{"id":704348,"date":"2026-05-20T22:57:20","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:57:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704348\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T22:57:20","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T22:57:20","slug":"whats-the-latest-on-tarik-skubal-and-is-there-a-chance-the-tigers-trade-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/704348\/","title":{"rendered":"What’s the latest on Tarik Skubal? And is there a chance the Tigers trade him?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Detroit Tigers<\/a> are not having the season they expected in 2026. After a rough first two months, they are in fourth place in the AL Central and nine games under .500. On the latest episode of \u201cBaseball Bar-B-Cast,\u201d hosts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman discussed what has gone wrong for the Tigers this season.<\/p>\n

First and foremost, the loss of the reigning AL Cy Young winner has been a big blow. Skubal<\/a> has been out since April 29 and is recovering from surgery to remove \u201cloose bodies\u201d in his elbow. But the good news is that Tarik Skubal already threw a bullpen on Tuesday, and he threw all of his pitches.<\/p>\n

When might Skubal make his return to Detroit?<\/p>\n

\u201cI think because we are still in uncharted territory with this revolutionary procedure, we cannot circle any dates on the calendar and be like, \u2018This is when he\u2019s going to be back,\u2019\u201d Shusterman said. \u201cThere is still going to be a process of building back up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Shusterman surmised that Skubal will need a few rehab starts to get his workload back up and wouldn\u2019t want to throw an inning or two in a major-league game, but Mintz took a different stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny bullet that Tarik Skubal has to use, he\u2019s going to use it on a major-league mound,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 I would be surprised if we see him in Toledo or west Michigan. I think if he\u2019s throwing, he\u2019s throwing at Comerica or wherever the Tigers are.\u201d<\/p>\n

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How are the Tigers faring without Skubal?<\/p>\n

In short, badly.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe Tigers have been essentially the worst team in baseball since Skubal went down,\u201d Shusterman said.<\/p>\n

That, Shusterman noted, can be attributed to the ace\u2019s absence or the weakness of the roster or the offense\u2019s struggles or the injuries to other important players or some combination of those problems. No matter the reason, the Tigers are 10-20 over their past 30 games. Only the Angels have been worse.<\/p>\n

And Detroit dropped the first two games of this week\u2019s series against the Cleveland Guardians<\/a> at home.<\/p>\n

Will the Tigers trade Skubal?<\/p>\n

The hosts agreed that the chances Skubal gets traded are still minuscule \u2014 but they\u2019re better than they were a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDo I think Skubal will get traded? No,\u201d Mintz said. \u201cOn April 29, when he got hurt and the Tigers were in first place in the AL Central, I would\u2019ve put the odds under 5%. \u2026 Everything that has happened since that day has pushed that likelihood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re playing bad baseball, the offense stinks, and injuries on the pitching side, including Skubal, have really hurt them. It is easier to envision a Skubal trade today than it was on the day he got hurt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both hosts still believe it\u2019s not going to happen, but they recognize that the Tigers might get some phone calls with offers worth considering as the trade deadline approaches. The biggest factor will be how the team is performing by that point.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the playoff odds tell Scott Harris that they have a 5% chance of making the postseason come deadline time, and Tarik Skubal is looking awesome, and there are teams calling and saying, \u2018Here are all of our prospects so that we can have Skubal for a playoff run,\u2019 that will be an interesting conversation,\u201d Shusterman said.<\/p>\n

For more on the Tigers and other MLB news, follow \u201cBaseball Bar-B-Cast\u201d wherever you get your podcasts. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Detroit Tigers are not having the season they expected in 2026. After a rough first two months,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":704349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2386],"tags":[5,51,147,53,2583,3309,3308,4,8492,954,1323,594],"class_list":["post-704348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-detroit-tigers","tag-baseball","tag-cleveland-guardians","tag-detroit","tag-detroit-tigers","tag-detroittigers","tag-jake-mintz","tag-jordan-shusterman","tag-mlb","tag-shusterman","tag-skubal","tag-the-tigers","tag-tigers"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116609380754061218","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704348","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=704348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/704348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/704349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=704348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=704348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=704348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}