Taking One for the Team.
Detroit looked silly, possibly on purpose
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The Detroit Tigers certainly didn’t want to make history. Scott Boras, who represents back-to-back Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal, did, in fact, absolutely and completely want to make history. Skubal, I suspect, was okay with the Boras school of thought.
And what we learned on Thursday, aside from receiving yet another example of why baseball teams try really hard to avoid arbitration hearings, was that history happens whenever it happens.
Tarik Skubal: $32 million in arbitration, a new record for the process and by far the largest one-year raise in arbitration history. Skubal’s new salary is more than triple the $10.15 million he was paid via arbitration in 2025, and the $32 mil covers this coming season only.
It’s to the Tigers at this point to decide how they want to spend the season, considering that Skubal becomes a free agent at the end of 2026. For now, let’s acknowledge a genuinely stunning moment for baseball — a moment that MLB, at the highest levels, wanted desperately to avoid.
