Meet 7 prospects Detroit Tigers are sending to Arizona Fall League, including Kevin McGonigle
On “Days of Roar,” Evan Petzold and Chris Brown discuss the seven prospects from the Detroit Tigers participating in the 2025 Arizona Fall League.
The Detroit Tigers are back in the playoffs, and their left-handed ace has much to do with their success in 2025.
The Tigers pitching staff is led by left-handed starter Tarik Skubal, who has pitched with the Tigers since his MLB debut in 2020. He has been baseball’s best pitcher over the last two seasons, leading all qualified MLB starters in FanGraphs WAR (12.6), strikeouts (469), ERA (2.30) and FIP (2.48) since the start of 2024.
For his performance, Skubal was the unanimous pick as the 2024 American League Cy Young Award winner and is a heavy favorite to land the 2025 Cy Young Award, as well.
Quite simply, he’s already one of the most accomplished pitchers in Tigers history — and he’s only 28 years old.
Here are three things to know about the Tigers’ ace.
Tarik Skubal was not a top prospect out of college
Skubal was not always a highly sought-after pitcher, getting one college offer (Seattle University) after his high school career in Kingman, Arizona. Although he set program records at Seattle, his draft stock was dinged by an elbow injury that required Tommy John surgery in 2017.
The Tigers selected Skubal in the ninth round of the 2018 MLB Draft, likely not expecting him to turn into a front-of-the-rotation starter. But he soon became a top-five prospect within the organization and made his MLB debut in a start against the Chicago White Sox on Aug. 18, 2020.
Tarik Skubal won the pitching Triple Crown in 2024
Not only did Skubal win a prestigious Cy Young Award in 2024, he also won the AL pitching triple crown after finishing best among qualified AL starters in ERA (2.39), strikeouts (228) and wins (18).
He was the first pitcher to win the pitching triple crown since Cleveland’s Shane Bieber in 2020.
Skubal challenged for a second straight triple crown in 2025, but his 13 wins fall well behind New York’s Max Fried (19) and Carlos Rodón (18), as well as Boston’s Garrett Crochet (18), likely his biggest challenger for a second straight Cy Young title.
Tarik Skubal is the 2025 AL Cy Young favorite
In many ways, Skubal’s 2025 season has eclipsed his 2024 Cy Young-winning season, with a lower ERA (2.39 in 2024 to 2.21 in 2025), more strikeouts (228 to 241) and a lower WHIP (0.922 to 0.891). And even though he has five fewer wins and two more losses in 2025 than he had in 2024, oddsmakers see him as the favorite to win the Cy Young for a second consecutive year.
According to BetMGM, Skubal’s odds of winning the Cy Young are at -10,000, with Crochet having the second-best odds at +800. DraftKings is even more confident of Skubal’s chances, giving the lefty a -20,000 line.
If Skubal were to win the 2025 Cy Young Award, he would become just the second Tigers pitcher to win the award more than once, with Denny McLain winning the award in 1968 and 1969 (though Tigers pitcher Hal Newhouser won the AL MVP award in 1944 and 1945, more than a decade before the Cy Young Award was first handed out).
Odds are courtesy of BetMGM as of Thursday, Sept. 25.
You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com