Jeff Passan says the Tigers are going to trade Tarik Skubal, and the sourcing underneath that report is the real story: rival executives keep telling him Detroit wants to do this, not that it has to.
That framing came straight from Passan, not a source’s paraphrase filtered through someone else’s spin. He told SportsCenter late Wednesday that Detroit expects to start engaging with interested teams within a day or two, a report that landed hours after what looked like Skubal’s final start in a Tigers uniform — a start Detroit blew, coughing up a 7-0 lead and losing to Baltimore in 12 innings. He’d already laid out the framing himself a day earlier, in his own words, on his own show.
https://twitter.com/JeffPassan/status/2082122832050319807
“Want to” is not “have to,” and Detroit’s front office knows the difference better than anyone.
This was never about payroll. Skubal is a two-time reigning AL Cy Young winner still under team control for the rest of this season, so Detroit isn’t dumping salary it can’t carry. There’s no extension on the table, Skubal has confirmed as much himself, and the $400 million payday rival evaluators are already projecting for him next winter is a Detroit problem only because ownership decided it would be. He’s also been sharper since coming back from elbow surgery than before he left, running a 2.70 ERA with 65 strikeouts over 46.2 innings since his June 13 return.
The record gives the rebuild story some cover.
The Tigers sit at 51-58, four and a half games back of the final AL Wild Card spot. That’s a real number, and I’m not pretending it isn’t. But a team four and a half back with two months left is a team making a choice, not a team out of them.
The suitor list backs that choice up. The Dodgers and the Brewers keep coming up as the two clubs with the prospect depth to actually get a deal done, even with the Phillies, Braves and Rays among the other landing spots still lurking on the fringes. Whatever comes back is what Detroit should be demanding before anyone buys the asset-management version of this story over the surrender-flag one.
Not everyone in Passan’s own building agrees with him. ESPN colleague Jesse Rogers has argued the Tigers, and some rivals, still believe Detroit can win the AL Central, which would make trading its ace during a race it thinks it can win a genuinely strange call for a front office to make out loud.
I’ve been doing freelance-rate math on stories since $50 a piece was my going rate, and even by that broke-Northwestern-grad standard, a Cy Young winner outpitching his own recovery timeline isn’t what you sell if you actually believe the season’s alive. It’s what you sell once you’ve already decided it isn’t.
Detroit gets to pick a lane before Monday’s deadline. Whichever one it is, own it.
