Contract extension prediction for Tarik Skubal seems incredibly low for Tigers

If the Tigers know what's good for them, they should be doing anything they can to lock Tarik Skubal up right now. His rare falter in Game 5 of the ALDS aside, the Tigers haven't had a pitcher like this since Justin Verlander. Skubal's the only piece of the 2025 rotation whose future is absolutely assured (aside from perhaps Reese Olson), and he's the kind of guy who the Tigers will want to build around as they head into the offseason with a lot more room in the budget for high-end starters.

Skubal is in his second year of arbitration eligibility and should be expecting a massive pay hike from the $2.65 million he and the Tigers agreed on last year. There are varying estimations of exactly how much it'll be, but a number upwards of $10 million wouldn't be shocking.

But the Tigers could also cut through all of the arbitration-related noise and get straight down to business by offering Skubal an extension that includes his remaining two years of team control. He's only 27 years old and has, quite literally, just been getting better with age.

Bleacher Report took a shot at contract extension predictions for some of the biggest stars in the game this year. For Skubal, they predicted six years and $142 million, or $23.67 million a year, which seems a little too low for a future Cy Young winner (and his infamously hard-headed agent Scott Boras) to accept.

Bleacher Report predicts six years, $142 million in a contract extension for Tigers' Tarik Skubal

The last time the Tigers handed out a big extension to a pitcher, it was to Verlander in 2013, when he got seven more years and $180 million, or around $244 million total ($34.9 million per year) in 2024 dollars. We're not suggesting that Skubal should make quite that much — given that Verlander had a lot more years with the Tigers, a Rookie of the Year award, six All-Star appearances, a Cy Young, and an MVP award when he got that extension — but we can also take a look at pitchers who made around B/R's proposed salary this year.

Zach Wheeler, Patrick Corbin, and Robbie Ray all made around $23 million this season. Wheeler is a bit of an outlier with his 200-inning, 2.57 ERA in 2024, but there's no reason that Skubal should be making around the same amount of money as Corbin and Ray. It wouldn't feel out of the realm of possibility to say that Skubal could make Carlos Rodón/Tyler Glasnow money (around $27 million in 2024). Although an extension worth that much off the bat would probably include depreciating value as Skubal gets older; $27 million for at least the first two years would be nothing to sneeze at.

The Tigers front office has more money to work with this offseason, and while the addition of new free agents in the offseason will be huge, they should also budget some of that for at least an initial extension offering to Skubal. Boras famously doesn't like extensions, but the Tigers have better do everything they can to try to keep him in Detroit.