With each passing day, it is more and more likely reigning two-time AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal will work for a different team in six weeks’ time. The Tigers, one of the league’s biggest disappointments this year, are 33-44 and five games out of a Wild Card spot with six teams ahead of them. They’re facing a major uphill climb to get back into contention. Skubal knows it and what it means.
“The reality of the situation is, we need to play better baseball,” Skubal told Chris McCosky last week. “I’ve said that before and I’ll continue to say that: My belief in this group has never changed. But the reality is we need to play better baseball or else come the deadline, you give the front office an option to reassess where this team is. And if they don’t think what we have is a World Series or playoff caliber team, then the whole team is going to look different. That’s just the nature of the beast.”
Skubal, 29, is on the very short list of the game’s best pitchers and he’s only a few months away from free agency. Rental ace trades are rare but not unprecedented. We nervously watched CC Sabathia’s all-time run with the Brewers knowing full well that the Yankees would pursue him after the season. I’m sure you remember the Cliff Lee derby at the 2010 deadline. That’s what we’re talking about with Skubal.
The Yankees are the best team in a thoroughly mediocre American League. Is the starting rotation a big priority leading up to the deadline? No, not really, but I think anytime a pitcher of Skubal’s caliber becomes available, you have to check in. He would make any rotation better. It’s a simple question: Does Skubal improve your World Series odds? Yes, clearly he would. Then you have to at least try to get him.
I’m certain the Yankees will check in with the Tigers about Skubal (they did in the offseason). The question is how aggressively will the Yankees pursue him, and how aggressively should the Yankees pursue him? That’s what we’re here to discuss and vote on today. I’ll lay out the case for and against trading for Skubal, then we’ll run a poll to get the lay of the land (or at least of the RAB community). Let’s get to it.
The case for trading for Skubal
Again, this is one of the best pitchers in baseball. Skubal pitched to a 2.30 ERA (2.47 FIP and 2.70 xERA) with 31.2 K% and 4.5 BB% from 2024-25. He also allowed an 86.8 mph average exit velocity, which was tied with Max Fried, who is widely considered a soft contact master. That’s what Skubal is. He’s Fried plus one of the highest strikeout rates and lowest walk rates in baseball. He’s a monster, plain and simple.
Skubal has pitched at something close to that level this year (3.02 ERA, 2.75 FIP, 3.62 xERA, 26.9 K%, 3.8 BB%, 88.8 mph average EV) around the surgery to remove a loose body from his elbow. There has been some rust in his two starts back, though his stuff has been right where it always is, so it seems like a matter of time until Skubal locks in and goes on one of those Best Pitcher in the World runs.
(The trade deadline is six weeks from today. We’ll have plenty of time to see how Skubal looks as he gets further away from surgery. If it goes south and it doesn’t look good, then you don’t trade for him, and this whole conversation is moot.)
The Yankees have to get to the postseason first, yes, but if they miss the postseason this year in this AL, they have way bigger problems than this Skubal discussion. Skubal would do two things for the Yankees. One, he would up their AL East title odds, which in turn ups their Wild Card Series bye odds. Those odds are already very good, but Skubal would nudge them up. That’s value added right there.
Two, and more importantly, Skubal gives you a fierce 1-2-3-4 going into the postseason. You’re sending Skubal, Fried, Gerrit Cole, and Cam Schlittler out there in a short series in whatever order. It’s an ace in every game. That rotation is so loaded the Yankees could even have a “does it make sense to use Carlos Rodón as the No. 4 starter so Schlittler can pitch 4-5 times in the series as a reliever?” discussion.
Skubal would also protect the Yankees against injuries. Fried’s on the injured list right now and is still a ways away from a rehab assignment. Cole and Rodón are coming off major elbow surgery and Schlittler’s on track for a massive workload, plus sometimes pitchers just get hurt. Skubal would raise the ceiling of the rotation, first and foremost. He would also raise the floor in the event of an injury.
Another consideration is getting Skubal means another team doesn’t get him. The Yankees lived this with Cliff Lee in 2010. They didn’t get him at the trade deadline, the Rangers did, then they ran into him in Game 3 of the ALCS. The series was tied 1-1, so it was an important swing game, and this happened:
The Dodgers are where they are because they’re smart and moneyed, and also because other teams got too cute and just let them have great players. They have Mookie Betts because the Red Sox wouldn’t pay him. They have Freddie Freeman because the Braves wouldn’t give him a sixth year. Do you want them to wind up with Skubal because you’re unwilling to trade that one last prospect at the deadline?
It’s not just the Dodgers either. Think about other teams that will pursue Skubal. The Blue Jays will for sure, and not much has to fall into place to see them in the ALDS or ALCS (or Wild Card Series). Maybe the Braves get Skubal and you see them in the World Series. Or the Cubs, Phillies, etc. Bottom line, if you don’t get Skubal at the deadline, another team will, and you may see him in October and regret it.
The trade package is of course an important part of this. I wrote about a potential Skubal trade at CBS last week and looked at other rental ace trades, and what those trade packages looked like. There were four such trades in the last 20 years: Sabathia to the Brewers, Lee to the Rangers, Zack Greinke to the Angels, and David Price to the Blue Jays. The trade packages were remarkably consistent:
A top 25-ish prospect in baseball.
A strong second prospect but not a top 100 guy.
A third prospect who doesn’t rank too highly in your system.
If there was a fourth piece, it was basically a lottery ticket throw-in.
As is often the case, the team that got the star player (in this case the rental ace) didn’t regret it. The best MLB players to come out of those trades were Matt Boyd (Price), Michael Brantley (Sabathia), and Jean Segura (Greinke). The fourth best was probably Justin Smoak (Lee). Player development is better than ever, but they’re still prospects. The rental ace is the least risky player in the trade.
Every trade is different and perhaps market forces push the Skubal bidding up much higher than those four previous rental ace trades above. History suggests you’ll have to give up good prospects, sure, but you won’t have to gut your farm system and the Tigers won’t get a franchise-altering return. Baseball is weird like that. It’s not often star players fetch the enormous packages everyone expects.
(For what it’s worth, Jon Heyman says the Tigers want "controllable pitching and athletic position players close to big league-ready" in a Skubal trade. Real imaginative, huh.)
Trade for Skubal and there's also the fringe benefit of bringing a guy in and getting to know him (and vice versa) before a potential free agent pursuit. Skubal’s a Scott Boras client, he’s going to the highest bidder, but maybe he comes in and you discover it doesn’t work, and you shouldn’t pursue him as a free agent. That’s valuable information too. This is a very small consideration, but I might as well mention it anyway.
To sum it all up, the case for trading for Skubal is that he’s a great player who improves your chances of getting a Wild Card Series bye and winning the World Series in whatever’s left of Cole’s and Fried’s and Aaron Judge’s prime. You also keep him away from other teams, plus the trade package may not hurt as much as you think. It’s not hard to see why trading for a pitcher as good as Skubal makes sense.
The case against trading for Skubal
It boils down to two things: injury and opportunity. Skubal just came back from an elbow surgery, albeit a relatively minor one thanks to the new NanoScope procedure. Rather than cutting the elbow open and digging through muscle, they use a scope to remove the loose body. It’s way less invasive and significantly reduces recovery time. Skubal is the first pitcher to get NanoScoped (Blake Snell has since become the second).
Skubal made a quick recovery and his stuff has looked good since he returned, which is reassuring, but we’re still in uncharted territory with the NanoScope. How will he feel in a few weeks? Every pitcher carries injury risk. Skubal carries more than most because he just had an elbow procedure. He’s had other elbow surgeries too, including Tommy John in 2017 and a flexor tendon repair in 2022. There’s heightened injury risk here.
As for opportunity, it’s really the opportunity cost. The Yankees only have so many prospects to trade. They need bullpen help and they need a right-handed hitting catcher. You don’t have to try too hard to see a scenario in which the Yankees need a bat too, do you? Giancarlo Stanton just had a setback, Paul Goldschmidt is 38, and Judge is 2-3 weeks away from his next scans, nevermind starting a rehab assignment.
The rotation is already very good, if not great. Cole, Fried, Rodón, and Schlittler are a strong 1-2-3-4 to take into the postseason, and if there’s an injury, Will Warren and Ryan Weathers are good backup plans. Much better than what most contenders have lined up behind their top four. Is it better to trade prospects for Skubal to improve a strength, or use those prospects to address your actual weaknesses?
There are other lesser considerations. Because he'll be traded at midseason, the Yankees wouldn’t be able to make Skubal the qualifying offer and recoup a prospect via the compensation draft pick. He’ll have about $9M left on his contract at the deadline. Add in the 110% luxury tax rate and that’s $18.9M in real money Skubal will cost. You and I may not care about that, but the Yankees sure will.
Mostly though, it’s the injury risk and the opportunity cost. The “case against” section is shorter than the “case for" section, but don’t take that to mean the case against is flimsy. We’re talking about trading from the top of the system to get a pitcher with a lengthy arm injury history who’s not even two months removed from elbow surgery. There’s always injury risk. There’s more than usual with Skubal.
To me, opportunity cost is the single biggest reason to be against a Skubal trade. Prospects are a finite resource. History says the Tigers could ask for George Lombard Jr. (i.e. top 25-ish prospect) and it would not be unreasonable. If you’re the Yankees though, and you’re willing to trade Lombard, do you want to trade him for a rental starter? Or do you want to find a deal that nets a player with longer term control?
Every prospect you trade for Skubal is a prospect you can’t trade for a reliever (though, in a roundabout way, trading for Skubal could improve the bullpen by shifting Warren/Weathers into relief) or a catcher or a third baseman. Those are more pressing needs than the rotation. Yes, Skubal would make the Yankees a better team, but passing on him and addressing those other needs could create the best, most well-rounded version of the 2026 Yankees.
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If the Yankees trade for Skubal, they will do so because they want the 5-7 starts he can make in October. The 10-12 regular season starts have value, especially as far as securing a Wild Card Series bye, but you get Skubal for the postseason. It’s easy to say no to this right now because the Yankees have other more pressing needs. When you see him warming for the Dodgers on Oct. 30th though? Hmmm.
The trade deadline is six weeks from today and a lot will change between now and then. Maybe the Tigers will get back into the race and Skubal never becomes available. It seems unlikely, but the third Wild Card spot allows everyone to dream. Maybe the Yankees will actually need a starter. Maybe they can’t pursue Skubal because (more) injuries struck and they absolutely need another bat. I dunno.
Let’s get to the poll now. There is a lot of nuance that a straight yes/no poll wouldn’t really capture. Hopefully the available answers cover enough ground without hedging too much. Anyway, should the Yankees trade for Tarik Skubal?