A trade could come, but Tarik Skubal says he hopes to stay with Tigers
DETROIT — In case there was any doubt, Tarik Skubal said Thursday afternoon he would prefer not to be traded in advance of the Aug. 3 MLB trade deadline.
“I think we have a chance to win a World Series,” Skubal said. “I’ve said that since spring training. That’s never changed. That belief in this team has never changed throughout the season. … Going into spring training, the whole offseason, I’ve never been more motivated to try to win a World Series for this city, the team that drafted me in 2018 and helped develop me. That’s always been the goal, and that will never change unless I’m told I’m on a different team.”
In the same conversation, Skubal admitted his relationship with the Tigers’ front office changed as a result of his high-profile arbitration case in January.
“Of course when you take a player to arbitration there’s not a ton of positive things that come out of that process, relationship-wise,” Skubal said. “That’s pretty obvious. But my relationship with the coaching staff and the players and my teammates, it’s the same as it always is. That’s how it’s supposed to be. But as far as going through that process and sitting in that room, you guys should go experience that for yourselves.”
Skubal, the back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner, ended up winning that arbitration case and setting a record with a $32 million arbitration salary. Months later, the hearing remains a newsworthy topic, in part because Skubal recently told The Athletic his pending arbitration played a role in why he did not get an MRI in January after experiencing discomfort in his elbow.
“If I could go back, I probably should have got an MRI in January and hammered it out to where I was done with it in the offseason,” Skubal had said. “But there were also other factors in play. I was going through arbitration. The decision by the organization to take me to court, I think that probably had some impact subconsciously.”
Skubal said those words as part of a deeper conversation about the weight of expectations and how he’s dealt with his name constantly being in the headlines.
Again, though, the social-media and talk-radio universe turned the Skubal comments into a firestorm. Based on the reaction, Skubal wanted to make a clarification on his MRI decision.
“I think that’s just hindsight,” Skubal said. “That’s just common sense. I thought we were trending in the right direction throughout this whole process. I had a hiccup in January (where) I didn’t know what was going on. I thought it was just a different soreness. I had never dealt with anything like that before. We were trending the right way. That’s the reason there was no MRI, there was no discussion of an MRI. We were trending the right way. I continued to make starts and I continued to be a good player … I had that incident in Atlanta and the next two days weren’t great. That’s when I decided to have an MRI and have a surgery.”
Skubal, who missed more than a month after eventually having surgery to remove a loose body from his elbow, mostly disagreed with public reaction painting him as greedy or selfish in not disclosing the strange feeling that had lingered in his arm. Skubal called the whole thing “blown out of proportion.”
“A lot of things that are said about me are not true,” Skubal said. “It is what it is. I understand it. But of course, in hindsight, I would have got an MRI in January if I knew that this thing wasn’t going to get better. But it didn’t. I thought it was getting better for three months, until it wasn’t. You’d think that that would be more obvious than it was. But it is what it is. ”
Such is the way things go in the Skubal universe these days. Even as the attention has grown massive and the blowback to some of his comments turns fierce, Skubal keeps sharing his thoughts. He remains honest and open even as he’s the talk of the baseball industry.
Skubal is scheduled to start Friday night against the Royals, and there’s a chance it could be his last outing as a Tiger at Comerica Park. Some of that will depend on how the Tigers line up their rotation — he could potentially pitch at Comerica again Wednesday against the Orioles. More of it will depend on what the Tigers decide to do in the days ahead. Despite a 26-16 record since June 1, the Tigers entered Thursday 6 ½ games behind the White Sox in the AL Central and 4 1/2 games out of a wild-card spot.
Skubal indicated he’s not expecting any conversations with the Tigers’ front office to seek clarity about his future.
“Those questions are not for me,” Skubal said. “I don’t know how they handle the business on that side. Been around it a couple times and (other players) didn’t have any idea until about five minutes before you guys did. I assume that’s how it’s going to be handled because that’s how most things are handled.”
Thursday, a reporter suggested to Skubal he could have better odds of winning the World Series if he were to get traded elsewhere. Skubal doubled down on his faith in the Tigers.
“I don’t know if I believe that,” Skubal said. “I don’t know if I believe the odds. I’ve been on a team where we had a 0.2 percent chance to make the playoffs and we did it. So I’m not going to speculate on percentages. I think once you get there it’s really hard to win a World Series. It’s really hard to get in, and I think this team has all the pieces to be able to do that.”