Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal had peak leverage in the offseason.
Skubal, 29, won his second straight American League Cy Young Award last November, and he won the pitcher’s Triple Crown — 18 wins, 2.39 ERA, and 228 strikeouts — in 2024. Still, the Tigers offered him a $19 million salary, but Skubal won arbitration to bump it to a $32 million salary for the 2026 MLB season, as ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported in February.
Skubal did well to secure that extra cash, given how his season has begun. The two-time All-Star underwent “arthroscopic surgery for loose bodies” in his throwing elbow last week and is now on the 15-day injured list.
MLB teams are banking on his track record, according to anonymous executives, scouts, and agents who spoke to ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel.
“The morning the latest surgery was announced, I was texting those same people as part of an industry straw poll on what Skubal’s contract would be,” McDaniel wrote. “Seven of them got back to me before the news broke. The average of those projections was 7.7 years for $357 million, or just over $46 million per year. Among pitchers, that would beat Max Scherzer’s average annual value record of $43.3 million and Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s guaranteed money mark of $325 million (over 12 years).”
Even if the projection is kind to Skubal, it will all hinge upon his left elbow when he returns to the mound.
Scott Boras, Skubal’s agent, told ESPN’s Buster Olney that the expectation is that Skubal will “be able to return to performance at just a much, much earlier stage” because of how Dr. Neal ElAttrache performed the surgery. Boris likened it to “receiving a shot.”
So far this season, Skubal is 3-2 with a 2.70 ERA and 0.95 WHIP. The Tigers are 19-22 in the AL Central, where the Cleveland Guardians (22-21) are the only team above .500.
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