Tarik Skubal's loaded injury admission isn't going to sit well with Tigers fans

Tarik Skubal's legacy as a Tiger is already complicated even though he's still on the team. Whether or not he ends up leaving via trade or free agency, Tigers fans are inevitably going to disagree about him and his impact on the club for a long time to come. We already are.

It feels fair to say that Tigers fans, even those who want to see Skubal finish out the year in Detroit, have kind of fallen out of love with our two-time Cy Young winner. It's been a slow divorce, and we all fall on a different point of the sadness-anger-resignation cycle depending on the day.

Even those of us who don't want to be mad at Skubal — who believe that he's well within his right to ask for what he's worth in arbitration and free agency, or believe that the Tigers are better off with him as long as they can have him (seriously, how is that even an argument?) — can acknowledge that he's occasionally made it a little difficult.

His latest admission about the elbow issue that eventually led to surgery is one of those things that makes standing by him hard. Per Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic, Skubal acknowledged something wasn't quite right with his elbow as early as January.

"If I could go back, I probably should have got an MRI in January and hammered it out to where I was done with it in the offseason," he said. "But there were also other factors in play. I was going through arbitration. The decision by the organization to take me to court, I think that probably had some impact subconsciously."

Yeah, that's not going to play with a lot of fans — and honestly, it shouldn't.

Tarik Skubal reveals he knew something was wrong with his elbow as early as January

There's a lot to unpack here, but we'll start with the obvious. Skubal knew something was wrong but didn't even think to mention it? He knew about it so early that he plausibly could've undergone the same NanoNeedle procedure and recovered in time to be ready for Opening Day? That's pretty indefensible.

And then there's the other part: arbitration. Skubal seems to be suggesting that he didn't disclose discomfort to prove a point to the organization and to protect his financial interests. That makes the whole thing even worse.

There are still Tigers fans who desperately want to assume the best of Skubal. He's the most talented pitcher Detroit has produced since Justin Verlander, who arguably didn't even reach the height of his powers until he was pitching for a different organization. He means a lot to the team and to the city.

But all of Skubal's reported insistence about wanting to stay in Detroit for the rest of the season, no matter what, falls flatter knowing this. He wants to project loyalty and a team-first mentality, but only after sacrificing a month of his season to cash in after an arbitration hearing?

Yeah, that's a tough pill for fans to swallow.

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