Predicting Tarik Skubal's next contract

Or, how much will the Dodgers end up paying him?

Tarik Skubal came into the year well positioned to set a new record for largest pitcher contract (not counting pitchers who are members of the 50/50 HR/SB club). He had won the last 2 Cy Young awards. He’ll turn 30 shortly after the season has finished. Through the first 35 or so game he was pitching great, possibly in contention for a third straight Cy.

He has pitched great so far this year. His velocity is down 1 MPH from 2025 but is right in line with his 2024 fastball speed. He’s not walking anybody or giving up many homers.

Surgery to remove lose bodies in his elbow are going to throw a wrench into the plan. The best case scenario is that he comes back in two months, picks up where he left off, and pitches the Tigers into a playoff run. The worst case is that he doesn’t recover so quickly and eventually has to have more serious elbow surgery.

Assuming an optimistic outcome for Skubal, the updated projection has him at 5 years and 200 million. He could also choose a shorter term, higher AAV deal as some players have done, possibly with opt-outs. Maybe 2 years, 100 million or 3 years, 145 million.

I don’t think there is a circumstance where he would end up taking the qualifying offer. Even if he came back not at full strength and ended up with Tommy John surgery, he is just so good that some team will offer him a strong contract. Possibly a 5 year, 150-million-dollar deal with the understanding that he would not pitch at all in 2027.

It looks like Gerrit Cole’s contract was an outlier, it is going to take a few more rounds of inflation before somebody can top that. Yamamoto came close with his 325 million dollar contract, but he was only 25 years old in his first year in LA. Paul Skenes, who will turn 25 next season, has more than three years to go before he hits free agency.

Part of the reason no pitcher contract has topped Cole’s is that teams might have a better understanding of the injury risk for all pitchers. Cole at least gave the Yankees 5 strong seasons, and one Cy Young, before he got hurt. Stephen Strasburg had only 31 innings left after signing his 245 million contract in the same offseason.

Another factor is the reduced role of starting pitchers. Teams no longer have any compulsion to “get 5 innings so he can qualify for a win”. If the pitcher is starting to lose it in the 4th inning, he’s gone. In 2019 pitching 200 innings was on the way to becoming rare, but we still had at least that many innings for the top 10 guys. Last season only 3 pitchers threw 200 innings, and none were over 207.

Skubal is a fun pitcher to watch. He reminds me of a mirror image version of Roger Clemens. I hope he makes it back late this summer and picks up where he left off.