{"id":671101,"date":"2026-04-08T22:50:24","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:50:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671101\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:50:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:50:24","slug":"tigers-tarik-skubal-gets-40-million-projection-amid-highly-anticipated-free-agency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671101\/","title":{"rendered":"Tigers’ Tarik Skubal gets $40 million projection amid highly anticipated free agency"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers<\/a> made a bold decision this past offseason, deciding to go all-in for the 2026 season with signings of Justin Verlander, Framber Valdez, Kenley Jansen, and others, with Tarik Skubal’s last year on the horizon.<\/p>\n

While they aren’t completely ruining their chance to contend beyond 2026, this season is a very important year for the Tigers. Skubal will be a free agent next offseason in what is one of the most highly-anticipated free agencies of recent MLB history.<\/p>\n

For Bleacher Report’s Joel Reuter<\/a>, the Tigers’ back-to-back Cy Young winner is set to land a huge deal next winter, with Reuter projecting a $40 million per-year deal for the Tigers lefty ace.<\/p>\n

Tigers’ Tarik Skubal gets $40M free agent projection<\/p>\n

“With two years under his belt as arguably the best pitcher in baseball and another strong start this season,” Reuter writes, “Skubal could be headed for a $40 million AAV as the best pitcher to hit the open market since Gerrit Cole.”<\/p>\n

Skubal is sure to land a massive deal, barring an injury or a disastrous 2026 season. So, an AAV of $40 million, while it might seem ridiculous for a pitcher, is not out of the question at all.<\/p>\n

He’s not regressing and isn’t going to be too old either. He’ll be 30 years old as a free agent, and teams will surely be lining up out the door to try and convince him to come to their team.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0Three ways Pirates’ Paul Skenes could lose NL Cy Young Award<\/a><\/p>\n

Who wouldn’t want to add a two-time Cy Young award-winner, let alone one who won back-to-back Cy Youngs in two of the three most recent MLB seasons? And if he puts up a third Cy Young in 2026? Skubal could be looking at a deal that shatters record books.<\/p>\n

This season, he has a 2.55 ERA through three starts, though he’s already been docked two losses thanks to poor run support.<\/p>\n

Skubal is going to land a massive contract next offseason, and the Tigers will either find a way to bring him back or, what seems the most likely outcome at this point, they’ll see him walk for a massive deal worth north of $40 million, or potentially $400 million total.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers made a bold decision this past offseason, deciding to go all-in for the 2026 season…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":321882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,147,53,2583,4,594],"class_list":{"0":"post-671101","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-detroit-tigers","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-detroit","10":"tag-detroit-tigers","11":"tag-detroittigers","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-tigers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116371536302694324","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671101","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=671101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/321882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}