{"id":832924,"date":"2026-07-30T06:56:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T06:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832924\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T06:56:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T06:56:19","slug":"cubs-considering-tarik-skubal-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/832924\/","title":{"rendered":"Cubs Considering Tarik Skubal – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cubs have made no secret of their desire to add starting pitching and are at least checking in on the top of the market. Patrick Mooney of The Athletic<\/a> reports that the Cubs have considered making a push for\u00a0Tarik Skubal<\/a> among their various rotation possibilities.<\/p>\n

Skubal made what might be his final start in a Tigers uniform on Wednesday. He pitched well, working 6 2\/3 frames of three-run ball with six punchouts. Skubal zipped through six scoreless innings but ran into trouble in the seventh. Kyle Finnegan<\/a> and\u00a0Drew Anderson<\/a> were unable to hold what had once been a 7-0 lead. The Tigers wound up dropping a 10-9 heartbreaker in 12 innings.<\/p>\n

Detroit dropped two of three against Baltimore after losing the final two games of last week\u2019s four-game set with Kansas City. They\u2019re seven games under .500 at 51-58. Detroit is off tomorrow before traveling to West Sacramento for a three-game set against the A\u2019s. That feels like a must-win series, but it\u2019s unclear if even sweeping it will be enough to avoid a sale.<\/p>\n

The Tigers are in the fourth place in the AL Central. They\u2019re only 5.5 games behind the division-leading White Sox and 4.5 out in the Wild Card race. The bigger obstacle is the number of teams they\u2019d have to jump.<\/p>\n

Detroit would need to pass Minnesota, Cleveland and Chicago in the division or five clubs in the Wild Card race. They need to play at a 95-win pace just to finish the season at .500. Getting to 84 wins would require a 33-20 showing (a 101-win pace) from here forward. The Tigers surely feel they\u2019re a better team than their record, but their atrocious May has left them with little margin for error.<\/p>\n

Skubal\u2019s r\u00e9sum\u00e9 speaks for itself. He\u2019s the two-time defending Cy Young winner who is having another elite season despite undergoing an elbow scope in early May. He\u2019s one of the three best pitchers in the sport, arguably the very best. No one else on the trade block would have a bigger impact on an acquiring team\u2019s odds of winning the 2026 World Series. The chances of an extension two months away from what should be a record-breaking pitching contract are essentially nil. He\u2019s a rental who\u2019d command a substantial return for what\u2019ll likely be one playoff run.<\/p>\n

The Cubs should add a playoff-caliber starter. They\u2019ve been tied<\/a> to\u00a0Reid Detmers<\/a>, who is eligible for arbitration through 2028. Mooney unsurprisingly notes they\u2019d prefer to add a controllable arm over a rental, but they\u2019re not going to completely close off the latter route.<\/p>\n

Matthew Boyd<\/a> and\u00a0Shota Imanaga<\/a> are Chicago\u2019s top two starters at the moment. They should get Edward Cabrera<\/a> back from a hamstring strain next month, but he has an extended injury history and hasn\u2019t pitched as well as hoped this year even when healthy.\u00a0Ben Brown<\/a> has an uncertain return timeline from a neck strain. The Cubs designated\u00a0Jameson Taillon<\/a> for assignment this week, opening a rotation spot.\u00a0Javier Assad<\/a> will make a spot start tomorrow against St. Louis but should move back to relief if\/when they trade for a starter.<\/p>\n

Chicago will need to weigh whether to take a swing at the best rental arm in years in a season where they\u2019re likely to face a three-game Wild Card Series either way. The Cubs are six games back of Milwaukee in the NL Central. FanGraphs<\/a> gives them a 14% chance of winning the division (which frankly feels high). They\u2019d obviously feel good about their chances of taking Game 1 of any series with Skubal on the mound, but any three-game set is pretty close to a coin flip.<\/p>\n

The Brewers, Rays and Dodgers have also been tied to Skubal. All three of those teams are winning their respective divisions and currently in position to secure a first-round bye. Most contenders will at least be in touch with Detroit president of baseball operations Scott Harris over the next few days. The Athletic\u2019s Ken Rosenthal reported last night<\/a> that more teams had begun reaching out after the Tigers dropped the opener of the Baltimore series on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cubs have made no secret of their desire to add starting pitching and are at least checking…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":832925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85,6100],"class_list":["post-832924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-tarik-skubal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832924","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=832924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/832925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=832924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=832924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=832924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}