Tarik Skubal fought to hold back tears early Sunday morning as he discussed the trade that is sending him from the Detroit Tigers to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
He sounded more like a man sorry to leave his city with a job unfinished than one who has the best chance of his career to win a World Series.
"It's crazy," Skubal said. "Going into this season, this isn't what I planned on doing. But circumstances change, situations change."
Skubal thought that championship ring would slipped on his finger in Detroit.
The Tigers lost in five games in the American League Division Series each of the past two seasons, and Skubal wanted to make it over that hump with his Detroit teammates.
"Ever since that '24 Game 5 failure, I've used that as fuel to bring a World Series to the city of Detroit," said Skubal, the losing pitcher in that decisive 2024 game.
"I truly did. That whole offseason I was never more motivated, and then to go in and lose Game 5 again, that failure kind of sparked more motivation to dig deeper and see how good you can truly be."
Skubal, now 29, wasn't a big-time prospect in high school in Kingman, Ariz. Seattle University was the only Division I college to offer him a scholarship so he played there, then was selected by the Tigers in the ninth round of the 2018 MLB Draft.
He debuted in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, appearing in eight games (seven starts), then became a full-time member of the starting rotation the following season. He missed the end of the 2022 and beginning of 2023 seasons due to flexor tendon surgery but had emerged as the dominant pitcher in the American League, posting an ERA of under 2.80 in each of the past four seasons.
Skubal won the past two AL Cy Young awards. In Los Angeles, he'll be part of a rotation with two-time National League winner Blake Snell when the left-hander makes his season debut after a rehab assignment and with another pitcher who will garner some votes in 2026, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
"I'm excited to be a Dodger," Skubal finally said. "I'm excited to get down there and meet all those guys and chase three championships in a row."
Skubal will be a free agent after this season, and it was unlikely the Tigers would pay the millions it will cost to keep him. Instead, they acquired right-handed pitchers River Ryan and Brady Smith, and prized outfield prospect Zyhir Hope from the Dodgers.
"It's crazy," Skubal said. "Going into this season, this isn't what I planned on doing. But circumstances change, situations change."
Instead, he wanted 2026 to be remembered not as the year he got traded, but the year the Tigers won their first World Series since 1984.
"The goal was always to win a World Series for the city and the organization that took a chance on me," he said.
He leaves the Tigers with a career regular-season record of 61-42 in 153 games (150 starts) and a 3.04 ERA with 1,005 strikeouts in 863 1/3 innings. This season, he is 7-5 with a 2.79 ERA. In the five losses charged to Skubal, the Tigers have scored five total runs.
His playoff record is 2-1 (2.04 ERA) in six starts.
"I'm very appreciative of all the things the Tigers did for me," he said. "Drafting me in 2018, giving a kid a chance out of a small school and giving me every resource to use. Everything has always been at my disposal. They've always had answers and a plan for me, so yeah -- I feel like I've experienced a lot and gone through a lot of failure early in my career, and this club never stopped believing in me. They kept throwing me back out there every fifth day when I probably didn't deserve it. That's something I'll never take for granted."
Departing Detroit and leaving his teammates will be hard, he said.
"It's tough," he said, stopping to regain his composure. "I love all those guys in there. They're some of my best friends."
--Field Level Media
