Detroit — Tarik Skubal, the Tigers’ ace lefty, has been awarded the largest salary ever in the history of Major League Baseball’s arbitration process.
A three-member panel Thursday ruled in favor of Skubal, awarding him $32 million for the 2026 season. It tops the $31 million awarded to Juan Soto in 2023. The previous high award for a pitcher was $19.75 million, given to Tigers pitcher David Price in 2015.
This case will be studied and picked apart for at the least the next year, heading into bargaining for a new collective bargaining agreement ahead of the 2027 season. Never before had an arbitration panel been tasked with adjudicating a $13 million gap. Never before had a pitcher asked for a larger settlement than a position player.
But, not since Tim Lincecum in 2009 has a pitcher come to arbitration on the heels of back-to-back Cy Young Award-winning seasons, as was the case with Skubal. If he and his agent Scott Boras were intent on blowing the ceiling off the process, they succeeded.
The Tigers will be scrutinized for their comparatively low salary bid, but there was little to no actual negotiations between president Scott Harris and Boras leading up the filing date.
Still, it’s hard to see the Tigers as losers here. Barring an unlikely trade — very few teams could take on a $32 million, one-year rental — they will head to camp next week with arguably the best one-two punch at the top of their rotation in baseball with Skubal and lefty Framber Valdez, whom they agreed to terms with Wednesday on a three-year, $115 million contract.
The Valdez deal has deferrals and an opt-out after the second year. But the average annual value of the deal is $38.3 million, the highest ever given to a left-handed pitcher in the history of the game. The Tigers have, effectively, shelled out $70.3 million on two starting pitchers.
The Tigers, for the first time in more than a decade, likely will have a payroll over $200 million and will be pushing the luxury tax threshold. Right now, per Spotrac, have a taxable payroll of $229 million, just $14 million under the luxury tax threshold.
Harris has not only made the Tigers the favorites to win the American League Central Division and make a longer postseason run this season, but he’s also effectively cushioned the blow for the inevitability of Skubal leaving for free agency after the season.
Skubal, 29, is in his final year of team control and, per industry projections, will be seeking a multi-year deal in the range of $400 million.
“This is a great lesson in the separation of business and baseball,” Tigers’ manager AJ Hinch said Wednesday afternoon. “The contract, the free agency, the arbitration — everything matters on the field, but everything matters off the field for these guys, too. The key is to separate it.”
Hinch, talking on the Detroit News Tigers Today podcast, was asked about whether this process might impact Skubal’s relationship with the Tigers.
“I disagree with anybody who thinks Tarik is going to be impacted by this,” he said. “He is a focused pitcher who is really good at separating business and baseball. It hasn’t been a topic in our clubhouse and it’s not something that will hang over us as a team because Tarik just won’t stand for that.”
Skubal will enter the season with the 16th-highest contract in the game. Equally important to him and to all players, though, is that this ruling redefined the parameters of the arbitration process in the final year of the current CBA.
As a member of the players association’s eight-man executive subcommittee, Skubal was keenly aware of the potential impact his case might have. Boras certainly knew it, too.
The task for the arbitration panel, essentially, was to determine whether Skubal deserved a salary one dollar more or one dollar less than the midpoint between the two bids — $25.5 million. Boras, because Skubal had five years of service and had won back-to-back Cy Young awards, Boras was able to use salaries from all players for comparison, including Zack Wheeler’s $42 million, even though that salary was negotiated outside the arb process.
Unless the system is changed in the next bargaining process — the current CBA expires Dec. 1 — Skubal’s win opens the door for similar awards for elite pitchers like Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, who will be arbitration eligible after next season.
“This process, it’s important,” Hinch said. “These guys, they start to learn a little bit about the business side of the sport. But they earn that. And they earn it in a good way. You have to be really good, really talented and in a special environment to get to that point.”
In the past two seasons, Skubal, worth 12.9 wins above replacement, posted a 31-10 record, 2.30 ERA, 0.906 WHIP with 469 strikeouts and 68 walks, and led the Tigers to the division round of the playoffs both years.
Really good.
“There will be a couple of days of adjusting to whatever happens,” Hinch said. “Then he will get back to the baseball. … My job is to create the environment for him to flourish into a three-time Cy Young winner and we want to bring a World Series to Detroit.”
@cmccosky
