Detroit Tigers: 3 potential Tarik Skubal trades

The Detroit Tigers are willing to trade Tarik Skubal

Trade rumors have been circulating on Twitter for a few weeks now, but Tuesday afternoon brought confirmation the Detroit Tigers are in fact willing to trade their best (only?) starting pitcher, Tarik Skubal. Ken Rosenthal dropped the bomb on Twitter:

The article ($) goes on to explain these rumors are coming from other teams, who report the Tigers have made almost everyone on the team available. This is most likely just the Detroit Tigers doing their due diligence to see if someone blows them away with a deal, and we put this one firmly in the “Believe it When We See it” bucket.

But the rumors are out there now, so we might as well look at what the Detroit Tigers could potentially get in a Tarik Skubal trade. It’s harder than it seems.

We can do the usual WAR-related projections and arbitration guesses, but Skubal’s current three-year ZiPS (approximately 6 WAR) doesn’t capture his improvement this year. He’s not the same pitcher he was through last season, having traded a small amount of strikeouts for an increase in ground balls and a huge, game-changing drop in home runs.

What about recent real-world examples? Well, that’s tough too. Skubal is 25, with 294 career innings, a 2.98 FIP and 24.7% strikeout rate this year, and four-plus years of team control remaining. He’s really good, and there are reasons we put the odds of him being traded at just 5%.

We found some examples of teams trading struggling young pitchers with that much team control remaining (Nick Pivetta), and even some examples of teams trading young successful pitchers (Michael Pineda, Alex Wood, Travis Wood).

But we could only find two trades involving pitchers with the same mix of early performance, front-line potential, and team control as Tarik Skubal. Both happened more than a decade ago.

Detroit Tigers fans might remember the Max Scherzer trade. It was a three-team deal, which makes it a bit harder to drill down what Scherzer’s actual value was. But that Mat Latos trade?

Mat Latos – December 17, 2011: Traded by the San Diego Padres to the Cincinnati Reds for Yonder Alonso, Brad Boxberger, Yasmani Grandal and Edinson Volquez.

That’s probably the kind of return the Detroit Tigers are looking for. Is it realistic? Probably not…but then it wasn’t really realistic at the time, either.

• Yonder Alonso was Cincinnati’s first-round pick in 2008 (7th overall), and at the time he was 24 with an .833 OPS through 69 career big-league games. He was a top-50 prospect.
• Brad Boxberger was the Reds’ supplemental first-round pick in 2009 (43rd overall) and at the time he was 23, having just compiled a 2.03 ERA with10 saves and 93 strikeouts against 28 walks in 62 innings between Double-A and Triple-A.
• Yasmani Grandal was Cincinnati’s first rounder in 2010 (12th overall) and at the time he was 22, coming off a season in which he made it to Triple-A and batted .305 with 14 home runs while catching 90 games. He was a top-100 prospect.
• Edinson Volquez was a 28-year-old former All-Star whose plus stuff was hampered by poor control. He was a back-end starter, but he started for San Diego’s on opening day in both 2011 and 2012.

That’s a massive haul. Two top-100 prospects, a MLB-ready high-leverage reliever, and a veteran back-of-the-rotation arm. Now that we have some idea what the Tigers might be looking for, let’s make some fake trades.

Detroit Tigers Tarik Skubal Trade Partner: The Los Angeles Dodgers

Do the Dodgers need Tarik Skubal? No, not really. They have a top-five pitching staff this year, even with Walker Buehler and Andrew Heaney and Dustin May injured. But then they didn’t really need Mookie Betts when they acquired him, and they didn’t really need Max Scherzer and Trea Turner last year. They are a good team, and they like to get better whenever possible. Tarik Skubal would make them better, and so would Michael Fulmer.

The Dodgers lost Daniel Hudson for the year, so Fulmer would help pad out their bullpen a bit. Meanwhile, in Miguel Vargas and Michael Busch the Tigers get a pair of gifted hitters with limitation-driven defensive versatility. Vargas is 22 and a career .311 hitter over 386 minor-league games, and he’s done that while maintaining a strikeout rate of 15% and a walk rate of 10%. As a hitter he’s reminiscent of the good version of Jeimer Candelario, working the gaps and probably topping out around 20 home runs per season. He is primarily a third baseman, but he’s also seen time at first base, second base, and left field.

Michael Busch is a little reminiscent of current Dodgers second baseman Max Muncy. He has more raw power than Vargas, but he figures to hit for a lower average while maintaining high walk and strikeout rates. He’s a bit stretched defensively at second base, but can also play first base and an outfield corner. Gavin Stone was L.A.’s 5th-round pick in 2020, and he has taken off in the Dodgers’ player development machine, looking like a potential mid-rotation starter. Nick Robertson is a tall reliever with a big fastball and two secondary offerings that show promise.

Detroit Tigers Tarik Skubal Trade Partner: The Seattle Mariners

Seattle has one thing teams always look for in a trade partner: desperation. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2001, and they fell agonizingly short of the postseason last year. Their red-hot July (17-4) has them in strong position to make it this year, but they could use a few upgrades as they try to secure their spot. Robbie Ray is pitching well after a rough start to the year, and Logan Gilbert has taking a big step forward this season. But the rest of the rotation is a bit light, and everyone can use bullpen help. Let’s make a deal:

Tarik Skubal isn’t from Seattle, but he spent four years there in college, so this would be something of a homecoming for him. The Mariners have handled left-handed batters pretty well this year, but they didn’t have any high-leverage left-handed relievers, so they traded for Ryan Borucki last month. Andrew Chafin would give them another reliable bullpen arm for at least this season.

From the Tigers perspective this is a deal with huge risks, but also plenty of potential reward. Jarred Kelenic was a top-ten prospect in baseball, but he has stumbled spectacularly in his two stints in the big leagues. He once seemed like an untouchable part of Seattle’s future, but with Julio Rodriguez looking the part of a future superstar, Kelenic now feels a bit like yesterday’s news.

Noelvi Marte came into the season as a top-20 prospect in baseball, but his prospect status slipped a bit as he struggled in the first half of the season. He’s been very error-prone as a shortstop, so he may have to move positions, but he’s a 20-year-old with big-time power and a solid approach at the plate, and he’s hitting .356/.447/.712 with seven home runs in July.

Emerson Hancock was a big name heading into the 2020 draft, when Seattle took him 6th overall, but he’s thrown just over 90 innings in professional baseball. He’s had shoulder troubles, and he looked a little reliever-ish at the Futures Game, but he also struck out all three batters he faced, and he still has mid-rotation upside. Marco Gonzales isn’t very good, but he’s a reliable veteran who has posted an ERA of 4.00 or better in each of the last five seasons. He’s under contract for the next two years for a total cost of $18.5 million, so the Tigers would be freeing a bit of money for the Mariners while finding someone to eat innings as they continue wandering the baseball desert.