https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/location/detroit/

The big takeaway from this article is that when it comes to Arbitration offerings, the teams work WITH MLB to generate their offers to players. It is stated that in many instances, MLB league officials generate the offer that the teams are to counter with in an attempt to suppress salaries. It is speculated by Rosenthal that in this particular case, the notably low-offer was generated by MLB officials and the TIGERs (Rosenthal specifically cites Scott Harris's relative newness at this position) acquiesced to league demands and had no input in the offer.

"In 2019, The Athletic reported that the league would present a $20 championship belt to the club that did the most to keep salaries down in arbitration." The league still pressures teams to keep salaries down.

A conspiracy theory coming out of this revelation was that the TIGERS and Skubal remain friendly and the TIGERS brass explained the situation to Skubal that while they currently felt the asking price Skubal and Boras was asking was more than they wanted to pay, they are somewhat powerless under MLB pressures and felt by going along with such a lowball number would actually out the MLB and show how unreasonable the situation is.

25 comments

  1. Illitch looks like a cheap ass. Again. It doesn’t matter how the Tigers try to spin it

  2. Open collusion against players sounds like a great way to have a season-long lockout soon.

  3. Honestly this doesn’t really matter to anything. Baseball economics are bad and will be reworked next year

  4. Sport needs big changes in the lockout next year or we’re gonna be right back here after the next CBA

  5. Arbitration is stupid anyways, I don’t understand why they don’t just do contracts like everyone else

  6. Yea sorry. Hard for me to believe in this when we haven’t had any real negotiations with Skubal. We haven’t tried to trade him and haven’t tried to actually sign him. The Tigers have to prove they’re serious before they get any benefit of the doubt.

  7. Rosenthal carries a lot of Boras’ water. Take this article with a grain of salt.

  9. I give Chris and management 0 benefit of the doubt so I’ll believe it when skubal confirms it to be the case.

  10. Baseball is finally popular again. If they lock out and strike and lose everything we gained – fuck them. Steroids saved baseball last time – this time there will be nothing.

  11. “It is speculated by Rosenthal that…”

    Not saying you can’t speculate but to treat this as a serious report is silly.

  12. Tiger should’ve told the MLB to buzz off and offered somewhere in the area of $25,000,000. They would’ve won at that figure.

  13. This sounds like some clickbait headline by NASTY Ken Rosenthal.And I ain’t reading all that. Happy for you though Ken, or sorry that happened.

  14. I’m just so ready to get the season started already so everyone stops focusing on this just because nobody has anything better to do.

  15. I would buy into that conspiracy theory. The arbitration process is a joke, the Skubal situation just magnified that. I’ve kept a part of me that believes Skubal wants to stay in Detroit, there will be a contract at some point, and this hearing was just part of the bigger picture.

    That too much positive thinking I’m sure but if we only think in negatives nothing good can come of that.

  16. *yawn* we’ve got a great season ahead and plenty of time to be upset once he actually hits free agency and we have a massive lockout.

  19. This finally makes sense. I would believe the Tigers were basically peer pressured (or worse) to make a dumb offer.

  20. Baloney. They’re saying, “It wasn’t us, it was them” after looking like fools. Truth is, this didn’t have to go to arbitration. Tigers could have settled with Skubal. Filing a $19M value for a guy who just won the last two Cy Young awards is stupid.

  24. how are the paying for it? I think this is exactly what the the Tigers did to keep their ace happy without appearing to MLB to have overpaid.

  25. Trevor May laughing at the Tigers

    [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_7nsfFiad8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_7nsfFiad8)

    Framber and Tarik are at the end two thirds of this video

    The thing May points out and I see people who hate Boras or Players getting paid what they are worth.. not getting what the Tigers did

    in Arbitration, according to Trevor May the player and team sit acorss from each other Tarik says why he is worth it.. Tigers say why he isn’t

    no one wants to hear how bad they are (or thought of) by the team

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