ESPN’s Tigers-Tarik Skubal update just reinforces this is a losing game for Detroit

Sick of hearing the name Tarik Skubal yet? Well, you might want to just stay off the internet for the rest of the offseason. Sorry, Tigers fans, but the Skubal carrot will continue to dangle in front of our faces as long as he’s a free agent.

The ace free agent will draw quite the offer sheet this offseason as he fields offers from pretty much any team looking to upgrade their rotation.

Actually, at the price he’s looking for, the offers might be limited.

And Scott Harris and the Tigers are playing a losing game, per a free agent update from ESPN.

Per Kiley McDaniel, the Tigers are one of seven teams expected to be in the Skubal sweepstakes this offseason. What makes the update concerning is the fact that the Tigers are going to wait for something that will never come: a discounted rate.

McDaniel said that the usual suspects are at the front of the line — Dodgers and Mets — while other teams are feeling things out and the Tigers are in the mix but they’re waiting for a discount. That’s pretty comical considering they tried to get a discounted price when Skubal was still in Detroit last offseason and his price has only increased since then.

Waiting for a discount from a pitcher who’s expecting somewhere in the ballpark of $350 million on a long-term contract is just not going to happen. This is a losing game.

That’s okay, because now the Tigers can allocate their resources elsewhere. Harris needs to move on, because Skubal isn’t going to give him a discount no matter how good he feels the ace’s relationship with the Tigers is.

We can all probably move on now.

The Tigers were never going to have a real shot

Anyone who knows anything about Chris Ilitch and the Tigers knows that they weren’t going to spend big money on a top free agent like Skubal. They didn’t get a deal done last offseason, which is why he was dealt at the deadline. There’s next to no chance that they spend $300 million+ on arguably the best pitcher in baseball.

The Dodgers, Mets, and Yankees were always going to be the favorites to land him because they spend boatloads of money, but now that the Angels, Padres, and White Sox, too, are apparently getting into the mix, there’s next to no chance that the Tigers are going to outbid everyone.

Detroit needs to focus on adding a veteran bat or two and padding the rotation with a top-of-the-rotation starter or two. There’s better ways to spend millions of dollars than on an ace that showed that he didn’t want to be in Detroit.

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