Will Tigers Pony up for Skubal

[Sports_Freak]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

he will if the new cba eliminates contracts longer than 6 years.

If owners try that, we may not have baseball after 2026 for a long time.

[buddha]

17 minutes ago, Sports_Freak said:

If owners try that, we may not have baseball after 2026 for a long time.

which is another incentive for skubal to sign long term with detroit...

[gehringer_2]

2 hours ago, buddha said:

unpopular opinon:  "super teams" like the dodgers drive interest in baseball.  it attracts new fans who like winners and it creates an enemy for everyone else to root against.

 

I think this is true, but in the NFL some of the teams that held that 'super' status have been GreenBay, Dallas (before the Tx economy exploded), Kansas City, New England. So while I agree with the idea that having era dominant teams that fans can get to get familiar with  is good for a league, I don't believe  it is necessarily true those have to be the perennially richest in a league or get there by poaching everyone else's players and that they therefore have to be the same teams for all time.

Also, super teams that drive interest do it even better when stars stay put, and the current system in baseball is an absolute team continuity destroyer. That's a semi-separate issue than the pure economics but inter-related.

Imagine if the basic agreement in the NFL had made it impossible for the Chiefs to keep Mahomes or NE to keep Brady

Edited Wednesday at 09:08 PM by gehringer_2

[buddha]

2 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I think this is true, but in the NFL some of the teams that held that 'super' status have been GreenBay, Dallas (before the Tx economy exploded), Kansas City, New England. So while I agree with the idea that having era dominant teams that fans can get to get familiar with  is good for a league, I don't believe  it is necessarily true those have to be the perennially richest in a league or get there by poaching everyone else's players and that they therefore have to be the same teams for all time.

Also, super teams that drive interest do it even better when stars stay put, and the current system in baseball is an absolute team continuity destroyer. That's a semi-separate issue than the pure economics but inter-related.

Imagine if the basic agreement in the NFL had made it impossible for the Chiefs to keep Mahomes or NE to keep Brady

the nfl agreement makes it much harder to keep star players than baseball.  baseball teams can simply pay their stars.  football has to keep them under a "cap".

[casimir]

2 minutes ago, buddha said:

the nfl agreement makes it much harder to keep star players than baseball.  baseball teams can simply pay their stars.  football has to keep them under a "cap".

Why doesn’t the NFL call it a helmet?

[Shelton]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

the nfl agreement makes it much harder to keep star players than baseball.  baseball teams can simply pay their stars.  football has to keep them under a "cap".

I’m not sure the NFL cap actually does anything 

[gehringer_2]

16 minutes ago, Shelton said:

I’m not sure the NFL cap actually does anything 

In the NFL the cap helps mid level guys move but gives each team at least equal chance to keep their biggest stars. When teams are up against the cap well payed good players teams don't need badly are cut loose and go improve other teams that have more need at that position and so are willing to use more of their cap space on it so it drives parity.  In baseball half the teams can't compete economically to keep their stars so they end up the most mobile players and mostly to the same rich teams. Anti-parity.

Edited Thursday at 01:47 AM by gehringer_2

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, buddha said:

the nfl agreement makes it much harder to keep star players than baseball.  baseball teams can simply pay their stars.  football has to keep them under a "cap".

I don't believe this is objectively true. The stars of the NFL are mostly the QBs and teams are very successful keeping their star QBs - at least until they are no longer wanted! It does make it harder to keep a lot of expensive players, but that's what drives parity. But any NFL team has an equal shot at signing their most important player, and that is not true in baseball.

[1984Echoes]

3 hours ago, casimir said:

Why doesn’t the NFL call it a helmet?

That's an interesting idea casimir...

But could you please keep that under your helmet?

I'm not certain the world is ready for this kind of thinking...

[chasfh]

13 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't believe this is objectively true. The stars of the NFL are mostly the QBs and teams are very successful keeping their star QBs - at least until they are no longer wanted! It does make it harder to keep a lot of expensive players, but that's what drives parity. But any NFL team has an equal shot at signing their most important player, and that is not true in baseball.

Not only that, but because of the extensive revenue share among the teams from streams like merchandise and media, practically any NFL team has an equal shot at signing any top free agent, personal geographic preferences being flattened.

[papalawrence]

Skubal has decided to pitch for team USA. 

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25332757-tarik-skubal-commits-pitch-team-usa-2026-wbc-amid-mlb-trade-rumors

[chasfh]

4 hours ago, papalawrence said:

Skubal has decided to pitch for team USA. 

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/25332757-tarik-skubal-commits-pitch-team-usa-2026-wbc-amid-mlb-trade-rumors

I'm scheduled to go to the USA vs Mexico game in Houston on March 10. Fingers crossed it's a Skubal or Skenes game ...

[AlaskanTigersFan]

Now he's pitching more before the trade deadline?! Oof. More risk.......  Moo to the Moo yo. 

[Tigeraholic1]

6 minutes ago, AlaskanTigersFan said:

Now he's pitching more before the trade deadline?! Oof. More risk.......  Moo to the Moo yo. 

Imagine he gets hurt playing in the Olympics? Such a Detroit thing to happen.

[CaliforniaDreaming]

13 minutes ago, Tigeraholic1 said:

Imagine he gets hurt playing in the Olympics? Such a Detroit thing to happen.

That would mean the Tigers signed him since the next summer Olympics is in 2028. Bold prediction!

[Tigeraholic1]

5 minutes ago, CaliforniaDreaming said:

That would mean the Tigers signed him since the next summer Olympics is in 2028. Bold prediction!

LOL you got me!

[Shelton]

20 hours ago, gehringer_2 said:

I don't believe this is objectively true. The stars of the NFL are mostly the QBs and teams are very successful keeping their star QBs - at least until they are no longer wanted! It does make it harder to keep a lot of expensive players, but that's what drives parity. But any NFL team has an equal shot at signing their most important player, and that is not true in baseball.

I don’t believe this is objectively true. Who are the most importantly players that were not able to be signed by their team?

The Angels could have signed Shohei. They did sign Trout. The tigers can sign Skubal. They did sign Cabrera and Verlander. The padres/nationals/yankees could have signed Soto. They did sign tatis, and even cronineworth (lol). The brewers could have signed Burnes.   The cubs could sign Tucker. The Astros could have, too. Even the rays and A’s could do so if they weren’t content to continue sucking off the teat of public money and revenue sharing. Even the pirates will be able to sign skenes if they choose to.

Whether a team chooses to or not is a different question. Similarly, whether a player himself chooses to stay or decides to move to the coast is a different question.

Baseball does seem weirdly unique in that their executives seem hell bent on winning some sort of efficiency challenge or playing the game on hard mode. Scott Harris could flip the switch to easy mode and just sign Alex Bergman and be done with the offseason and starting printing the mobile-only digital playoff tickets. But that might cut into wenceel’s playing time. 
 

At any rate, its extremely hard to compare because the two leagues share very little in common. 

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Shelton said:

At any rate, its extremely hard to compare because the two leagues share very little in common. 

and one of the things they do not share is that NFL teams hold their QB and mid market team baseball teams don't hold their stars. You can argue it's by choice, but when a significant percentage of baseball owners make the same choice and it turns out they are all pretty much in the same income tier, then calling it a 'choice' instead of a recognition of reality is... generous. 

[Shelton]

21 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

and one of the things they do not share is that NFL teams hold their QB and mid market team baseball teams don't hold their stars. You can argue it's by choice, but when a significant percentage of baseball owners make the same choice and it turns out they are all pretty much in the same income tier, then calling it a 'choice' instead of a recognition of reality is... generous. 

Nah, the difference is that from a competitive standpoint it typically doesn’t pay to sign baseball stars on the downside of their career, which is not the same as keeping your franchise QB. 
 

This conversation arose out of the cap discussion. The NFL cap is fake. The baseball luxury tax cap is also fake. The teams operating below the tax threshold are also more than flush with cash and could spend if it made sense. NFL teams let guys walk, too. 
 

We can agree to disagree here, but I think in all but a few self-inflicted cases the decisions to let players leave in baseball is not due to an inability to pay them and still make loads of money. 
 

And the next time an NFL team has to let a player walk due to cap concerns will be a first. 

[casimir]

20 hours ago, 1984Echoes said:

That's an interesting idea casimir...

But could you please keep that under your helmet?

I'm not certain the world is ready for this kind of thinking...

I’m not wearing a helmet.  Too cold to go bicycling.

[chasfh]

21 minutes ago, Shelton said:

Nah, the difference is that from a competitive standpoint it typically doesn’t pay to sign baseball stars on the downside of their career, which is not the same as keeping your franchise QB. 
 

This conversation arose out of the cap discussion. The NFL cap is fake. The baseball luxury tax cap is also fake. The teams operating below the tax threshold are also more than flush with cash and could spend if it made sense. NFL teams let guys walk, too. 
 

We can agree to disagree here, but I think in all but a few self-inflicted cases the decisions to let players leave in baseball is not due to an inability to pay them and still make loads of money. 
 

And the next time an NFL team has to let a player walk due to cap concerns will be a first. 

I do sometimes wonder whether the Playing Poor routine does help spike franchise valuations more, since making oodles of money while doing basically nothing to compete, even when fielding 90+-loss teams year after year, does seem like a pretty sweet deal that a lot of billionaires who don't care for sports, as well as PE firms, would love to sink their teeth into.

I haven't thought all that deeply about it—yet—so I don't have six paragraphs to devote to it here—yet. 😁

[Arlington]

On 12/16/2025 at 4:19 PM, Sports_Freak said:

The last 2 season, the Tigers are a .500 club in non-Skubal starts. So go ahead and trade him, maybe we'll find another Cy Young Aeard winning pitcher...in 20 years. /s

I think you can say that about nearly every team's ace.  For example, take away Mize' 28 starts (18-10) in 2025 and the Tigers were 65 - 61, a .514 team.  Take away Skubal and MIze (2027) and the Tiger would be what? Colorado?

[gehringer_2]

52 minutes ago, Shelton said:

This conversation arose out of the cap discussion. The NFL cap is fake.

we can agree to disagree but I'm really curious as to what sense in which you think this is true. The NFL cap is $279M and every team is below it and the team furthest from the cap is $50M away, which is also drastically smaller range than across MLB teams.

[Stormin]

1 hour ago, Arlington said:

I think you can say that about nearly every team's ace.  For example, take away Mize' 28 starts (18-10) in 2025 and the Tigers were 65 - 61, a .514 team.  Take away Skubal and MIze (2027) and the Tiger would be what? Colorado?

1972 Phillies were (29-13) when Steve Carlton pitched and (30-84) when he didn't.

1974 Tigers were (37-22) when John Hiller pitched and (35-68) when he didn't.   Hiller had a (17-14) W L record, was 13 for 13 on save opportunities,  pitched anywhere from 0.1 to 7.2 innings in a game on his way to accumulating 150 innings.

Sorry for being a stat geek.  Couldn't help myself.

[gehringer_2]

1 hour ago, Arlington said:

I think you can say that about nearly every team's ace.  For example, take away Mize' 28 starts (18-10) in 2025 and the Tigers were 65 - 61, a .514 team.  Take away Skubal and MIze (2027) and the Tiger would be what? Colorado?

right. Any team that loses it's best pitcher is likely to get a lot worse, depending how bad the pitchers that work those innings in his place turn out to be. Given that the depth off the end of the Tigers rotation is hardly stellar right now, that means the Tigers would probably take as bad a hit as any team from losing a Skubal. But of course the fact that it's true of any team doesn't make it any less true for the Tigers.