Jon Heyman of the New York Post began stirring up the offseason pot on Thursday with a report claiming that the Tigers and star pitcher were $250M apart in extension talks. While no one doubts Heyman’s assertion that agent Scott Boras wants a contract in the $400-420M range, his claim that the Tigers offered less than Garret Crochet’s deal with the Red Sox at the beginning of the 2024-2025 offseason was met by skepticism.
No doubt the Tigers offer was very far apart from what Boras expects to land
for the top pitcher in baseball’s services. Tigers’ president of baseball operations, Scott Harris, won’t talk about negotiations, but that’s never stopped the game’s most powerful agent from trying to game contract talks through the media. Crochet’s deal was six years, $170M. We’ll note that the Tigers offered $171.5M for six years of Alex Bregman last spring, so the notion that they thought they could get Skubal signed long-term to a six-year extension for roughly the same amount Crochet or Bregman were worth, coming off a dominant, AL Cy Young award winning performance, doesn’t sound credible in the slightest.
What can be said for sure is that whatever the offer was, it clearly wasn’t enough to kickstart ongoing talks, and one report from the Free Press’ Evan Petzold was about the extent of the extension story last offseason.
One would hope that Harris and CEO Chris Ilitch didn’t decide to insult their best player last year coming off his first Cy Young award with a truly ludicrously lowball offer. There appeared to be no animosity between Skubal and the club this season. Still, it’s always been most likely that the soon-to-be 29-year-old left-hander would ultimately test free agency. You don’t retain Scott Boras because you’re hoping to make a team friendly deal on an extension.
Most likely, if there was a window to sign a much more team friendly deal with Skubal, it was after his masterful 2023 return from elbow flexor tendon surgery. By the second half of the season, it was pretty clear that with his increased velocity and lethal new changeup, Skubal was arguably the best pitcher in baseball. Harris whiffed on that window, and at no point since has there seemed much of a possibility that a long-term extension would get worked out between the two parties.
While still under team control the last two seasons, there was still significant risk that Skubal might suffer another injury, derailing hopes for a monster contract. Still, that wasn’t going to get you a half off contract to a pitcher who is easily worth $350M or more by current rates. Perhaps something like eight years, $240M was possible after the 2023 season. Whatever Skubal’s final number will be, estimates are only going up after a 6.9 fWAR campaign and what will presumably be a second straight AL Cy Young award.
Currently the baseline for this sort of deal is the nine years and $324M guaranteed to Gerrit Cole by the New York Yankees heading into the 2020 season. Six years later, the price for a clear best pitcher in baseball will have risen significantly, like the cost of everything else. The only difference is that Cole was a free agent already heading into his age 29 season. Skubal won’t actually hit free agency until he’s 30, and for any pitcher, a lot can change in a year.
The Tigers could potentially still land Skubal for something in the $350M range. He continues to state that he’d love to stay in Detroit, but there’s also no reason for him to leave a ton of money on the table, either. In the baseball marketplace, he’s earned the huge deal and will get it from someone as long as he puts together another elite season in 2026. There is still risk in that final year however, though no doubt Boras has insured his client to a significant degree in case of a major injury.
Frankly, the only way this happens is if Ilitch takes a hand and makes it happen. For the most part, Ilitch is hands off as CEO of the Tigers ownership group of Ilitch family members. Harris is given a general payroll outline to work with, and the rest is up to him. Not so with a deal of this magnitude where ownership has to take a hand. This would have to be considered a franchise wide, long-term investment in Tarik Skubal, beyond the usual confines of revenue and profits.
For now, Heyman’s report, coming a year late, is mostly timed to generate trade chatter and traffic around Skubal. Fans and media from the New York Mets, New York Yankees, and Los Angeles Dodgers spheres are already busying themselves with various trade offers. Otherwise, nothing has changed here.
Tarik Skubal will test free agency unless Ilitch gets involved to push across what will presumably be a complicated deal in the $330-400M range that could include deferrals and options. He’s certainly earned it. Most likely, he will not be traded this offseason either.
With Skubal in hand, the Tigers have a solid shot at making a run toward their first World Series title since 1984 if they get the rest of the roster sorted. They have blue chip prospects set to add to the roster next season, and with some other work to improve the roster around the margins, will be credible contenders, if not favorites, heading into the 2026 season.
To give that up, trade Skubal, and most likely punt on the 2026 season, would take an extreme haul of young talent that few teams who are also already in a position to contend, and who have the financial firepower to ensure they can ink him to a long-term deal, are in a position to offer.
Could the Mets create a package starting with young right-hander Nolan McLean? Perhaps. The Dodgers could center an offer around elite outfield prospect Josue De Paula, but even they have to be wary of another enormous contract to a pitcher when they don’t really need Skubal’s services the way just about any other team does to contend. The Yankees don’t really have the juice in this regard. Possibly an outside contender for Skubal like the Red Sox or the Rangers could meet all these criteria, but for now I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Obviously, there is going to be a ton of chatter about Skubal this offseason until some clarity emerges. He’s guaranteed click bait until that point, so you can expect a whole flurry of articles in the coming days about his value, trade packages, the works. Until something solid comes out of it all, expect Skubal to finish out his team control with the Tigers. They should do what they failed to do in 2025 and really make a serious push to try to win it all next season, and then he’ll hit free agency as the most sought after free agent pitcher of the decade.
We’d certainly love to see Skubal in a Tigers’ uniform for the next eight years or more, but for it to really work for the club beyond the next season or two, the Ilitch family will have to make a special exemption for a huge deal to Skubal without letting it impact their spending on the other 25 men on the roster. It’s hard to have confidence that they will.
