Detroit Tigers president Scott Harris non-committal on potential Tarik Skubal extension
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Detroit Tigers president of baseball operations Scott Harris recently spoke about a potential extension for Tigers ace Tarik Skubal, and his comments may not be what Tigers fans want to hear.
After a relatively slow start to the season by the lefty's standards, Skubal has cranked it way up over his last six starts. Dating back to his outing against the New York Yankees on April 8, Skubal has registered 50 strikeouts and just one walk in 37 innings pitched, allowing four runs for a striking 0.97 ERA.
With the ace rounding back into the Cy Young-level many expect from him now, it's bringing back a question many around baseball have been pondering over the last couple years. Namely, are the Tigers going to sign him to a long-term deal?
If Harris' recent appearance on New York Post's "The Show" podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman is any indication, we may not know about it any time soon:
"My hope is that we have press conferences where we're talking at length about these things, but I think it's a little premature and probably a little unfair to talk about it publicly," Harris said, noting how the Tigers kept Colt Keith's extension under wraps until it was signed last January.
When Sherman pressed on, highlighting the big difference in dollars between Keith's extension and a potential Skubal extension, he asked Harris whether the Tigers had the money to sign Skubal. Again, Harris wavered:
"We can't just decide we're going to sign him," he said. "It takes two parties and some understanding of the parameters of a deal, and it takes a willingness on both sides to actually do it."
Harris then spent the next two minutes praising Skubal for his attention to detail and motivation to improve with every start. And while he never directly answered Sherman's question about whether the organization has the finances to sign Skubal, he did finish his comments on the pitcher by saying: "If we can find a way to keep him, we're going to try to find a way to keep him."
The Tigers have had a checkered history over the last decade or so with long-term deals. The richest deal in team history was the team's eight-year, $248 million extension the Tigers handed to Miguel Cabrera in 2016, one that didn't quite live up to the initial deal Cabrera signed in 2008, but one that kept Cabrera a Tiger for the remainder of his career.
But one year prior, the Tigers signed starting pitcher Jordan Zimmermann to a five-year, $110 million deal that very quickly turned into an albatross. That same offseason, the Tigers signed outfielder Justin Upton to a six-year, $133 million deal that was shipped off to the Los Angeles Angels via trade midway through the 2017 season.
Currently, the Tigers' highest-paid player is Javier Báez, who signed a six-year, $140 million contract in 2021. For his first three seasons in Detroit, Báez looked like a disappointment, but the newfound utility player has turned it around in 2025 while looking like a completely different player.
However, these contracts might look downright puny in comparison to the one Skubal might get. If the Tigers want to sign Skubal, it likely will take the biggest contract the franchise has ever handed out to keep the 2024 Cy Young winner in Detroit for the long haul.
The good news for the Tigers is that Skubal is under team control until the end of the 2026 season, giving both parties plenty of time to negotiate a deal.
But until Skubal signs on the dotted line or Harris takes a more firm stance, it'll always be a topic of conversation.
Scott Harris on the Tigers' 2025 performance
Harris began the interview by talking about the team's 2024 run to the playoffs and their hot start to 2025:
"I've been really pleased with how this group approaches life on a series-by-series basis," he said. "I expected us to be really competitive. I expected us to be really difficult to face because we showed that over an extended stretch over the second half last year. And I expected us to be really competitive in the AL Central this summer, and fortunately we've put ourselves in a position to have a really good summer."
Scott Harris on Javier Báez's play in center field
Harris was asked about how Báez has become the Tigers current primary option in center field:
"Defensively, we lost three center fielders in spring training," he said. "So we had to think of anything, we had to be really creative. And from the moment we threw him out there, we thought, 'Hey, this guy is getting really good jumps, really good reads, his route efficiency is really high, this guy can really play the position.'"
Harris also said that Báez is playing more "free and loose," noting that the lowered expectations have brought out a more effective player:
"When he signed here, I think he expected that he had to be the guy here," he said. "He doesn't have to be the guy for us, he just has to find ways to contribute in the box, on the field, on the basepaths, even just by a tag, or something like that. And he can do it."
Scott Harris on former top overall picks Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize:
Harris was asked about the resurgent seasons from former No. 1 overall picks Spencer Torkelson and Casey Mize, to which he partially credited the organization's improving player development pipeline:
"I wanted Detroit to be a place that is known for getting more out of our players, and I think we've done a good job of building those environments," he said. "We went from one of the worst [farm systems] in the game to one of the best in the game very quickly."
He was quick to deflect the attention to Torkelson and Mize, however:
"In Spencer's case, he hit the offseason very hard," he said. "He's back to the type of hitter that was drafted 1-1. And we're really proud of him for having the self-awareness and the determination to actually make adjustments in the box.
"And then with Casey, he went into the offseason focused on the secondary pitches that compliment his plus-heater," he said. "And so working on commanding the [splitter] and working on the shape of the [splitter] has really helped him find another gear here."
Scott Harris on potential Tigers trade deadline moves
Harris was also asked if the Tigers would be buyers at the trade deadline should they remain competitive through the summer:
"No matter what our competitive situation is, we're always going to try to be pragmatic at the trade deadline," he said. "Right now, I don't even know what our strengths and weaknesses are because we haven't even played with a full team yet."
Staying diplomatic, Harris struck the same tone as he did earlier in the interview when talking about a potential Skubal extension.
"We're going to do everything we can to try to win a World Series in Detroit, and if that means making a big move at the deadline, we're going to do it. And if that means, you know, intentionally passing on a big move at the deadline because that move could set us back, then we're going to do that."
You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.org
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Tigers president non-committal on potential Tarik Skubal extension
