{"id":522198,"date":"2026-03-08T09:00:25","date_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/522198\/"},"modified":"2026-03-08T09:00:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-08T09:00:25","slug":"report-tigers-havent-made-skubal-a-long-term-offer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/522198\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Tigers haven’t made Skubal a long-term offer"},"content":{"rendered":"

In an exclusive interview with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale<\/a> in the lead-up to his start for Team USA at the World Baseball Classic, Skubal said that the Tigers didn’t make him a long-term offer over the winter. And that they didn’t negotiate with his camp after the two sides filed different salary figures in arbitration.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no offer,” Skubal said. \u201cAnd there won’t be an offer until the end of the season\u2026 My focus is on playing baseball and winning this year. I\u2019ll deal with the contract stuff at the end of the year, and then we’ll kind of see. And that\u2019s fine. It\u2019s their decision.”<\/p>\n

Skubal, coming off back-to-back Cy Young award-winning seasons, will enter free agency after the 2026 campaign if he doesn’t reach a deal with Detroit, but he reiterated that his focus remains on the field.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where my focus is, trying to win a World Series for the city of Detroit, the team that drafted me in 2018,” Skubal told Nightengale. \u201cThe Tigers fans are excited, they\u2019re really invested in this club, and so are we. There\u2019s a different energy in camp this year about the guys that we brought in and additions that we’ve made, and there’s a true belief and trying to win a World Series. I think that’s awesome.”<\/p>\n

But as long as Skubal remains unsigned in the Motor City, the summer ahead will undoubtedly be full of speculation about where MLB’s top southpaw may land on the open market.<\/p>\n

Beyond Detroit’s unwillingness to engage on a long-term deal, the seeds of disagreement over Skubal’s value were sown this off-season in the arbitration process.<\/p>\n

The two sides didn’t reach an agreement on a 2026 contract before the early January deadline to exchange figures. Skubal filed for $32 million, and the Tigers filed at $19 million \u2014 setting up a historic hearing.<\/p>\n

Skubal eventually beat Detroit in the process, setting an arbitration record with his $32-million payday.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old is coming off a pair of dominant seasons that have him positioned to set more records in free agency. In 2024, he won the American League Triple Crown, pacing the circuit with 18 wins, a 2.39 ERA and 228 strikeouts.<\/p>\n

He was potentially even better in 2025, punching out 241 batters in a career-high 195.1 innings of 2.21-ERA ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In an exclusive interview with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale in the lead-up to his start for Team USA…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522199,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-522198","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522198","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522198"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522198\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522198"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}