Tigers' official Opening Day payroll ranking could keep Tarik Skubal dream alive

The MLB regular season has commenced and while Detroit Tigers fans are more focused on the team trying to make it to the playoffs for a third straight season, the team's payroll for the 2026 season may provide hope that Tarik Skubal will stick around in Detroit beyond this season.

The Tigers reportedly have the tenth-highest payroll of all 30 MLB teams at $209 million. Detroit is typically thought of as a mid-market team, but the fact that they are in the top 10 of team payrolls shows that they have enough money to compete with teams in free agency.

Payroll rankings show Tigers can potentially make a run at Tarik Skubal

It's been a big storyline for a long time. From Detroit's reportedly embarrassingly low contract extension offer to Skubal and the Tigers being $13 million apart in the arbitration numbers they submitted, it has seemed like Skubal will almost certainly sign with another team once he becomes a free agent after the 2026 season.

But maybe the Tigers could at least try to make a run for him. It will certainly not come cheap. Some estimates have Skubal earning a contract worth more than $400 million. That would be an astronomical figure and if the bidding gets that high it seems unlikely that the Tigers would be serious players.

What if Skubal had something of a down year, at least by his standards? Maybe he doesn't win the American League Cy Young Award for the third straight year and instead looks mortal. Maybe he has an ERA with a 3 or, gasp, 4 at the start of it and those $400 million predictions end up looking silly.

It's not a perfect analogy by any means, but if Arizona Diamondbacks pitcher Zac Gallen had hit the market after the 2024 season, he probably would have earned a big multi-year deal. But then in 2025, his contract year, he had a 4.83 ERA and his market did not materialize. He ended up returning to the D-backs on a one-year deal.

No matter what happens in 2026 Skubal is still probably going to get a huge deal. But in a weird way maybe the Tigers are hoping that he will have a good, but not great, year so he doesn't completely price his way out of the team's pocketbook.

But the payroll figures will at least give fans some hope that the Tigers can make some sort of effort to keep their ace around for a while — even if it still feels unlikely.