On Wednesday night, Detroit Tigers’ ace Tarik Skubal became the fifth man in franchise history to take home the American League Cy Young award. A remarkable six-year evolution from the former ninth rounder reached a peak during his masterful 2024 campaign. The lefty had everything working all season long. We saw power and precision balanced against the finesse of a truly diabolical changeup. Mound presence? Competitive edge? Leadership and charisma? All boxes checked. A unanimous ballot of first place votes was just the final validation of Skubal’s excellence.
After congratulations were expressed and highlights and interviews digested, thoughts quickly returned to Skubal’s long-term future with the Tigers. With two years left before he reaches free agency, the team and the player’s posture toward a long-term extension is going to remain a popular topic this offseason.
Evan Petzold for the Detroit Free Press reported last week that the Tigers had already made an extension offer to Skubal this offseason. Petzold’s source characterized the offer as “not competitive.” We will make a logical leap here and guess that quote didn’t come from the Tigers’ front office. First offers are rarely accepted, and Scott Boras is pretty great at running negotiations through the baseball media. So, I wouldn’t swallow that report hook, line, and sinker and write off a Skubal extension entirely.
Still, from the Tigers’ perspective, they’re negotiating to buy at the top right here, and a very cost-conscious leadership group just by their nature will not love that. So you have to know going in that they’re going to fight for every dollar. They don’t have to rush. If they can’t extend Skubal, there’s still the consolation prize of…having Tarik Skubal for two more years. A lot can happen in two years.
Skubal will never be more valuable in trade than he was back in July as a trade candidate. So probably that ship has sailed for now. If no team offered up a deal the Tigers loved at the trade deadline, when a contender could have traded for three Skubal postseasons worth of team control, it’s highly unlikely anyone wows them over the next two years. They may as well just play it out if an extension can’t be reached. There is the modest consolation of making a qualifying offer to net them a comp pick in the draft in the end.
On Skubal’s side, Boras will be eyeing Gerrit Cole’s $324 million deal signed prior to the 2020 season. That deal goes through the 2028 season, when the ace right-hander will be 37 years old. He’s a pretty good comp to Skubal in terms of production, although the Tigers’ ace will reach free agency heading into his age 30 season, whereas Cole was a year younger when he signed his deal. The bigger difference is that Skubal has to keep this up for two more years to reach free agency.
Cole’s massive breakout season in 2019 came at the perfect time. He hit free agency immediately after losing out to teammate Justin Verlander by a hair for the Cy Young award and posted a 7.5 fWAR season. He was as good as Skubal was this year, and threw more 20 1⁄3 innings. More importantly, Skubal would still have to dominate like this for two years just to reach free agency in the same position. There is a lot risk for Skubal if he’s intent on holding out for a similarly sized contract. The ball is in his court, and if he and Boras are pretty much set on testing free agency, the Tigers aren’t going to dissuade them anyway.
Right now, pressure for the deal is really more on Skubal’s side of the equation. He is the one at peak value, and can cash in a massive contract right now. It would be perfectly reasonable for him to expect something in the neighborhood of eight years, $240 million. He’d certainly be worth more if he was a free agent right now, but he isn’t.
If he chooses, Skubal can bet on remaining injury free for two years and continuing to be the top pitcher in the game. That’s an awful lot to ask, but it would likely net him something like a $300 million contract despite being a little older than Cole was at the time of his contract. Or he can settle for something like 80 percent of that right now and build a long-term legacy in Detroit.
For several years, Team President Chris Ilitch has insisted that the Tigers would spend on the right players when the time was right. Part of the story of this offseason is going to be a gut check on their willingness to back that up after a thrilling season that saw interest in the team skyrocket with their improbable run to the ALDS. If they aren’t willing to go beyond $180 million for Skubal, you can probably forget about them ever keeping a homegrown ace again, let alone acquiring one in free agency.
Likewise, if Skubal insists on trying to max out his potential earnings, and won’t sign for much less than $250 million, then there’s no point to discussing anything either. The Tigers might just as well wait and see how things go in 2025-2026, because there’s no present discount. The fact that Scott Boras is Skubal’s agent certainly leads one to assume the latter, and that they’ll hold out for at least that much, but it’s ultimately Skubal’s decision to direct his agent to compromise or not.
If Tarik Skubal really wants to stay in Detroit, Boras will just move on to extracting as much of from the Tigers as possible, and you might hear more scoffing at the Tigers intent from the rumor mill during the offseason. Petzold’s report will just be the first shot in a lengthy set of negotiations in that scenario. If things remain quiet, it’s probably safe to assume it isn’t happening. The Tigers front office is tight-lipped. Scott Boras is not.
The Tigers just aren’t the team to hand out the biggest contract in baseball history to a pitcher. Especially when they aren’t under any pressure to do so. If Skubal was a free agent this offseason, you could easily see the Mets or the Dodgers offering nine years, $360 million. Assuming he remains a top 2-3 pitcher in the game for two years to reach free agency headed into his age 30 season, he could still get at least $300 million. But it would only take a pair of very good, but not Cy Young award caliber seasons back to back to cut that amount in half. Skubal does have pretty good reason to seek a deal now. Then the ball is back in the Tigers’ court, and you’d certainly hope the Tigers would meet him half way.
In the end this may just be a performance from both sides, when in reality there’s no real willingness to make a deal on either side. The Tigers know it would look bad to not even make an effort, but they may not really be that serious right now. They have reason to wait and see how things play out over the next two years rather than committing to Skubal’s peak value for most of the next decade. They need a more manageable price than he could command on the open market right now even if they are serious about an extension.
On the other side, Skubal may have already decided he’s going to test free agency no matter, but that doesn’t mean he won’t listen to an offer. However, if he wants to sign a deal to stay in Detroit, he’s going to have to be somewhat realistic and consider the risk-reward of trying to get to free agency in two years at this same peak level. There’s no reason he should let the Tigers off the hook. He certainly should try to move them toward his price as much as possible, but in the end he has to know the Tigers are only going to go so far toward a deal.
Just don’t take too much from an early report that they’re far apart right now. That was never really in doubt as a starting point, and the PR machine tends to start the same way whether a deal ultimately happens or it doesn’t. If a long-term extension does come together somehow, it will still be hard fought and not likely to happen quickly. Right now, all we really know for sure is that they’ve made first contact on the subject. We’ll have to wait and see if that’s the end of it. A lot can change in two years.