Tarik Skubal is just a season away from potential free agency, but he’ll get a massive raise this year to rank among the highest pitching salaries in the game. The back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner won his arbitration hearing, a source told MLB.com's Mark Feinsand on Thursday, with a three-person panel accepting his proposal for a $32 million salary for 2026. The Tigers have not confirmed the news.
It doesn’t change Skubal’s status for this season. He will still be a Tiger unless he’s traded, a possibility that has diminished as the offseason has worn on and teams with potential interest have pivoted to other options. All it impacts is how much he’ll earn; he’ll have the fifth-highest base salary among MLB pitchers, according to Spotrac.
It's the highest salary awarded to a pitcher in the history of the arbitration process, and easily the highest salary for a Tigers arbitration-eligible pitcher, topping the $19.75 million contract the Tigers reached with David Price to avoid a hearing in 2015. Skubal made $10,150,000 in 2025 under a one-year contract he reached with the Tigers to avoid arbitration.
The Tigers hadn’t gone to an arbitration hearing with a player since Michael Fulmer in 2019, but they faced a wide gap with Skubal in his final year of arbitration eligibility. While Skubal filed a $32 million proposal, the Tigers filed at $19 million. By rule, the arbitration panel had to select one of the two proposals, not a salary in between like in hockey.
As an arbitration-eligible player with five-plus years of service time, Skubal and agent Scott Boras were able to compare his situation and salary to any MLB player, not just past arbitration eligibles. That put top salaries like Philadelphia’s Zack Wheeler ($42 million), Texas’ Jacob deGrom ($38 million) and the Yankees’ Gerrit Cole ($36 million) into fair play as comparisons.
Detroit hadn’t lost an arbitration hearing since former outfielder Karim Garcia and left-hander C.J. Nitkowski in 2000 under then-general manager Randy Smith.
Skubal will be the Tigers’ second-highest-paid player in 2026, after they came to an agreement with left-hander Framber Valdez on a three-year, $115 million deal (average annual value of $38M) on Wednesday night.