Tarik Skubal is scheduled to reach free agency next winter, and it would appear that any chances of an extension between the star southpaw and the Tigers are going from slim to none. As Skubal told USA Today’s Bob Nightengale, the Tigers didn’t discuss a long-term contract with the left-hander this winter.
“There is no offer” from the team right now, Skubal said, and “there won’t be an offer until the end of the season….My focus is on playing baseball and winning this year. I’ll deal with the contract stuff at the end of the year, and then we’ll kind of see. And that’s fine. It’s their decision.”
There also weren’t any talks about even a one-year deal covering Skubal’s 2026 salary once Skubal filed for a $32MM figure in his final year of salary arbitration. This lack of talks was expected, since the Tigers adhere to the “file and trial” tactic adopted by most every big league team — if an agreement isn’t reached prior to the filing deadline, teams often cease all negotiations with the player unless the topic is a multi-year contract (or the work-around of a one-year deal with a mutual option attached for the following season).
Finding middle ground between the Tigers and Skubal in this particular situation may have been unlikely anyway, given how Skubal’s $32MM salary was meant to establish a new precedent for star pitchers (and, arguably all players) in their final year of arbitration eligibility. Detroit submitted a figure of $19MM, and the arbitration panel ruled in Skubal’s favor, in a very significant win for Skubal, agent Scott Boras, and the MLB players’ union.
As to the larger question of a long-term extension, the lack of fresh talks between the two sides is also perhaps not a surprise. Boras clients rarely opt for extensions over eventually testing free agency, and an even smaller number of Boras clients sign extensions when they’re this close to the open market. Assuming Skubal stays healthy and delivers another season akin to his 2024-25 performance, he is expected to command another precedent-setting free agent contract that would make him the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history.
Given the circumstances, the Tigers certainly wouldn’t be getting any kind of hometown discount in extension talks, and if anything would’ve had to pay a premium to convince Skubal to forego free agency. Faced with this reality, the Tigers may have considered further negotiations about a long-term deal to be somewhat pointless, if the club simply isn’t prepared to pay Skubal a price tag that seems likely to land well north of $350MM.
The Tigers did make Skubal an extension offer last winter, and Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported in October that this offer was a four-year deal worth less than $100MM that would’ve covered the 2025-28 seasons (Skubal’s final two arbitration-eligible years and his first two free agent years). For context, Skubal went close to 11 months between MLB starts due to a flexor tendon surgery that sidelined him for parts of the 2022 and 2023 seasons, so it could be that the Tigers were thinking Skubal might jump at some financial security in the wake of a serious injury. However, given that Skubal looked superb after his return in 2023 and then won the AL Cy Young Award in 2024, Detroit’s offer seemed bafflingly low in both dollars and length.
All signs seem to be pointing to 2026 being Skubal’s final season in Motown, though that doesn’t necessarily mean there are any hard feelings between the player and the team. It could that the two sides recognize the reality of the situation, and (as Skubal alluded) plan to spend the year aiming towards their shared goal of a World Series championship. There was some speculation that the Tigers were considering dealing Skubal this offseason, yet that scenario never seemed too likely both due to both Detroit’s big asking price, and the plain fact that a World Series push is easier when arguably baseball’s best pitcher is on your roster.
The Framber Valdez signing indicates that the Tigers are preparing for a post-Skubal rotation, though Valdez’s $115MM free agent deal is only three years long, and contains an opt-out after 2027. Skubal and Valdez headline what looks like a very solid rotation that also consists of Jack Flaherty, Casey Mize, and Tigers legend Justin Verlander returning to the Motor City to complete the unfinished business of winning a ring in a Tigers uniform.
