Tigers fans laughing at Guardians over Cy Young debate after Emmanuel Clase news

Detroit Tigers fans didn’t need much of an excuse to log back on and start printing receipts, but the Emmanuel Clase indictment gift-wrapped one. A year ago, a corner of Guardians Twitter and a few loud voices in Cleveland sports radio tried to turn a historic Tarik Skubal season into a “yeah, but Clase” debate.

It was mildly annoying then. In light of federal prosecutors now alleging Clase took money to help rig pitch outcomes for bettors, it’s aged like week-old gas station sushi. The Cy Young argument is over. The integrity argument might be, too.

For Tigers fans who watched Skubal drag Detroit back into relevance, this isn’t about victory laps — it’s vindication. They were told their ace’s Triple Crown run somehow needed to share a stage with a reliever who threw barely a third of his workload. They were told questioning that logic meant “hating relievers” or “not understanding value.” Now? The same reliever at the center of that discourse is facing charges that, if proven, nuke his credibility and almost certainly his MLB future.

Detroit fans didn’t forget who questioned Tarik Skubal’s crown, and the latest Emmanuel Clase twist has them reopening the files

Strip away the noise and Skubal’s case was airtight even before all this. In 2024 he went 18–4 with a 2.39 ERA, racked up 228 strikeouts in 192 innings, and led the American League in wins, ERA and strikeouts — a clean pitching Triple Crown. He was the anchor of the Tigers’ staff and the unanimous choice on every single one of the 30 Cy Young ballots.

Clase, to his credit, was ridiculous within his lane in 2024: 47 saves, a 0.61 ERA, a 0.66 WHIP, which were cartoon numbers over 74 1/3 innings. That performance absolutely deserved love, and he got it, finishing third in the Cy Young voting, the best showing for a reliever since Francisco Rodríguez’s 2008 push. 

But that was always the crux of the conversation: 74 innings of near-perfection at the back end versus a true horse erasing lineups for nearly 200. You don’t need a PhD in fWAR to see where the value tilts. Putting Clase over Skubal meant ignoring workload, historical precedent, and the basic job description of a starting ace.

Then came the cracks. Clase’s brutal October, where he coughed up multiple big postseason moments, became retroactive ammunition for Tigers fans who’d spent months being told their guy somehow wasn’t dominant enough.

And now, the real bombshell: a federal indictment unsealed in November 2025 alleging Clase and teammate Luis Ortiz accepted thousands from bettors in the Dominican Republic to influence specific pitch outcomes, part of a scheme that allegedly helped gamblers win hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

So yeah, Tigers fans are laughing, and you can’t really blame them. What was framed as a serious “Clase vs. Skubal” discourse now reads like a case study in overthinking, homerism, and ignoring the value of 32 turns through the rotation. Skubal didn’t just out-pitch Clase; he outlasted every contrived argument against him by doing the one thing awards like the Cy Young are supposed to honor: show up, dominate, and carry a franchise without caveats. 

In the end, the story here is bigger than ratio screenshots and rivalry fodder. It’s a reminder that innings matter, context matters, and now, more than ever, trust matters. Tigers fans get to keep their unanimous Cy Young, their Triple Crown narrative, and their receipts, all while watching the “Clase for Cy Young” take evaporate under the weight of something far more serious than a bad ballot.