Tarik Skubal Injury Clouds AL Cy Young Race, Future

One of life's inevitabilities happened again Monday, when a hard-throwing ace suffered an elbow injury.

But the Detroit Tigers' Tarik Skubal isn't just any hard-throwing ace.

The two-time defending American League Cy Young Award winner, who was scheduled to pitch against the Boston Red Sox Monday, is instead headed to the injured list and undergo surgery to remove loose bodies from his left elbow.

The Tigers haven't announced a timetable for Skubal's return, but Los Angeles Dodgers closer Edwin Diaz will be sidelined two to three months after having the same procedure performed on his right elbow Apr. 22, so the best-case scenario probably means it's August before Skubal once again stands atop a big league mound.

Skubal's sudden absence will have quite a wide-reaching butterfly effect - on the AL pennant race, on the Cy Young race and his future as the best free agent on a 2026-27 market likely to be impacted by the owners' lockout.

The Detroit Tigers Without Tarik Skubal

Any team would feel the loss of Skubal. But the Tigers, who went all-in on what will almost surely be his last year with the club, were already even more reliant than anticipated on Skubal after most of the rotation behind him was beset by injury or ineffectiveness.

Casey Mize, who made his first All-Star team last year, had a 2.90 ERA in six starts before suffering a strained right groin. Future Hall of Famer Justin Verlander, signed to bolster the back of the rotation, made just one start before being shelved with a right hip injury.

Keider Montero (3.48 ERA) has pitched well in Verlander's spot, but Jack Flaherty has a 5.90 ERA in seven starts as his breakout half-season with the Tigers in 2024 looks more and more like an outlier. Framber Valdez (3.35 ERA) in seven starts) has been his usual solid self, but the rotation looks much better when he's occupying the no. 2 spot instead of heading it.

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The good news, such as it is, for the Tigers is that the AL Central's usual state of hot mediocrity has spread east and west. The only junior circuit teams more than two games over .500 are the AL East's top two squads, the New York Yankees (23-11) and Tampa Bay Rays (21-12).

Detroit is tied with the Cleveland Guardians atop the Central at 18-18, which would also be good enough for the second wild card if the season ended today (which it does not). The Chicago White Sox - yup, those Chicago White Sox - occupy the third wild card spot at a robust 17-18. That sound you hear is the New York Mets begging to be transferred to the AL.

The playoff race probably won't remain this mediocre, but the only team that looks remotely elite is the Yankees, who lead the AL with 192 runs scored and a 2.95 ERA. It won't take much for the Tigers to tread water and remain in the thick of things until Skubal gets back.

Who Will Win the AL Cy Young?

Skubal was not the AL's most dominant pitcher thus far, but he entered Monday ranked in the top 10 in ERA (2.70), WHIP (0.95) and WAR amongst pitchers (1.4), so his performance coupled with his track record certainly made him no worse than one of a handful of favorites.

But even Skubal isn't good enough to win the Cy Young with a half-season of work. So the door is wide open for a first-time winner amongst the other pitchers separating themselves from the pack during the first week of May.

• Max Fried, who ranks second in the AL with an 0.89 WHIP, fourth with a 1.9 WAR and sixth with a 2.39 ERA, has been really good for a really long time and pitches for the AL's best team. Perhaps this is the year the four-time Gold Glover, three-time All-Star and three-time top-5 Cy Young finisher gets his lifetime achievement Cy Young. Except there's one possible problem.
• Cam Schlittler, who leads the AL with a 1.52 ERA and an 0.87 WHIP while ranking third with 2.0 WAR, also pitches for the AL's best team and has been a revelation since his promotion last summer. That's the kind of #narrative that can serve as a tiebreaker for some voters.
• Davis Martin's name makes him sound like he should be crooning Rat Pack standards in a smoky bar, but the White Sox hurler is tied for second in the AL with a 1.64 ERA and a 2.2 WAR while ranking 10th with a 1.02 WHIP. He entered the season with a 4.32 ERA, 1.32 WHIP and 2.5 WAR over three seasons, so some regression is likely. But Martin could be an intriguing dark horse if he maintains something close to this pace and helps the White Sox remain in contention after three straight 100-loss seasons.
• Jose Soriano has already begun to regress after giving up eight runs over nine innings in his last two starts, after surrendering one run TOTAL over his first 37 2/3 innings and six starts. He still ranks fourth in the AL with a 1.74 ERA and first with 2.3 WAR, but he can't slip much more, especially since he pitches for the Los Angeles Angels, who look like the worst team in the majors (hey, they just lost two of three to THE METS). There's only so many Steve Carlton circa 1972 seasons out there.
• Parker Messick, who ranks third in the AL with a 0.92 WHIP, is sixth with 1.7 WAR and seventh with a 2.40 ERA, embodies another sure thing in life: The Guardians will always unearth star pitchers. Messick maintained rookie eligibility entering this season, which gives him a chance at the long-shot Rookie of the Year/Cy Young parlay. Unlikely, but can't rule out a Cleveland pitcher pulling this off.

How Will This Impact Tarik Skubal's Free Agency?

Skubal's free agency was one of baseball's most intriguing topics long before today's news.

Skubal, who famously beat the Tigers in arbitration in February and won an arbitration-record salary of $32 million, was already dependent on the structure of the next CBA to determine what kind of contract he'd land as a free agent this winter.

Even with a salary cap, Skubal would do very well for himself. But no salary cap would put Skubal in position to become the Juan Soto of pitchers by shattering the previous standard for contracts earned by hurlers on the open market - either the $325 million deal Yoshinobu Yamamoto received from the Los Angeles Dodgers as an international free agent in 2023 or the $324 million contract Gerrit Cole got from the Yankees after six-plus years as a big leaguer following the 2019 season.

But a third arm operation for Skubal - who underwent Tommy John surgery while at Seattle University in 2016 before he had surgery on his flexor tendon in 2022 - makes his next contract even harder to predict.

A healthy stretch drive plus a salary cap-free CBA should still vault Skubal past Yamamoto and Cole, albeit probably not by nearly as much as he might have if he'd made 32 injury-free starts this season.

Even if Skubal doesn't look entirely like himself whenever he returns to the mound, and even if the CBA includes a cap, it's hard to envision him not landing a Jacob deGrom-like contract with someone.

DeGrom was a two-time Cy Young Award winner and Tommy John survivor with a growing list of elbow issues when he hit free agency as a 34-year-old following the 2022 season. He signed a five-year, $185 million deal with the Texas Rangers following the 2022 season - and then underwent his second Tommy John surgery just six starts into the 2023 campaign.

But even a slightly less dominant deGrom has proven worthy of the investment by going 14-9 with a 2.82 ERA and 225 strikeouts over 204 innings in 36 starts dating back to the start of last season. Skubal is going to hit free agency weeks before his 30th birthday, so even a worst-case scenario regarding another arm injury will leave him far more runway to return to form for whomever signs him. Add it all up and the rehab - and the mystery - is just beginning for Skubal.

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This story was originally published May 5, 2026 at 12:38 PM.