The Tigers Didn’t Make a Long-Term Offer to Tarik Skubal During the Off-Season
Tarik Skubal is scheduled to reach free agency next winter, and it looks like any potential extension between the southpaw and the Tigers will go from slim to slim. As Skubal told Bob Nightengale of USA Today, the Tigers did not discuss a long-term contract with the lefty this winter.
“Nothing is offered” from the team right now, Skubal said, and “there will be no offers until the end of the season….I’m focused on playing baseball and winning this year. I’ll deal with the contract stuff at the end of the year, and then we’ll see. And that’s fine. It is their decision.”
There’s also no talk of a one-year contract that includes Skubal’s salary through 2026, with Skubal making a total of $32MM in his final year of salary settlement. This lack of negotiations was expected, as the Tigers follow the “file and litigate” strategy used by most major league teams – if an agreement is not reached before the signing deadline, teams usually stop all negotiations with a player unless the subject is a multi-year contract (or a general assignment of a one-year deal with the same option attached for the following season).
Finding a middle ground between the Tigers and Skubal in this situation may not have been possible anyway, given that Skubal’s $32MM salary was meant to set a new precedent for star pitchers (and, arguably all players) in their final year of arbitration eligibility. Detroit submitted the $19MM figure, and the arbitration panel ruled in Skubal’s favor, in a significant win for Skubal, agent Scott Boras, and the MLB players union.
Regarding the larger question of a long-term extension, the lack of new talks between the two sides is also perhaps not surprising. Boras clients rarely opt for extensions when they finally explore free agency, and an even smaller number of Boras clients sign extensions when they are close to the open market. Assuming Skubal stays healthy and delivers another season similar to his 2024-25 performance, he is expected to command another free agent contract that could make him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history.
Given the circumstances, the Tigers certainly weren’t going to get any kind of hometown discount in extension talks, and if anything it would have to cost a lot to convince Skubal to leave free agency. Faced with this fact, the Tigers are likely to consider further talks about a long-term deal somewhat futile, unless the club is willing to pay Skubal a price that appears to be north of $350MM.
The Tigers made Skubal an addition last winter, and Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported in October that the offer was a four-year contract worth less than $100MM that would cover the 2025-28 seasons (Skubal’s last two years of arbitration eligibility and his first two free years). For context, Skubal is close to 11 months away from an MLB start due to flexor tendon surgery that sidelined him for parts of the 2022 and 2023 seasons, so it’s possible the Tigers thought Skubal could jump into some financial security after a nasty injury. However, given that Skubal looked so good after his return in 2023 and then won the AL Cy Young Award in 2024, Detroit’s offer seemed surprisingly low in both dollars and length.
All signs seem to point to 2026 being Skubal’s last season at Motown, but that doesn’t mean there are hard feelings between the player and the team. It’s possible that both sides have realized the reality of the situation, and (as Skubal says) plan to spend the year working toward their shared goal of a World Series championship. There was speculation that the Tigers were considering dealing Skubal this offseason, however that scenario never seemed likely due to Detroit’s price tag, and the obvious fact that a World Series push is easier when baseball’s undisputed best is on your roster.
I Framber Valdez signing shows the Tigers are preparing for a post-Skubal rotation, although Valdez’s $115MM free agent deal only lasts three years, and contains an opt-out after 2027. Skubal and Valdez headline what looks like a solid rotation that includes Jack Flaherty, Casey Mizeand the legend of Tigers Justin Verlander returning to the Motor City to finish the unfinished business of winning a ring in a Tigers uniform.
