Tarik Skubal is about to get paid.<\/p>\n
Coming off back-to-back AL Cy Young awards<\/a> and heading into his final year of arbitration, Skubal filed for a $32 million salary in 2026. The Detroit Tigers filed at $19 million, well below Skubal\u2019s proposal. The two sides were unable to reach an agreement, and the case went to arbitration.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n On Thursday, MLB.com reported that Skubal had won the hearing<\/a>, with the three-person arbitration panel ruling in his favor. He will make $32 million this season, setting an MLB record for the highest salary awarded to a player in the history of the arbitration process.<\/p>\n Even with his historic raise, Skubal is still a bargain. According to FanGraphs<\/a>, he was worth roughly $48 million in 2024 and $53 million last year based on his WAR totals.<\/p>\n Perhaps more importantly, Skubal sets the market and a precedent for other pitchers in future arbitration cases, including Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes.<\/p>\n Skenes will be eligible for arbitration for the first time next year. Assuming the reigning NL Cy Young winner<\/a> keeps pitching as he has the last two seasons, he could be headed for some historic salary figures over the next few years, unless the Pirates extend him and buy out his arbitration seasons.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Accordingly, it wouldn\u2019t be surprising to see Skenes command $40 or $50 million by his final year of arbitration in 2029, assuming he stays healthy and productive. Pittsburgh may need to plan accordingly.<\/p>\n More Pirates: Rumor: Pirates Agree With Former Astros Pitcher On One-Year Deal<\/a><\/p>\n The post What Tarik Skubal\u2019s Historic Arbitration Victory Means For Pirates Ace<\/a> appeared first on SportsNet Pittsburgh<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tarik Skubal is about to get paid. Coming off back-to-back AL Cy Young awards and heading into his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[17431,5,53,5833,4,877,10,776,64,4297,67690,382],"class_list":["post-557592","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-arbitration","tag-baseball","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-jared-carrabis","tag-mlb","tag-paul-skenes","tag-pirates","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-pirates","tag-pittsburghpirates","tag-salary-figures","tag-tarik-skubal"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116023068140145157","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}