It took less than a week to get our first twist in the Tarik Skubal free agency saga: Per reporting ESPN's Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel, the two-time Cy Young winner is expected to sign before the widely anticipated lockout on Dec. 1, giving he and super-agent Scott Boras less than a month to find a suitable deal. That creates a dilemma for interested teams; Skubal wants a contract that tops former teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto (12 years, $325 million) for the richest ever given to a pitcher, and that's a lot of money to hand out just before MLB may or may not institute a salary cap.
Of course, the reward for taking that risk is adding arguably the best pitcher in baseball to your team, possibly for the rest of his career. And while some potential suitors might be looking at a clogged financial future and wondering how they could make the math work, those with flexibility well into the future might be all too happy to simply pay Skubal what he wants now and figure it out later. Which teams are sitting pretty in the Skubal sweepstakes based on this most recent development? Let's dive in.
1. New York Mets
The Mets have a desperate need to make a splash, especially in their starting rotation. And unlike the other early favorite for Skubal's services, the Dodgers, New York has considerable financial flexibility into the future. As much as Mets fans have wrung their hands about David Stearns' commitment to keeping his powder dry, this is the upside: The only two players guaranteed to be on the roster beyond 2028 are Juan Soto and Francisco Lindor, and only Soto, Lindor, Marcus Semien, Devin Williams and Luis Torrens are guaranteed beyond next season.
Translation: Even if a salary cap comes, the Mets will absolutely have room to make Skubal's salary work. You can debate whether it makes sense from a resource-allocation perspective to be paying Soto, Skubal and Lindor a combined $120-130 million a year in a world in which you're capped at around $250 million (per ownership's latest proposal), but with a homegrown, cost-controlled core already in place, New York can move fast here without much hesitation. Stearns' future in Queens might depend on it.
2. New York Yankees
Skubal might seem a curious fit for a Yankees team that's long on pitching and has been let down by its offense in recent postseason failures. But in a free-agent market short on hitting, you could make the argument that New York would be better off spending its money on Skubal and then dipping into that pitching surplus to add the sort of impact infielder (CJ Abrams, Zach Neto, maybe even Elly De La Cruz?) this current class lacks.
The Yankees are desperate to finally get back over the hump in the final year of Aaron Boone's deal, so you know the motivation is there. And their financial picture actually looks pretty clean after 2027, when both Ryan McMahon and Giancarlo Stanton's deals expire. Aaron Judge, Cody Bellinger, Gerrit Cole, Max Fried and Carlos Rodon are the only players guaranteed beyond next season, and Cole and Rodon are only under contract through 2028. Heck, Bellinger might even choose to exercise his opt-out clause next winter. There will be cash at Brian Cashman's disposal, should he choose to use it on Skubal.
3. Toronto Blue Jays
The Blue Jays are always willing to move quickly on their free-agent priorities; they signed Dylan Cease before December last offseason, and they were all-in on both Shohei Ohtani in 2023 and Soto in 2024. That's even more true after they followed up 2025's dramatic pennant run by missing the playoffs entirely.
The financial picture is a bit trickier than the New York teams; paying Andres Gimenez, Jose Berrios and Anthony Santander real money through at least the next two years (and more, in Gimenez's and Santander's cases) doesn't help. Still, only Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Cease are ticketed to make more than $20 million per year next season and beyond, so there is some wiggle room for an ownership group with very deep pockets.
4. Chicago Cubs
In a different world, the Cubs would be at the very top of this list. They have nearly $100 million tied up in the core of Pete Crow-Armstrong, Alex Bregman, Nico Hoerner and Dansby Swanson, but that's about it in terms of significant long-term expenditures. And boy, do they desperately need a new ace given Shota Imanaga, Clay Holmes and Matthew Boyd hitting free agency and injury concerns around Justin Steele, Cade Horton and Ben Brown.
Of course, we live in the Ricketts family's world, and in that world, they've pretty much already taken themselves out of the running for Skubal. This is just not an organization willing to pay this sort of price in free agency, no matter what. Could they be early movers given their relatively clean financial picture? Sure. But that clean financial picture was built by not signing deals like this, even if it would help them win baseball games.
5. Los Angeles Dodgers
The Dodgers may well just sign Skubal anyway, but there's reason to think they might not be willing to go big early. Handing out long-term deals like candy has created a situation in which they're now saddled with tons of salary well into the future, trying to convince a team to take on Teoscar Hernandez's 2027 money just to carve out room for one of their many top prospects.
Up to this point, L.A. has been operating like money was fake and nothing could hurt them; Shohei Ohtani is a one-man money machine, after all. In a salary cap world, though — a world that Dodgers owner Mark Walter is pushing for, it should be noted — that math becomes a bit trickier, raising serious questions about whether even the big, bad Dodgers will tap out at a certain point here.
6. Detroit Tigers
The Tigers are reportedly interested in a Skubal reunion, and I don't doubt that Skubal would be happy to head back to Detroit. Scott Harris and Chris Ilitch aren't going to go beyond their comfort zones, though, and Skubal's not going to offer a (former) hometown discount.
Really, the Tigers are the opposite of a fast-moving Skubal suitor: If this drags on long enough, and the lefty isn't getting the sort of record-setting long-term deal he (understandably) feels he deserves, Detroit will be there to try and swoop in — maybe on a short-term, high-AAV deal. That's a big if, though, and it would require this free agency to extend beyond a lockout.
7. Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies just have so, so many questions they have to answer this offseason. They, like any other would-be contender, could use a pitcher of Skubal's caliber, but they also need to rework their bullpen and find infield solutions and add a righty outfield bat and ... well, you get the point.
Oh, and they have to do all of that with limited money and an even more limited farm system. Dave Dombrowski loves to take big swings, but given how much uncertainty exists around a pivotal winter, it's hard to see them jumping in with both feet without figuring out, say, who's going to be starting at third base in 2027.
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