Detroit Tigers Roster Preview: Can Tarik Skubal Breakthrough?

The Detroit Tigers are looking to exit their years-long rebuild. To do so, some among the group of top prospects will need to leave their prospect status behind and emerge as quality big league players. Tarik Skubal, the number 3 prospect in the system per MCB, is in a position to be the first among the prospects to accomplish this. Is Skubal ready to take a large step forward and show he can be a rotation anchor? The answer to that question may be found during the 2021 season.

Tarik Skubal’s Contract Status with the Detroit Tigers

Skubal accrued 0.114 years of service time during the 2020 season. He has all three options remaining and will not be a free agent until 2027.

Tarik Skubal’s Game

It clearly starts with the fastball. A plus (if not better) pitch which Skubal used almost 60% of the time during his debut season and it’s easy to see why he is so confident in the pitch. Skubal’s fastball averaged 94.4 MPH and had an average spin rate of 2422, placing it in the 82nd percentile in all of baseball. The pitch also shows an aggressive movement profile generating 2% more vertical break and a whopping 67% more horizontal break than the average fastball. Add together the velocity and the movement and it’s easy to see why the pitch has been quite effective at missing bats.

The rest of Skubal’s arsenal includes a slider, curveball, and changeup. Each pitch has the potential to be at least average with the slider being easily the best of the group and oftentimes given plus grades. This spring has seen Skubal debut a new splitter which apparently he has learned (at least to an extent) from Casey Mize (he of the 70-grade split). The early returns have been positive and it appears to potentially be another weapon but it’s too soon to tell.

During his major league debut, Skubal continued his minor league trend of missing bats with a strike-out percentage of 27.6%. So, as indicated above the overall quality of his stuff was evident. The quality of his stuff lies in contrast to his overall performance, however,  Let’s start by saying, it’s important to remember we are looking at a 32 inning sample size for a pitcher getting their first taste of big-league action.

With that said, Skubal’s FIP last season was 5.75 so the results were not the most impressive. What was the biggest culprit in the variance between stuff and performance? Skubal gave up quite a bit of hard contact last season. His HardHit% ranked him in the 36th percentile and the approximately 2.5 home runs per nine are elevated as well. There were concerns that his command (ability to locate pitches within the strike zone) lagged behind his stuff throughout the minors and this appears to have been an issue in 2020. Skubal will need to be more precise in the zone going forward to reduce the hard contact and allow his clear ability to shine.

ZIPS Projection

ZiPS sees a step forward for Skubal in 2021 however not the giant leap many Tiger’s fans are wishing will happen. In 24 starts (25 games) they predict 110.0 innings with a strong 119 strikeouts and respectable 44 walks. Overall, they see a 4.90 FIP producing a WAR of 1.0.

MCB Take on Tarik Skubal

Skubal has been the best of the Tiger’s prospects this spring and has likely gained the upper hand in the battle for one of the rotation slots. The sample is incredibly small at the time of this preview but there is no question the five innings Skubal has thrown have been impressive. Two hits, no walks, and six strikeouts with the same electric stuff as last year (plus a new splitter) is a positive sign he is ready for a permanent spot in the rotation.

It will be interesting to follow Skubal’s next couple of outings as he likely gets some additional innings in each outing for us to evaluate his overall readiness. I expect him to perform well during the rest of Spring Training and even outperform the ZIPS projections above for the season as a whole. It would not surprise me if the answer to, “Is Skubal ready to take a large step forward and show he can be a rotation anchor?” is a resounding, yes, by year’s end.