Detroit sports fans are down in the dumps right now emotionally after watching the Lions get eliminated from NFL playoff consideration with a Christmas Day loss to the Minnesota Vikings. It’s the first time since 2022 that the Lions won’t be playing in the postseason.

Detroit went 3-5 over the past eight weeks and will now likely see the Chicago Bears win the NFC North. Questions surrounding Jared Goff’s future have swirled.

And while it might feel to these fans that things couldn’t get worse, the ongoing buzz surrounding Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal is basically saying, “hold my beer”, to that notion. Indeed, if Detroit was forced to withstand a Skubal departure on top of this awful Lions season, the city’s sports fans would descend into an unspeakable depression.

Detroit sports fans can’t handle a Tarik Skubal trade right now, let alone a free agent departure

“It’s not like I want to be traded, so it’s kind of like, why am I in these conversations?”

Tarik Skubal opens up about his name being circulated in trade rumors. pic.twitter.com/CXp6ZyftoE

— Foul Territory (@FoulTerritoryTV) November 20, 2025

The good news for Detroit fans is that Skubal has been outspoken about not wanting to be traded, and it all seems 100 percent genuine. He appeared on Foul Territory in November and blatantly said that he doesn’t want to be traded. This came after Skubal was captured on candid camera at the MLB Awards refusing to sign a New York Yankees hat for a fan.

More recently, Skubal posted a photo of Comerica Park to his Instagram story with the caption, “Miss you.” The back-to-back Cy Young winner has made his loyalty to the Tigers painfully obvious.

The bad news is that Skubal’s loyalty alone can’t prevent a trade. If the Tigers’ front office feels that its advantageous to send Skubal packing for a gargantuan offer, president of baseball operations Scott Harris will do so. Harris has said himself that no one on the Tigers is untouchable, not even Skubal.

While Tigers supporters are in unanimous agreement about avoiding a Skubal trade, MLB pundits following the trail of rumors are divided in their opinions. Some analysts feel that the best course of action for Detroit is to trade Skubal. The idea there — which has been talked about ad nauseam — is that the Tigers shouldn’t let Skubal walk in 2026 free agency for nothing. And while a free agency departure will be gutting, the Tigers could’ve at least lived with the fact they tried to go for it in Skubal’s final year.

Others have suggested that even if a Skubal trade is likely, it won’t happen until July. This would give the Tigers time to see if they are a contender in 2026, and their return package for Skubal in seven months wouldn’t be grossly different from what they’d get now for him.

If Harris truly is planning to trade Skubal, doing so at the deadline seems like a more prudent move than jumping the gun on a deal right now. This isn’t the only reason not to trade Skubal in January — but if Harris did so, he’d be kicking Detroit fans while they’re already down, which would open up a can of serious problems that might take the franchise years to heal from.