Key Points
Bullet point summary by AI
- Detroit Tigers ace Tarik Skubal has been through a lot in the last few months, including a controversy about leaving Team USA after one start.
- Skubal has not handled this controversy well, even backtracking to try and make a second start before eventually sticking with the plan.
- If Skubal thinks the public outcry over his Team USA eligibility is bad, then MLB free agency will not be easy for him.
Has anyone ever accused you of projecting your frustration about one thing onto another? Like when that one time you couldn’t get your lawnmower to work, so you yelled at your dog for barking at the mailman, despite that being his dog-constitutional right? Yeah, that’s what’s going on with Tarik Skubal.
The Detroit Tigers ace (if such a word is strong enough) has been making confusing logistical headlines lately. From his dramatic arbitration ruling in which the Tigers and Skubal were a mind-boggling $13 million apart in proposals, to his much-maligned decision to leave Team USA at the World Baseball Classic to return to Tigers camp. It’s all quite… dramatic, with Skubal having to declare his patriotic zeal publicly and explain why he felt “sticking to the plan” was the right call and yada yada yada. This isn’t really about that.
Tarik Skubal's Team USA drama is a sign of what's to come
The Skubal Scandal (we’re working on the name) is really about the MLB universe’s great, existential anxiety. The looming knowledge that, come next offseason, Skubal will be in line for a gazillion-dollar contract—certainly nine figures, and depending on if he wants short or long-term optionality, could be an absolutely sarcastic number. And who, you may wonder, often gives out these sarcastically large contracts? That’s right: the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Look, I’m not reporting that Skubal will go to the Dodgers. I’m not even suggesting it. I’m not even placing one percentage point of karmic cosmic possibility on that happening. I’m just worried that it will happen, and every other baseball fan is too. Because Skubal signing with the Dodgers for like… 9 years and $600 million would make every other Dodgers-based-annoyance seem relatively chill. This would not be chill. This would be so not chill.
Even if Skubal doesn't sign with the Dodgers, he surely understands after his World Baseball Classic episode that there is no way to keep everyone happy. When it comes to MLB free agency, his eventual decision will be watched like a hawk by fans and media alike. For some, he'll be on the right side of history. For others (especially if he signs in LA), he'll be part of the problem.
Tarik Skubal's free agency decision will be seismic
Skubal is a destiny-altering player. He is a pitcher so dominant that you can build a playoff series around his schedule. Whichever team shells out the cool half-billion that Skubal will command will immediately improve their rotation by an order of magnitude. Every five-or-so days, Skubal can win you a game single-handedly. Not even Shohei Ohtani can do that at his level.
Maybe it won’t be the Dodgers. Maybe it will be the Mets or some shocking Secret Option C like the Padres or the Cubs or… the Tigers (I guess). But the fact that Skubal could do what it seems like every god-tier free agent has done recently (go to the Dodgers) is horrifying. It’s enough to keep you up at night, wondering if you should have cared more about professional curling or horseback riding when you were a kid, as to not care so much about the MLB with its hopelessly anachronistic financial structure.
Because it is that financial structure that is the crux of Skubal Anxiety Disorder. When the Dodgers are the team that is consistently willing to offer the most money, how can we criticize Skubal for taking it? How can we criticize Kyle Tucker? Or Blake Snell? Or Yoshinobu Yamamoto? Or Ohtani or Tyler Glasnow or Teoscar Hernandez or Mookie Betts—well, I guess the Red Sox are to blame for that one. I’m not remotely over it.
Tarik Skubal (and the Dodgers) will be the faces of an MLB lockout
The financial structure that has allowed the Dodgers to continue looming over every big free agent chase is the one that might cause the world’s most destructive CBA negotiation, a lockout, perhaps a cancelled World Series, all manner of problematic salary cap discussions and could, ultimately, perhaps rob Skubal of a year of his prime. It won’t matter what team he’s on.
But until reform comes for the great American pastime, Skubal will do what every player in the history of sports has done when faced with a life-altering contract decision: he will make a logical choice. He made one when he chose to leave Team USA, and he made one when he submitted his arbitration proposal. We cannot ask players to make illogical or uncritical decisions when it comes to their financial futures; rather, we must change the underlying structure that makes us so upset by them.
That will mean a salary cap, something I am now, officially, in favor of. Because we can’t keep having the same conversations with every big free agent until the end of time. It is frustrating for fans and the teams they root for, and devalues the product when it no longer feels like an open market. And, above all else, it’s just getting old. When Tucker signed with the Dodgers, it didn’t even shock anyone. Outrage to be sure, but not surprise. If the MLB is going to modernize, it will have to bring back surprise.