This article is part of Verducci’s View, a new weekly baseball newsletter from Sports Illustrated senior writer Tom Verducci. Every Monday, Tom empties out his notebook over email and covers MLB’s hottest topics, provides in-depth analysis through both text and video breakdowns, looks forward to what’s worth watching during the week and more. If you want to be featured in his new mailbag, please email newsletters@si.com with any questions about MLB or his decades in the sport.In what seemed an inevitability, the Dodgers added the best player available on the trade market, Tarik Skubal. Of course they did. In the past 32 months, they have added Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Roki Sasaki, Tanner Scott, Edwin Diaz, Kyle Tucker and Skubal.With that kind of spending power, it’s easy to conflate their largesse with the argument that the baseball economic system is broken. But this time the deal is more about the monster player development system the Dodgers have built than the payroll advantage they have.The Tigers did well, not great, to get something out of the 10 starts left from Skubal before he signs a record-setting free agent deal (likely with the Dodgers on a short-term, high AAV contract). They shopped Skubal around the league and somehow decided the Dodgers had the best package—and a package that hardly dents the prospect capital Los Angeles has on hand. The Dodgers traded:Pitcher River Ryan, who turns 28 in two weeks and has thrown 20 1/3 major league innings, is coming off Tommy John surgery and is a former 11th round pick by San Diego who was acquired in a trade for a utility player, Matt Beaty, a 12th round pick out of Belmont University.Outfielder Zyhir Hope, 21, a 5'10" outfielder who was an 11th round pick by the Cubs whom the Dodgers acquired in a trade for Michael Busch, who had become a spare part with Los Angeles.Pitcher Brady Smith, 21, the Dodgers’ third-round pick in 2023.Somehow the Dodgers turned two former 11th-round picks acquired in low-level deals and the 95th pick of their 2023 draft into the two-time AL Cy Young Award winner. Nobody finds more talent late in the draft and in other organizations than the Dodgers. Under president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman, they made early mistakes trading Oneil Cruz and Yordan Alvarez. But for years now the Dodgers have been as smart with prospect capital as they have been as ruthless with their money.Zyhir Hope is the highest-ranked prospect going back to the Tigers in the Skubal trade. | IMAGN IMAGES via Reuters ConnectOutflanking the rest of baseball to get Skubal is a good time to recall the story of when Freidman recruited Ohtani, then a free agent. Ohtani wanted a consistent winner. Friedman began to explain to him how important the team’s farm system was in keeping the World Series within reach every year.“The system is designed for us to be at the bottom in terms of farm system rankings,” Friedman told him. “Picking at the end of the draft ... Having less amount of international money ... Always being competitive and so therefore not really being able to trade off players as they’re nearing free agency ... And yet, we're in the top three, top five, every year.”Ohtani suddenly stopped him.“How?” Ohtani asked. Friedman answered Ohtani by talking about “cohesiveness and collaboration” and “the stability and the continuity of our group,” principles that apply more to the player development system than money.The best team in baseball just got better. They can roll out Skubal, Ohtani, Snell and Yamamoto in a postseason rotation, with Glasnow, Emmet Sheehan and Justin Wrobleski as depth starters/bullpen pieces. If you want to nit-pick, the Tigers were 3–3 in the postseason when they gave the ball to Skubal, including 0–2 in elimination games. He has a 4.60 career ERA after the sixth inning. Since he reached the majors in 2020, he has thrown 100 pitches in a game only 14 times, less often in these seven seasons than the likes of Dean Kremer, Andrew Heaney, Chris Flexen and Taj Bradley. The Dodgers know this and will ask him to dominate for six innings, not eight.The Skubal trade was more about prospect capital than money, although money is never far from the reasons the Dodgers are successful. Yes, they nearly were eliminated in the past two postseasons, with the Padres letting them off the hook in the 2024 NLDS and the Blue Jays doing so in Game 7 of the 2025 World Series. But let’s remember the pitchers the Dodgers used in Game 7. Ohtani, Glasnow, Snell and Yamamoto all pitched in that game. Four pitchers they signed to contracts worth $1.277 billion.And now, because their farm system is loaded, they added Skubal. It’s a team with some age on it, but it’s the best team the Dodgers are taking into the playoffs in their modern dynasty.More MLB from Sports IllustratedAdd us as a preferred source on GoogleFollow