Tigers should (but won't) consider this unexpected Tarik Skubal trade with Guardians

At the beginning of October, Tarik Skubal helped expedite the end of the Guardians season with 7 2/3 dazzling innings in Detroit’s Game 1 win over the Guardians.

He limited the Guardians to just one run in an electric start while racking up a career-high 14 strikeouts and turning the mound at Progressive Field into his own personal playground. 

Now imagine if he was doing that as a member of the Guardians. 

But after being a thorn in the Guardians side for almost all of his six year MLB career, there’s more and more buzz growing about the Tigers potentially trading Skubal in the offseason ahead of his final year of team control. 

The Guardians should call the Tigers to ask about Tarik Skubal

While the Tigers don’t need to trade him since they can control him in 2026 through arbitration, it looks like they won’t be able to sign him to a long-term extension. 

Earlier this month MLB insider Jon Heyman reported there was a $250 million gap in contract talks between Skubal and the Tigers, and team president Scott Harris gave a bit of a non-answer when asked about Skubal’s future during his postmortem press conference. 

We got even more insight into Skubal’s trade market, as The Athletic’s Will Sammon reported that executives from baseball think the Tigers would ask for two top-level starting pitchers and a position player prospect for just one year of Skubal.

As of now, the only team that we know to have any interest in Skubal is the Mets (thanks to Sammon’s reporting), but every team in baseball should call the Tigers about Skubal’s availability. 

Although the Guardians likely won’t trade Skubal to the team that just beat them into the American League Central two seasons in a row, Cleveland is one of the few teams with the amount of prospect capital needed to wrestle Skubal away.

The Guardians have an abundance of young starting pitchers who are under team control. While none of them are at Skubal’s level (who is?), they all stand out as top-tier options who could highlight any potential trade package.

Joey Cantillo won American League Rookie of the Month in September and seems to have finally found his footing after switching between roles early in the season. Parker Messick burst onto the scene in August and made Major League batters look foolish the rest of the way. 

You could even include Khal Stephen, who ended the year at Double-A but was the lone return at the deadline when the Guardians traded Shane Bieber, a former Cy Young winner himself. 

Skubal finished the year with a magnificent 2.21 ERA before tallying a 1.76 ERA with 36 strikeouts in 20 2/3 innings in the postseason. He’s the best pitcher in baseball and is tracking to win his second straight Cy Young. 

While we’ve seen star pitchers traded before, trading Skubal after back-to-back Cy Young wins is unheard of. 

Sammon wrote that some executives drew some parallels to the Milwaukee Brewers trading Corbin Burnes, but it’ll take even more to pry Skubal away. The Orioles had to deal away DL Hall and Joey Ortiz, plus a competitive balance round A draft pick for Burnes. 

The Guardians wouldn’t be able to sign Skubal to the $400 million contract that he’s seeking in free agency, but they’d get a chance to at least to benefit from at least one season of Skubal at the height of his powers. And they’d get to weaken a division rival. 

It likely won’t happen, but it’s still a call the Guardians front office should make.