Skubal Is a Dodger, the Padres Go Shopping & Did Myles Garrett Pull Aaron Donald Back

Hours after the trade deadline, Grant, John Browner and E Lamb sort through a changed baseball world.

Tarik Skubal is a Dodger — a two-time Cy Young winner joining the two-time reigning MVP — and E Lamb answers as fan and journalist at once: he loves it, and he's also putting on the conspiracy hat, arguing the league is letting the Dodgers stack talent to guarantee the hard cap it wants.

John isn't buying it: the lockout was coming regardless, Skubal told the world he wanted LA, and no team was giving up a real haul for a two-month rental.

From there it's the fight underneath every deadline move — John's case that a cap is really about raising the floor (more teams sit under the projected floor than over the cap), E Lamb's "get your weight up or sell" capitalism sermon, and a genuinely great disagreement about what failure means: E Lamb doesn't celebrate second place, John explains why a Padres playoff berth is the greatest run the city has ever had, and Grant gets caught in the Clippers-fan crossfire.

Then the NFL hypotheticals: should a six-months-post-ACL Patrick Mahomes really start Week 1, how many Kirk Cousins starts before sitting No. 1 pick Fernando Mendoza becomes malpractice (John: zero — play him against the shambolic Dolphins immediately; E Lamb: sitting is how you save a quarterback), and what it says about Minnesota if Kyler Murray beats out JJ McCarthy.

The post-show goes to the uncomfortable place: John and E Lamb on why JJ McCarthy went that high while Shedeur Sanders fell to the sixth — "we don't have to talk in code."

And E Lamb closes with real beat intel: if Aaron Donald returns it happens before the Australia trip, the Myles Garrett trade had — said with confidence — a significant influence on him contemplating it, and don't rule out Vita Vea joining him.

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Directed & Produced by: Grant Mona

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