On July 8, the Detroit Tigers possessed the best record in baseball and a 14-game lead in the American League Central. Just over 90 days later, the Tigers will head into the offseason, having since fumbled that division lead and lost to the Seattle Mariners in the second round of the playoffs. The Tigers have plenty of work to do this winter, but the biggest question they must attempt to answer is this: What, if anything, will they do with left-hander Tarik Skubal?
Skubal, 29 in November, just applied the finishing touches to a season that’s likely to secure him a second consecutive Cy Young Award. To make any prediction about a pitcher’s future is to invite the Injury Gods to render you a fool. But a healthy Skubal would seem like a great candidate to become the first three-peat Cy Young Award winner since Greg Maddux in the ’90s. In the last two years alone, he’s started 62 times and has compiled a 2.30 ERA (180 ERA+) and a 6.90 strikeout-to-walk ratio while averaging more than six innings per pop. His contributions have been worth an estimated 13 Wins Above Replacement, per Baseball Reference’s calculations.
The conflict facing the Tigers stems from a different Skubal number: his service time. He’s now only 12 months and change away from reaching free agency. The Tigers, then, have three paths forward: attempt to extend him; trade him; or do nothing and hope they can retain his services next winter.
Option 1: A pricey extension
The first option is no doubt the most desirable. It may also be the most unrealistic. Skubal is represented by Scott Boras, and you can already picture Boras at the Winter Meetings proclaiming in front of an eager media scrum that Skubal is the engine that makes the Motor City Kitties purr. Boras’ job is to ensure that Skubal gets his market value and not a cent short. Whether or not the Tigers are willing to fork over that amount is to be seen, but it’s assuredly going to be a grand sum.
Dating back to the 2020 offseason, the most lucrative free-agent contract signed by a full-time pitcher is the $325 million pact Yoshinobu Yamamoto inked with the Los Angeles Dodgers. The largest average annual value of a contract that stretched beyond five years is the $37 million Jacob deGrom received from the Texas Rangers. It’s not too hard to envision Skubal clearing both marks. Would the Tigers fork over that much? There’s no way of knowing right now, but it’s worth noting the franchise has never handed out a deal worth more than Miguel Cabrera’s $248 million extension — and that was done by late, free-spending owner Mike Ilitch.
Ilitch’s son, Christopher, hasn’t shown the same willingness to throw around money during his time atop the organizational masthead. He was recently asked about a Skubal extension, to which he said: “We’re in 2025 right now. We’re just going to focus on the playoffs and really just focus on the game in front of us.” Not the most encouraging sentiment.
Option 2: A trade
The second option, trading Skubal, is no doubt the least desirable of the bunch for the Tigers’ front office. In addition to weakening Detroit’s short-term competitive ceiling, it would be an optical nightmare. Are there teams out there with enough young talent to tempt the Tigers? Sure. But running an organization isn’t as easy as throwing names into the MLB Trade Values algorithm.
The Tigers, to their credit, have resisted trading Skubal before. At the 2024 deadline, before their late-season run to the playoffs, they told interested clubs they were going to hold onto Skubal based on their belief they could compete before his team control expired. And so they have.
Option 3: Kick the can down the road
The third and, from this chair, the most likely option for the Tigers is to keep Skubal and see how the next year goes. If they’re competitive — and they should be — he can partake in another playoff run and perhaps help deliver a World Series title. If, for whatever reason, they’re not in the race, they can ponder a deadline move. The Tigers can then try to retain Skubal once he hits the open market. Worst-case scenario: they recoup draft-pick compensation should he depart.
That third option, again, feels most realistic. It doesn’t assume Ilitch will begin to behave like his father out of the clear blue. It also doesn’t presume the Tigers would part with Skubal before being required to by his contractual status. Of course, a lot can change over the next 12 months — heck, these Tigers have learned in consecutive years that a lot can change in three months. Until there’s a resolution one way or another, though, Skubal’s future will be the talk of the Tigers.