Clock is ticking for Tigers to get on Scott Boras' good side with Tarik Skubal

If the Tigers are actually still trying to extend Tarik Skubal (and god knows they should be), there's going to be a key figure in those negotiations who'll be even harder to impress than the player himself: Scott Boras.

Pick any major star in baseball; there's at least a 50% chance they're represented by Boras. He's at Winter Meetings this year, attracting huge crowds to his media scrum, representing free agent Cody Bellinger, Alex Bregman, Pete Alonso, Ranger Suárez, Tatsuya Imai, and Kazuma Okamoto ... and that's not even all of them.

Boras is bullish when it comes to his clients and doesn't usually advise agreeing to extensions, but he's remained open to the idea when it comes to Skubal and the Tigers. Back in November, he said, "Our point of view is we always listen. We're prepared to listen to about anything that Chris [Ilitch] or really Scott [Harris] has to say. We'll just see how it goes."

At the Winter Meetings, after a parade of terrible Skubal puns (Boras is very fond of a pun), he said that he hasn't set a deadline for the Tigers to come forward with an offer. Boras reiterated that he and Skubal are willing to listen, and added, "That's up to Tarik as to how he wants to handle that. I have not discussed anything like that with him, but certainly at this point, my instructions are to listen to anything that they have to say."

That's not going to last forever, though.

Scott Boras said Tigers aren't on the clock to offer a new contract extension to Tarik Skubal ... yet

Skubal wants to be a Tiger for a long time. He said those exact words himself. But who could really blame him for leaving in free agency next year if the Tigers aren't willing to pay him what he's worth? He could make five times their last known offer — $80 million over four years, presented before he won his first Cy Young — as a free agent, and Detroit shouldn't expect to get a hometown discount when Skubal sits on a Players Association subcommittee.

And that's saying nothing about the possibility that Skubal gets traded this offseason. The overwhelming opinion from insiders is that he stays put, but Harris hasn't done anything to quiet the rumors. If anything, he's only exacerbated them by saying that no player at any level is untouchable.

If he stays, and if the Tigers are in a good enough spot by the trade deadline to not even think about dealing him then, it's Detroit on the hot seat. If they give Skubal the most competitive possible offer but are still outbid, fans can make their peace with that eventually. If they don't even try, or Boras imposes a deadline that they're not able to come through by, there might be hell to pay.