Tigers Reportedly Made Laughable Offer To Tarik Skubal Last Offseason
Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal promises to be the subject of many a rumor this MLB offseason. With recent buzz indicating that the Tigers and Skubal aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on contract extension talks, plenty of speculation has emerged that Skubal could be traded.
One would think the Tigers will do everything in their power to hold onto arguably the game’s best starting pitcher, but even so, reports keep coming out pointing to problematic money discussions between Detroit and Skubal.
The most recent intel came from The New York Post‘s Jon Heyman, who reported this week that Detroit’s offer to Skubal last offseason was far worse than initially believed.
“The immense gap between Tigers and Tarik Skubal … is even bigger than first believed,” Heyman wrote on Wednesday (subscription required).
“It turns out the Tigers’ offer a year ago to Skubal was below $80 million for four years. It was only reported here originally to be less than the $170M the Red Sox signed Garrett Crochet for, and it’s actually less than half. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press later reported it was under $100M.”
“Skubal’s comp is logically Gerrit Cole, who received $324M six years ago,” Heyman continued. “Rivals still don’t believe it’s likely the Tigers will trade Skubal in winter because they are a contending team that made the playoffs two years running.”
If the Tigers are serious about contending for the rest of the decade, they should probably take care of business, adjust their mindset about Skubal, and pay up. It remains to be seen if that will happen, but this winter will provide a big hint.