Tarik Skubal said the Detroit Tigers cannot drift much longer without inviting a roster rethink at the Aug. 3 trade deadline. If the team keeps sliding, he said the front office could decide the current group is not built for the World Series or a playoff run.
"The reality is we need to play better baseball or else, come the deadline, you give the front office an option to reassess where this team is. And if they don't think what we have is a World Series- or playoff-caliber team, then the whole team is going to look different. That's just the nature of the beast." He also said, "I don't think about it a lot," even as the deadline chatter around his own future grows louder.
Tarik Skubal and the deadline
Tarik Skubal Starts White Sox Vs Tigers Opener at Comerica Park is the kind of reminder that his present value and future value are tied to the same jersey. He returned from the injured list on June 13 after elbow surgery six weeks earlier, then threw 4.2 innings in a 3-1 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
That outing came after he had already become one of the most difficult choices on the roster. Skubal is under contract through the rest of this season before free agency, and he is the reigning two-time AL Cy Young winner with a 2.81 ERA and 49 strikeouts in 48.0 innings.
The Tigers at 30-44
The Tigers entered play on Friday at 30-44, nine games out of first place in the AL Central and 6.5 games out of a wild card spot. They had scored 301 runs in 74 games, the fifth-fewest runs in MLB, so the club’s margin for error is already thin.
That is why Skubal’s warning lands now, six weeks before the Aug. 3 deadline. If the Tigers close that gap, the roster stays pointed at the season; if they do not, the deadline becomes a referendum on whether the current group is worth preserving or whether the team starts to look different fast.
Skubal said, "I try not to let that consume me because I need to worry about what I'm doing today.... But there's also the reality part to it. Everybody, the whole room, needs to focus on winningtonight's game, winning a series, winning the next series and just let it snowball." That is the narrow path in front of the Tigers: win enough to change the deadline conversation, or spend the next few weeks with their best arm sitting at the center of it.
