Acquiring a starting pitcher may have just become more difficult for the Cleveland Guardians

It was already going to be tough for the Cleveland Guardians to acquire a starting pitcher ahead of the MLB Trade Deadline. It may have now become even more difficult as a large market team has lost a top-of-the-rotation starter with an injury.

The Los Angeles Dodgers have placed Tyler Glasnow on the injured list with a back issue following his most recent start. This is just the latest blow to the Dodgers rotation, as they are currently without the services of Walker Buehler, Clayton Kershaw, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tony Gonsolin, and Dustin May.

Despite having so many starters on the injured list at this time, the Dodgers still hold a comfortable 7.5 game in the National League West division. But at some point, that could catch up to them, and they may be looking to prevent that from happening. Los Angeles is still a good team without their current injury-plagued rotation, although it is hard to imagine them riding things out until everyone gets healthy, if they get healthy, and hope for the best.

Now, some may question what this has to do with the Cleveland Guardians. Well, the market for starting pitching does not appear to be very deep right now, and the limited arms available could very well go to larger market teams, such as the Dodgers. This puts Cleveland behind the eight ball a bit, as they are also in clear need of a starter to add to their rotation, but the Dodgers' potential presence in possible trades is going to muddy things up a bit.

The expectation is that there are going to be very few quality arms available at the deadline, and the Dodgers possibly being involved in trade discussions will make that a bit more difficult for a team like the Guardians to operate. Los Angeles has the financial and prospect resources available to them that will give them the advantage in trade talks, leaving Cleveland to try and fend off everyone else for what's left. Considering the number of teams in the mix and the fact they all share a need to add a starter, the Guardians may not come away with anything special at the deadline, if anything at all.

Of course, this is all assuming the Dodgers are going to try and corner the market on the best starters available at the deadline. While Los Angeles has swung deals for big-name pitchers before, it would also not be entirely surprising to see them go back to the well of wanting everything but wanting to give up nothing, resulting in a middle-of-the-road pitcher coming their way. Even then, that is one less pitcher the Guardians may have been to acquire that is now off the board.

Even if Los Angeles does not aggressively go after a starter, expect teams to reach out to the Dodgers to see if they can pry away any of their best prospects first in an attempt to set the market for what it will take to get one of their arms. The cost of acquiring anyone of consequence has just gone up significantly, and the relatively risk-averse manner that Cleveland's front office has operated in previously may result in them scraping the bottom of the barrel for rotation help. It is far from an ideal situation for the Guardians, but it could very well be the one they find themselves in with the trade deadline rapidly approaching.