Dodgers' Tarik Skubal trade could send Eric Lauer back to the bullpen role he hated with Blue Jays

The Los Angeles Dodgers have just made the kind of move that is leaving the rest of baseball groaning, rolling their eyes, and throwing their hands up in frustration. Talk about "this is why the league needs a salary cap" is running rampant on Sunday morning. Blue Jays fans have a bit more of a specific reason to find the whole thing interesting.

As reported by ESPN's Jeff Passan, the Dodgers landed Tarik Skubal, sending Zyhir Hope, River Ryan and Brady Smith to the Detroit Tigers for the reigning Cy Young winner. It is a massive swing from a team already chasing a third straight World Series title, and it could have an immediate ripple effect on a familiar former Blue Jays pitcher.

Eric Lauer, who pitched for Toronto last season and clashed with the organization over his role, could once again be pushed toward the exact bullpen assignment he did not want with the Blue Jays.

Lauer’s split with the Blue Jays became messy because both sides seemed to view his value differently. Lauer wanted to be treated and paid more like a starter. The Blue Jays argued in arbitration that he fit more as a reliever, and the arbitrator sided with Toronto, awarding him a $4.4 million salary instead of the $5.75 million figure he was going for.

Toronto also spent most of the offseason searching for rotation upgrades even with Lauer already on the roster. Between Dylan Cease, Cody Ponce, re-signing Max Scherzer and Shane Bieber exercising his option to remain with the Blue Jays, Lauer kept getting pushed further away from a guaranteed starting role.

Injuries temporarily opened the door anyway, and Lauer initially made the most of it. He was tabbed as Toronto’s No. 3 starter coming out of spring training and looked sharp in his first outing, striking out nine over 5.1 innings against the Athletics while allowing two earned runs in a Blue Jays win.

The momentum did not last. Lauer battled illness, his results dipped, and the Blue Jays began considering an opener in front of him even while the rotation was still short-handed. Lauer, became very vocal about Toronto’s pitching strategy and clearly did not embrace being treated as a flexible bulk or bullpen option.

Former Blue Jays outfielder and current MLB analyst Kevin Pillar even said it looked like Lauer was “just begging the team to DFA him.” Whether that was exactly the case or not, the body language and public frustration made the fit feel unsustainable.

Now, after landing with the Dodgers, Lauer could be headed right back into the same kind of role.

Tarik Skubal makes the Dodgers’ rotation picture even more impossible for Lauer

The Dodgers pitching depth chart is absurd right now. Even with some pitchers dealing with injuries, by the time October rolls around, they could role out a five man unit that includes Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Skubal, Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow. That is before even getting to Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki, Landon Knack or Lauer.

For Lauer, that is the problem. Even though he has pitched to a 2.96 ERA and 0.987 WHIP across his 9 games, 8 of which were starts, the Dodgers did not acquire Skubal to create competition for the back end of the rotation. They acquired him to lead, or at least co-lead, a championship-caliber staff. Everyone else, as a result, now moves down a rung.

That likely leaves Lauer in the same lane the Blue Jays tried to place him in last year: a long reliever, swingman, depth starter or emergency option rather than a locked-in rotation piece.

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