By LAS VEGAS — As the MLB general managers meetings got underway Tuesday, speculation started to ramp up regarding the offseason’s top free agent, Tarik Skubal. This year, the 29-year-old superstar left-hander is in a tier of his own.
Skubal is not only this offseason’s No. 1 free agent, but he’s also the best starting pitcher available by far. While Freddy Peralta, Michael King, Trevor Rogers, Clay Holmes and others are strong rotation options for contenders, none of them is the clear-cut ace that Skubal is.
“It’s very clear that it’s a dominant and strong Sku-bull market,” agent Scott Boras said Wednesday in Las Vegas, offering one of his signature free-agency puns.
“In the deep waters of talent treasure, there’s no time to come up for air. Teams have filled their tanks, and they're all clearly ready for the Skubal dive," he continued.
As usual, several MLB teams are looking for starting pitching on this year’s free-agent market, but because of the price the two-time Cy Young Award winner is expected to command, two teams have emerged as the early front-runners for Skubal’s services: the Los Angeles Dodgers and the New York Mets.
The Dodgers, who acquired Skubal from Detroit ahead of the August trade deadline, have a robust assortment of starting pitching options already in-house, including Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Justin Wrobleski, Roki Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani. Even so, it’s clear the free-agent ace made an impact while in Dodger blue.
“He was awesome getting to know [this season]. Fit in great in the clubhouse,” Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes said. “Obviously, we know what kind of pitcher he is. For us, it’s understanding what this all looks like, what does our team need, what does the contract look like. We know we love the player. We love the human. Now we kind of have to play out to see what all that looks like.”
Despite the Dodgers’ stated interest in bringing him back, the Mets are viewed as the favorites to land Skubal. New York lacks a clear ace to pair with right-hander Nolan McLean at the top of their rotation, and after things did not go as hoped for Peralta in Queens in 2026, Skubal represents a chance at redemption for the Mets this offseason.
New York has also shown a willingness to pay at the top of the market under owner Steve Cohen, most notably with the team’s decision to make Juan Soto the highest paid player in the history of professional sports. Still, since the arrival of president of baseball operations David Stearns, the Mets haven’t come to terms on a long-term deal with a starting pitcher.
"Every situation is unique. It's been well-publicized, even since I've been here, we've engaged in extremely long-term negotiations for [starting] pitchers,” Stearns said. “We will do so again, but [the] situation matters, the specific circumstance matters. We do have to look at every individual pitcher on a case-by-case basis."
Stearns went on to discuss the Mets’ status as an appealing free-agent destination.
“I think it starts with our ownership and organizational commitment to winning,” he said. “And since Steve and Alex Cohen have bought the team, they've spared no expense to do everything they possibly can to to win, to demonstrate to players, to demonstrate to players' families, that this is a desirable location, and when players come here and they see that, I think it becomes a very attractive place to play.”
While the Dodgers and Mets will dominate much of the speculation around the two-time Cy Young Award winner, one of the biggest questions over the next several weeks is which teams are actually in position to acquire Skubal, given his price point?
It has been reported that Skubal and Boras are planning to meet with the San Diego Padres and the Toronto Blue Jays in the coming weeks, but the sheer size of Skubal’s desired contract will limit the number of legitimate suitors.
Over the past few years, it has come to be expected that Skubal will look to top the average annual value record of $43.3 million set by Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander as well as the total pitcher contract value record of $325 million set by Yoshinobu Yamamoto in 2023.
“The rarity of the [Greg] Madduxes, the [Randy] Johnsons, the [Hunter] Browns, the [Gerrit] Coles. When you go back and look at the [Max] Scherzers, all these true No. 1 [Barry] Zitos, they've all led to world championships,” Boras said. “That's kind of what the teams are about. … If we live over a 30- or 40-year period, we might have less than 10 of these aces that are capable of winning multiple Cy Youngs. And what that means is having … an opportunity to win a championship.”
Even with the collective bargaining agreement set to expire in less than three weeks, Boras doesn’t sound like he feels any pressure to hurry to get a deal done for Skubal. Five years ago, the super-agent agreed to contracts worth a combined $500 million for free-agent clients Corey Seager and Marcus Semien right before the 2021 CBA expiration.
With baseball’s economics a much bigger talking point this time around, we’ll see if he can get a mega-deal done before the deadline once again.
