this deal done and then move on with the rest of the things they’re planning on doing."