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Kelly McDaniel
There’s no one to steal the winter headlines with a franchise-type superstar after three seasons aaron judge, shohei ohtani Or juan soto In 2025-26 free agent classBut there is still one player whose potential availability could make a splash in the upcoming offseason: tariq skubal,
why would it happen detroit tigers Possibly leading their ace after his second consecutive American League Cy Young Award and the team’s second consecutive postseason appearance?
Quite simply, because keeping Skubble in Detroit is going to get very expensive very soon. The 28-year-old left-hander will enter the final year of his contract in 2026 before he hits free agency after the season. If he hits the market next winter, Skubal has a chance to overtake him los angeles dodgers ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s A record $325 million contract, and he could also become baseball’s first $400 million pitcher.
With Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris facing a decision that will shape the future of the franchise — and impact MLB as a whole — we talked to 11 industry insiders about Detroit. Needed Do it in the off-season, it is divided into three main options.
1. Trade Skubble This Winter
This was the least popular option among our panel and a rival executive explained why.
“The whole reason you’re doing all this is to start the season with a potential contender who has an ace. You can’t throw him away before the season starts. How long will it take to get here again?”
Some panelists objected to how much a team would have to pay for Detroit to consider a trade, saying they believed an offer that included a young starting pitcher with front-line potential would be enough to start internal conversations – but no one could bring themselves to logically advocate for a deal unless something completely illogical was offered. And that type of deal doesn’t happen fast in modern baseball.
If the Tigers trade Skubal for less than a tremendous return, it would mean their competitive window would tighten – and it would be difficult to call Detroit a contender without Skubal next season. Dealing a player of his caliber would label the Tigers a small-market team, at least in mindset, and raise questions about whether they’ll find themselves in that position again as other star players approach free agency. It’s very easy to push some, but not all, of their chips into the middle for the upcoming season and see what they can do with Skubal at the helm. Who knows when the next opportunity will come?
When I asked these sources what the Tigers should do, they seemed unsure about how Detroit was viewing the situation, but they believed the Tigers would retain Skubal next season. That said, Harris likes to know what the market will bear, so the drumbeat of Skubble being available for the right deal — or at least in the sense that Detroit will listen before hanging up the phone — will likely continue.
2. Keep Skubble, but trade him at the deadline if the season doesn’t go according to plan
If things went sideways during the first half of the 2026 season, everyone on our panel agreed it was the right move. It’s hard to define what it means to “go sideways” with an expanded playoff, but battling for a wild-card spot around the trade deadline was where the gray area began for our panelists.
One agent said, “You cannot under any circumstances hold out Scoble until the trade deadline and miss the playoffs. It would be a disaster.”
The race for a rental deal will still be formidable — back-of-the-envelope math says two prospects ranking in the top 100 or later for a typical young player, roughly speaking — but also because Detroit will have to clear the compensation hurdle right after the first round to even consider offers, because that’s what the Tigers will get if Scoble walks in free agency (under the current free agency system).
Another rival executive has an informed theory on Harris’ focus: “She has her sights set on 2027 and 2028 which are her prime competitive years.” If things go well in 2026, the window will be expanded to include this as well. Top prospects Kevin McGonigle and Max Clark, No. 2 and No. 6 possibilities In the game, the main players may be in place until the second half of 2026, so it makes sense to aim to really get things moving in 2027.
Opinions vary on whether Skubal will bring in more this winter or at the deadline as it is hard to gauge how desperate a contender is. can Hypothetically, at the deadline, that team would offer Skubble a full season as well as a first-round pick if he walks. It is safe to assume that returns will be slightly lower over the time frame.
3. No matter what, keep Skubble, try to move him and if he goes, get a draft pick
This would be a bold move in the era of the asset value-centric approach that many teams are now adopting. If Skubal were to walk in free agency, the compensation would likely be a draft pick in the 30s next summer — and that’s it. Depending on your source, that type of pick is worth about $8-10 million in surplus value.
There will be even more value for Detroit before then, but it’s hard to quantify. The Tigers would get another title run with the reigning back-to-back AL Cy Young winner and more time to convince him to stay in Detroit. Maybe that combination will work the magic and the two sides can reach an agreement before he hits free agency. Skubal has said he wants to stay in Detroit, so you can’t rule it out. Another rival executive thinks Harris is focused on how to do that. ,[Harris] He’ll never believe he can’t sign Skubal.”
That being said, Skubal is being represented by Scott Boras, making it unlikely he would sign a deal without at least testing the market, as Boras typically advises clients approaching free agency.
There is another variable, however, that is unique to the timing of Skubal’s free agency: an expected labor conflict next winter, with the current CBA expiring on December 1, 2026. It is unlikely that Boras would want Skubal to remain on the market through a labor holdout, which would result in some teams spending their available cash to potentially sign him right before spring training and potentially alter the economic model of the game in a way that would hurt Skubal’s market. A source said the CBA complication has increased the likelihood that Skubal will sign an extension before free agency, from 0% to 10%.
The last time there was a labor freeze on free agency, we saw a flurry of deals in late November before the December 1st lockout. A similarly accelerated free agent process that ends with Scoble signing around Thanksgiving would give Detroit a slight edge relative to a protracted, winter-long bidding war, given the familiarity and exclusive negotiating window before free agency.
Yamamoto’s $325 million guarantee, which is the most ever for pitchers, and Max Fried’s $218 million guarantee, which is tops among left-handers all-time, are contract marks to beat. Both of those contracts were awarded by agencies other than Boras Corp., and setting precedent is a big part of how top agencies market themselves to potential nine-figure clients.
It’s also worth noting that Skubal had Tommy John surgery in college and flexor tendon surgery in 2022, which are factors to consider when planning a long-term deal in free agency.
Are Harris and the Tigers likely to win an outright bidding war with a precedent-setting guarantee? No, but if they can offer a shorter deal at the AAV record with an opt-out, they’ll at least have a path to keeping their ace, even if a narrow one.
The real issue for Detroit is their salary. They finished last season with a $155 million competitive balance tax (CBT) payroll figure, more than $90 million below the first CBT tax threshold. If Skubal will get an AAV of $30 million or even less than $40 million, can the Tigers really justify giving up a quarter of their payroll to a player? Will Harris do it, or will signing Skubal be part of a bigger move to have payroll numbers that can justify fitting Skubal in there as the Tigers see their peak competitive window opening? If McGonigal and Clark arrive at the end of 2026 and look like future stars, it won’t impact the payroll, but it could make the Tigers look more competitive going forward and it could also help their long-term case for Scuble.
This logic — if things go well in 2026, the Tigers will compete for Skubal throughout the season and keep him — is why another executive considered Detroit’s options if it trades Skubal at the deadline. “You can still trade [Skubal] And then sign him back long-term, but I can’t imagine a series of events where that would actually happen.”
There is also a reading of tea leaves for this it winter. Some sources have mentioned that Detroit is targeting starting pitching depth in free agency. Is this in fulfillment of a potential scobble trade? Deal now or at deadline? Or just to create depth for a title run as all contending teams need? Or to build leverage/depth so they have maximum optionality for all of 2026? You can see what you want to see when it comes to the Rorschach test that is this winter’s team-building puzzle.
