There have been some rumors suggesting that the Detroit Tigers could bring back Tarik Skubal after trading him to the Los Angeles Dodgers at the Major League Baseball trade deadline this past August. 

The idea of bringing Skubal back makes a ton of sense from the Tigers’ perspective, specifically if they’re trying to win a World Series. If the Tigers don’t have any plans of trying to compete and want to focus more on internal development with their young core, it wouldn’t make much sense to pay a guy as much as Skubal is going to get. 

That was always the concern with him returning to Detroit, as it’s only fair to suggest that the Tigers can’t pay him what he’s looking for.

Skubal figures to get one of the most expensive contracts in Major League Baseball history, especially as a pitcher. If he doesn’t reset the pitching market, it would come as a major surprise. In the latest prediction, he would do just that by signing a $405 million deal over nine seasons.

“Compared to his back-to-back Cy Young seasons, 2026 was a slightly down year for Skubal, but even then, he was top 10 in basically all of the go-to markers of pitching dominance — ERA, WHIP, xFIP, fWAR, strikeout rate, walk rate, etc. — among pitchers with at least 150 innings. The workload was diminished, but the results were more or less the same.

“Skubal missed six weeks after undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow, but his average fastball velocity was nearly identical to 2024, and his 4.4 percent walk rate was an almost perfect match for 2025. He threw only 158 2/3 innings — plus another 11 in the postseason — but he was healthy for the second half and delivered a 2.25 ERA in September and a 2.45 ERA in the playoffs,” The Athletic wrote.

This is where things get interesting for the Tigers. While there’s reason to believe they could be interested in bringing him back, there’s absolutely no chance they’re going to pay him $400-plus million unless something drastic happens.

There was once a point over the past two decades when the Tigers had one of the highest payrolls in Major League Baseball with guys like Justin Verlander on the roster. However, for the better part of the past decade or so, this hasn’t been a team that wants to spend a lot of money.

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