Tarik Skubal’s WBC drama has Tigers winning long-term PR battle

After a whole lot of unnecessary, Lebron James-esque ado about making a decision on whether or not to stay with Team USA and keep competing in the World Baseball Classic, Tarik Skubal told reporters on Monday afternoon that he would indeed be returning to Tigers spring training in Lakeland, as initially planned.

The outrage that's followed shouldn't be surprising, but somehow it still is. It's from the same family as the outrage over the initial news that he would only pitch one start — and against Great Britain, of all teams — but dialed up a couple of notches.

Tigers fans are or should be mostly relieved that Skubal is prioritizing his team (you know ... the people who are paying him) over a tournament with no bearing on the actual major league season, but everyone else is wondering why he didn't just say no in the first place, and why he had to make such a big deal about his decision to stay or go.

There's some merit to that. Team USA beat Great Britain 9-1, and they would've been able to do that even without Skubal. The waffling only to end up in the same place made it even worse.

Skubal and agent Scott Boras have been treading very carefully in the run-up to this season, knowing that his sure-to-be record-breaking free agency is just around the corner.

Tarik Skubal's decision to return to Tigers spring training after one WBC start led to exhausting (but not surprising) discourse

It hasn't really helped Skubal that USA co-ace Paul Skenes has been playing this perfectly, from a PR standpoint. Skenes spent a year at the Air Force Academy before transferring to Louisiana State and has said he would be interested in going back to the military after his playing career wraps up. He's the poster boy of patriotism in this year's tournament.

Skubal has since spoken about how agonizing the decision was, said he couldn't sleep for two days as he mulled it over, and that he talked to everyone from Boras to Justin Verlander to AJ Hinch to come to a decision.

All of that is falling on deaf ears. Baseball fans (not Tigers fans) are seeing a guy who didn't have it in him to represent his country when the stakes were highest.

Ignoring for a moment that the WBC does not matter in the grand scheme of things, especially when Skubal is about to go into a walk year when he could very well raise his asking price above the $400 million mark, this whole situation was just handled very poorly.

Sure, everyone will forget about it if/when Skubal wins his third consecutive AL Cy Young or otherwise does something miraculous during the regular season. But right now, he's not making himself look very good.