What I learned from covering Tarik Skubal’s rise with the Tigers

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The first time I interviewed Tarik Skubal, I was 26 and he was 23. He had a temporary locker in the center of the Detroit Tigers’ 2020 spring training clubhouse. He was quiet and deeply intense. Believe it or not, he even came off as a little timid.

On the mound, though, something about him was dynamic. I had started to hear from people who had watched in Double-A Erie that it was Skubal — not Casey Mize or Matt Manning — who was actually the Tigers’ best pitching prospect. From only a few spring bullpen sessions, my eyes confirmed exactly that. Curious to learn more about this big left-hander, I got in touch with Elliot Cribby, the pitching coach who plucked Skubal out of a random tournament in Arizona. At the time, Cribby worked at Seattle University. He told an incredible story of discovering an intriguing talent who no one else knew about. He left him a business card, and Skubal almost didn’t call him back. They eventually met at In-N-Out off a dusty highway in Kingman.

“The one thing that drew me to Tarik was he was kind of a quiet individual, but you knew he was going to outwork everybody,” Cribby said. “You knew he had that confidence in himself.”

I talked to Skubal that day about his journey to pro ball — the fact that he only had one Division I offer, the fact that he’d had Tommy John surgery in college. Most of his answers were short and to the point. He did not seem like he particularly enjoyed the interview. For all I know, I might have been stumbling through it, too. But I’ll never forget watching Skubal throw a live bullpen session on a spring backfield and hearing Tigers great Kirk Gibson watching from the tower above that overlooked the field. “Yellowhammer!” he said when Skubal threw a dastardly curveball, echoing the late Jim Price’s signature radio call for nasty breaking balls.

More than six years later, I was talking to Skubal in the back of the Tigers clubhouse. I was 32, probably still too introverted to be very good at this job but at least a lot more confident in what I was doing. Skubal was 29. He was a two-time Cy Young Award winner making $32 million. He was at the center of the sport and had been there ever since January. The dynamic fascinated me. Everything Skubal had worked for, all the doubters he had proven wrong, led him to a point of both extreme notoriety and extreme scrutiny. We talked through that, and what it was like. Skubal kept insisting criticism — whether from fans, media, whatever, didn’t bother him. It had been fascinating to see Skubal blossom from the kid in 2020 to the open, accessible, opinionated man he had become. In the course of that conversation, talking about the loose body in his elbow that eventually required surgery, he said the quote that would go on to cause a local firestorm.

“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 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.”

I understood and wasn’t exactly surprised by the reaction. But the frenzy that ensued confirmed the point of the article I wrote about his status as the deadline’s main character — when you’re the best pitcher in the game on an expiring contract, all the attention can take its toll. The speculation and the criticism can turn personal. By the days leading up to the trade deadline, Skubal finally seemed exhausted by the questions and the rumors, though he never ducked standing and answering the questions that came his way. Skubal walked off the field this past week in Detroit to a thunderous ovation.

If we’re being real, Skubal’s story is still only beginning. The Tigers agreed to trade him to the Dodgers on Saturday. Now he’ll go on to chase a championship. There’s an even bigger spotlight on him now and likely one that will only grow in October.

What the Dodgers are getting is obvious. Skubal is deeply competitive, still fueled by his upbringing as a younger brother in a rowdy household. My favorite story I’ve written on Skubal was actually about his adopted brother, Wil Jones, and their parallel journeys in life.

Skubal’s father was a basketball coach and now a principal, and he set a high bar for his children in sports.  “I joke, and I’m hesitant to say this,” his brother Tyler once said, “but my dad was our Bobby Knight.”

When Skubal is at his best, he pitches with supreme confidence and conviction. He wears his heart on his sleeve, something his father said was “the Skubal in him.”

“It’s been cool to see him evolve into that kind of gritty, gnarly, bulldog on the mound that will go out and bully you,” his trainer, Justin Wakefield, once said.

This offseason, Skubal will be the toast of the free-agent class. He’s likely to command a massive deal because so much about his game seems sustainable. Arm health is always a mystery and a risk with any pitcher. But Skubal has elite stuff by every measure. His command is also impeccable. That’s one of the amazing things about him. Back in 2020, even when his talent was really starting to blossom, no one could have quite predicted he would become what he is now. He honed his best pitch — his signature changeup — after undergoing flexor tendon surgery in 2022. In his early days, Skubal was extremely prone to surrendering home runs. He gave up 44 of them in his first 39 MLB outings. He could be susceptible to elevated pitch counts and inefficient outings. Over time, Skubal smoothed out all those rough edges. Parts of him reminded me of another bold and stubborn athlete I once covered — Oklahoma Sooners quarterback Baker Mayfield, the type of guy who you could simply never count out.

Through his final days in Detroit, one of the many criticisms of Skubal that emerged was the idea he wasn’t built to last deep into games, that maybe he’s not a big-game pitcher. Skubal left Game 5 of last season’s ALDS after 99 pitches, with 13 strikeouts under his belt. Few pitchers go deeper than that these days. And it’s not like Skubal is the one who determines how long he goes.

He has a career 2.04 ERA in six postseason starts. He’s the type of ace who can carry a team on his back. Los Angeles will bring an even bigger spotlight, an even greater level of acclaim. But don’t be surprised if Skubal also gets painted as a villain, joining the superteam Dodgers in the final year before a new collective bargaining agreement.

However it ends up, it’s amazing how far Skubal has traveled. In the middle of that first interview with Skubal, pitching coach Rick Anderson interrupted and called Skubal out in the hall. He told him he was going to start the spring training opener. “That was news to me,” Skubal said when he returned to his locker.

The Tigers had an exhibition against Southeastern College, and sure enough, Skubal mowed down those hapless young hitters.

So much has transpired since. There was a global pandemic that cast everything into doubt. There were rough lessons and growing pains in the major leagues. There was another injury and more time in the shadows. Then, when Skubal exploded, there was so much more that came with the territory.

Saturday afternoon, I was one of a handful of reporters gathered around Skubal hours before arguably the biggest moment in his story yet. The trade talks had clearly weighed on him, and he had done his best to separate himself from the storm. He talked of celebrating his son’s first birthday on FaceTime, visiting his grandparents outside Sacramento and watching a true-crime documentary on Netflix to help ease his mind.

Later that night, Skubal learned he had been traded. He addressed Tigers fans through the media one final time. I asked Skubal about the difficulty of not being able to finish the mission with the franchise that drafted him, the teammates he had been through so many battles with.

Skubal got choked up as he talked.

When he left the ballpark Saturday night, one era was ending, and a new one was beginning.