{"id":456057,"date":"2026-02-03T16:52:13","date_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:52:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456057\/"},"modified":"2026-02-03T16:52:13","modified_gmt":"2026-02-03T16:52:13","slug":"tarik-skubal-tigers-set-for-salary-arbitration-hearing-heres-what-that-means","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/456057\/","title":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal, Tigers Set For Salary Arbitration Hearing; Here’s What That Means"},"content":{"rendered":"

Arguably the best starting pitcher in Major League Baseball, back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal<\/a> and the Detroit Tigers<\/a> are going to a salary arbitration hearing to determine the southpaw’s 2026 salary.<\/p>\n

What’s the issue? What does this mean? Here’s how the process works.<\/p>\n

The issue between Skubal and the Tigers<\/p>\n

Skubal, who’s a free agent after the 2026 MLB<\/a> season, and the Tigers can’t agree to a salary for the 2026 season and are subsequently going to a salary arbitration meeting on Wednesday, Feb. 4. Detroit is reportedly offering $19 million, while Skubal seeks a record $32 million<\/a>. The star lefty made $10.15 million in 2025, which itself was a significant raise from 2024’s $2.65 million salary thanks to winning his first of two Cy Young awards.<\/p>\n

What is salary arbitration?<\/p>\n

It’s a process deployed in the MLB offseason to determine salaries for select players in the upcoming season. It takes place when a player and team can’t agree to a salary, with the mandated hearing typically scheduled for February and brought in front of a three-person panel of arbitrators. Those individuals decide whether to accept the player or team salary proposal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

[The Big Picture: Why the Skubal-Tigers Salary Standoff Could Make MLB History<\/a>]<\/p>\n

The Tigers are a “trial and file” team, meaning they go through the full arbitration process if the two sides can’t agree on a figure by the filing deadline rather than settle beforehand.<\/p>\n

How does the process work? Who’s eligible?<\/p>\n

An individual has one year of service time under their belt at the MLB level after 172 days in a given year. Then, once a player reaches three years of service time, they’re eligible for arbitration, so long as they haven’t already signed a contract for the ensuing season. Once a player has reached his arbitration years, they are eligible for this process until they reach free agency.<\/p>\n

What’s the biggest arbitration salary in MLB history?<\/p>\n

Juan Soto<\/a> made $31 million with the New York Yankees<\/a> in 2024 before hitting free agency the following offseason, making Skubal’s $32 million filing a potential record not just for pitchers, but for any arbitration salary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Arguably the best starting pitcher in Major League Baseball, back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":456058,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-456057","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456057","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=456057"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/456057\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/456058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=456057"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=456057"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=456057"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}