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By Keagan Stiefel
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Detroit Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal will be on the move ahead of the trade deadline on Monday.
It's only a matter of where...
Skubal, who won back-to-back Cy Young awards in 2024 and 2025, has been his typically dominant self this season but is due to become an unrestricted free agent at season's end and all signs point to him being moved prior to the deadline on Aug. 3.
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ESPN's Jeff Passan went as far as to put the odds at 90%, while also laying out the realistic potential landing spots for the best pitcher in baseball: the Los Angeles Dodgers, Atlanta Braves, Milwaukee Brewers, Chicago Cubs, Philadelphia Phillies and Tampa Bay Rays.
"Skubal returned from midseason bone chip surgery in record time and hit 99.9 mph with his fastball, so any concerns about his stuff returning have been answered. His future depends on whether the Tigers can muster a run at an American League playoff spot," Passan wrote. "Considering the hole they've dug themselves, they are far more likely than not to move Skubal and they will squeeze every ounce of value out of the best pitcher in the world. He is the dream deadline candidate, the sort of ace who can carry a team in the postseason. Whoever lands Skubal will pay an enormous price. Happily."
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Los Angeles would be a wholly unsurprising landing spot, as the organization has leaned into the whole "Hollywood" thing by adding star power at the trade deadline over the course of the last decade -- Yu Darvish, Manny Machado, Max Scherzer, Trea Turner, etc. It's been a few years since they've gone all in, though, and that's likely what it would take in order to complete the three-peat.
Milwaukee would certainly be fun, as Skubal would join Jacob Misiorowski as the most dominant one-two punch we've seen since Roy Halladay and Cliff Lee.
Tampa Bay has the ammunition, but would have to mortgage its future on three months of production. Skubal almost certainly want to become the highest-paid pitcher in the history of the sport, and wouldn't receive that kind of commitment from an organization that has never handed out more than $40 million to a pitcher (Zach Eflin).
Who will be the team willing to pull that trigger?
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