Detroit Tigers: Tarik Skubal should be untouchable

Trading Tarik Skubal would be admitting to Detroit Tigers fans that the rebuild failed

The Detroit Tigers have finally found their ace in Tarik Skubal. Yes, he has struggled in his last three outings, but he’s still the best and only healthy starting pitcher left from their Opening Day roster. So naturally they should trade him, right?

I’m so sick of this mentality. “He’s a good player on a bad team, so clearly he must be traded.” No. Stop it. We’ve been doing this for five years now, and look how far it’s gotten us.

One of the prospects the Detroit Tigers have been wanting to build around all this time has panned out, so now they should trade him? Give me a break.

I’m not even going to link to the tweet that prompted this article. Chances are you’ve probably already seen it and I don’t want to give that person any more attention.

The premise of the tweet was that the Detroit Tigers should trade Tarik Skubal this offseason in order to acquire more bats. It’s no secret that the Tigers need bats in the worst way, but this ain’t it. You can’t fill a hole by creating another.

If you keep selling off players on the major league roster for prospects, the rebuild will never end. Instead, they need to start trading prospects for major league talent. Start dipping into that pitching depth in order to acquire bats for the big league roster.

In that same tweet, this person suggests the Tigers trade Gregory Soto at the trade deadline. That, I can get behind. The Tigers have depth in the bullpen for the first time in forever. Despite his wildness, Soto is an arm that many contending teams would love to have in the backend of their bullpens.

Bullpen arms are always overvalued at the deadline as well. The Tigers got Reese Olson last year for two bad months of Daniel Norris. Soto is not a free agent until 2026. He could fetch a pretty penny, especially if you package a couple of other prospects with him.

This isn’t a Michael Fulmer or Matthew Boyd situation. The Tigers aren’t rebuilding anymore. Yes, they probably should have traded both of those guys (and there’s still time to trade Fulmer!), but this is not the same scenario.

Skubal is not trade bait. They should be building around him, not shipping him off for parts. After all, wasn’t that the goal all along? To build around the pitching prospects?

Trading Tarik Skubal would set this team back even further. Unless a team gets super greedy and offers something absolutely absurd for him (say the Angels offer Shohei Ohtani or the Nationals offer Juan Soto), which would never happen, Tarik Skubal should be untouchable.