John Niyo: Will Tarik Skubal stay or go? Tigers need to find an answer.

DETROIT — This is going to be awkward for everybody. And for how long that lasts, nobody really seems to know.

But that’s to be expected when the elephant in the room is also the horse you’re riding.

And that is quite clearly the case now with Tarik Skubal and the Detroit Tigers, who just capped another exhilarating — and exhausting — season in the same way they did a year ago: With Skubal on the mound for a winner-take-all playoff game that ended in a loss.

What comes next is the usual postseason post-mortem for every team that doesn’t reach its ultimate goal of winning a World Series. And in the wake of the Tigers’ epic 15-inning finale in Seattle and the “bitter taste” it left behind, particularly after the team’s late-season swoon in September, there were some honest assessments from team president Scott Harris and manager AJ Hinch on Monday about what it’ll take for this franchise to take the next big step.

Yet while the two key decision-makers spoke for more than an hour about a variety of topics, from all the team’s maddening whiffs and their ripening prospects, there was one lingering question that no one seems ready to answer: How do the Tigers deal with the dilemma their ace presents now that he’s heading into a final year under team control?

Skubal’s a virtual lock to become the first American League pitcher in a quarter-century to win back-to-back Cy Young Award honors and Harris reiterated Monday he views the dominant lefty as “the best pitcher in baseball.” As for how long the Tigers will be able to call him their own, though, he balked.

“Listen, I totally understand the question, and I understand that you have to ask me,” Harris said Monday, forcing the sort of smile we’ve all seen before. “I've kind of learned over time, especially with this question, that general comments tend to get chopped up and forced into narratives. I can't comment on our players being traded. I can't comment on free agents. And I can't comment on other teams’ players. So I'm gonna respond by just not actually commenting on it. Tarik is a Tiger. I hope he wins the Cy Young for the second consecutive year. He's an incredible pitcher, and we're lucky to have him. That's all I can say on that.”

He could say more, of course. And so could the Tigers’ owner, Chris Ilitch, by handing Skubal and his agent, Scott Boras, a blank check and telling them to add as many zeroes as necessary.

But that’s not the way these things typically go in Major League Baseball, unless we’re talking about the teams in New York and Los Angeles. Billionaire owners rarely spend from their own pockets, despite what fans may think or what some in this town remember from Mike Ilitch’s final years.

And it’s certainly not the way Boras operates, taking his clients to free agency almost without fail, trying at all costs to set the market with record-setting contracts. Talk of a $400 million price tag on Skubal’s next deal seems outlandish until you realize the Dodgers are spending more in luxury-tax penalties ($167 million) than half the teams in MLB are spending on their entire payroll, the Tigers ($158 million) included.

Harris, for his part, insisted Monday he doesn’t feel handcuffed by his owner’s willingness to spend, though I’m not sure what else you’d expect to hear, honestly.

“Chris has been supportive with everything we want to do,” Harris said. “It was one of the key questions that I had when I interviewed for this job. ... I know that Chris is going to support us with everything we need, both in terms of player payroll, but also non-player payroll — all of the infrastructure investments, all the investments in key staff members that can help us bring a World Series here. So I have no concerns about that.”

Let's make a deal?

But there are realities here that fans will have to accept, like it or not. And similar to the small-market success story in Milwaukee, one of those has to include a potential trade involving their No. 1 starter if he’s going to insist on hitting the market. The Brewers dealt Corbin Burnes in February 2024 as he entered his final season of team control, opting for a package of prospects (pitcher DL Hall and infielder Joey Ortiz) and a draft pick (No. 34 overall) rather than lose him to free agency 10 months later and recoup only the compensatory draft pick.

That’s not to equate the Tigers’ finances to the Brewers’ situation, mind you. Milwaukee is the smallest market in the league and Detroit is far from that. Ilitch has the means, if not the motive here. Still, when you hear Skubal talk about his future in the way that he did again in the aftermath of Game 5 on Friday night, it’s easier to understand why the Tigers have to at least consider the prospect of trading him.

"My job is to play," said Skubal, who turns 29 next month, when asked about his future in Detroit. "That's not my job, to do anything other than play. Those questions should be asked toward the front office and the people that make those decisions, but my job is to go out there and play."

Of course, Skubal has played such a huge part in the Tigers’ recent success — they’ve been a .500 team in games he doesn’t pitch the past two seasons — it’s hard to overstate his value in Detroit. Harris wasn’t about to try Monday, either way.

“I mean, listen, that's a really difficult question to answer, because it's a total hypothetical,” Harris said, when asked to consider where the Tigers would be without Skubal, now or later. “He's the best pitcher in baseball. He's gonna hopefully win a second Cy Young. It would be arrogant and tone-deaf for me to claim that we can do all this stuff without him. But on the other hand, it's also offensive to the other players in the clubhouse to treat us as like a one-player team. …

“He's been a huge part of what we've done here, and it's a blast to watch him pitch. I don't really think I can engage in hypotheticals of what would happen in past years if he wasn't here, and what would happen if he's not here in the future. He's here, and we're glad he's here.”

Familiar territory

And if he’s not next spring? It’s equally difficult to comprehend what the fan backlash would be if the team were to lose another star pitcher, especially after watching Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer both go on to win World Series rings and Cy Youngs in Houston and Washington after leaving Detroit.

Sure, you could try to trade Skubal for a haul this winter, but the offers likely will be underwhelming, given his pending free-agent status and the possibility of a looming labor dispute with MLB’s collective bargaining agreement set to expire at the end of next year. And if you’re still trying to contend, that would necessitate spending heavily in free agency to replace him.

The rotation behind Skubal isn’t without its question marks, from Jack Flaherty’s option year and Casey Mize’s consistency to Reese Olsen’s injury history and Troy Melton’s promise. The Tigers’ vaunted farm system isn’t ready with any immediate answers, either.

So maybe the best approach here is to cover both bases if you’re Harris. Go spend the money on another front-line starter this winter — Framber Valdez (Houston), Dylan Cease (San Diego) and Ranger Suárez (Philadelphia) are among the options out there — and then let this all play out with Skubal, hoping the best pitcher in baseball can help carry the Tigers to a place they haven’t been since 1984.

In other words, you can stick with the horse you rode in on. But you better sit loosely in the saddle.

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