How does Blake Snell's Dodgers contract affect Tigers' offseason (and Tarik Skubal)?

The Detroit Tigers have some work to do this offseason and appear as though they could at least be mildly active coming off a surprise postseason run. However, like every team outside of the Angels apparently, the Tigers appeared to be waiting for the first domino to fall in the market.

Well, that seems to have happened with the Los Angeles Dodgers signing Blake Snell late Tuesday night to the shock of many.

LA spending obscene amounts of money is hardly news (and is frankly annoying) to the rest of the league at this point. However, the terms of Snell's five year, $182 million deal, it will have significant impacts on not only the free agent market that Detroit will hopefully meaningful participate in, but also on the future of Tarik Skubal with the Tigers.

Blake Snell Contract: Dodgers agreement to affect Detroit Tigers in big way

While the Tigers would love to add a right-handed bat like Alex Bregman this offseason, their list of offseason needs probably has to begin with starting pitching. Detroit making that crazy run to the playoffs on the back of a ton of bullpen games was wild to watch, but probably isn't sustainable long-term, so adding a rotation arm (or two or three) should be a priority.

There's been little indication that the Tigers have been involved in the starting pitching market so far. With Snell getting paid, impact starters are going to begin to get scooped up in the lead-up to the Winter Meetings. Unless Detroit acts decisively in the coming days and weeks, they might have to settle for shopping for arms in the bargain bin again.

As for Skubal, Snell's deal creates a starting point of sorts for any future talks with the Tigers (or any other team for that matter). Snell is the more accomplished pitcher for the moments, but that could change over the next couple of years with Detroit's team control of Skubal, who just won his first Cy Young award. Both players are lefties which helps with the comparison, but Skubal will be a couple years younger by the time he is a free agent.

Given that Scott Boras represents both players here, it fair to assume that he values Skubal a little bit more than Snell in extension talks. If that's true and the Tigers' first extension offer was as bad as has been reported, one wonders if the gap will ever be closed between the two sides, especially now that the market for Cy Young-winning lefties has been very clearly established, for better or worse.

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