Every offseason there's one free agent who feels like a plot twist waiting to happen, and this winter it might be Tarik Skubal. Except here's the wrinkle: he's already a Dodger. They traded for him at the deadline. And if you were hoping he'd stay in Los Angeles beyond this season, one report says the Dodgers' chances of re-signing him just got more difficult. The reporting out there isn't uniform, some outlets have suggested Skubal would be open to staying, so treat this as one read of the situation rather than the final word.

What we do know is the setup. Skubal is a lefty frontline starter heading to the open market at exactly the moment half the league is starving for pitching. A pitcher like that hitting free agency wrecks any one team's odds, and that was true before whatever made this latest report tick.

But the part that makes this hard for Los Angeles is the human part, and you know that's the part I care about. Skubal broke in with Detroit and grew up there as a big leaguer, and per MLB.com, his connection to the city runs deep enough that he's been open about the idea of going back. When the trade to LA happened, he was leaving the only big league home he'd ever known. You don't spend years in a place and feel nothing about leaving it.

That matters. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I care about the human, not the spreadsheet. Free agency is a guy deciding where he wants to spend years of his actual life, and Skubal just had a front-row seat to how fast this game can rip you away from a place that feels like home.

The Dodgers, meanwhile, are never truly out of anything. We all know this. They have the money, and they just gave Skubal a firsthand look at everything they can offer: the stage, the October crowds at Chavez Ravine, the whole machine. Dave Morgan and I argue about this constantly, he says roster construction wins players over, I say it's the relationships. I think both of us are a little right.

But Detroit looms. A reunion would be the storybook ending, and everyone knows it. Every time the Tigers win this fall, every time that crowd gets loud, it's another pull back toward a place MLB.com says he'd consider returning to. The Dodgers can offer the biggest stage in the sport. The story might be somewhere else.

So where does that leave things? Harder for LA, per this report, though the picture is clearly still forming. Not impossible, because nothing is impossible with that payroll, but the margin might be shrinking, and they're trying to re-sign a guy who just got traded away from the city where he became himself.

Ask yourself this, though. If you were Skubal, if you just got traded away from the only baseball home you'd ever known, would you sign long-term with the new team, or would you want to pick your next chapter yourself?

Straight up, I don't know. And that uncertainty is exactly why this offseason is going to be an emotional rollercoaster, which is my favorite kind of sports.