What’s Next: Will Tarik Skubal’s $32M Arbitration Deal Impact Top MLB Stars?

Entering Tarik Skubal’s historic hearing on Wednesday, the record salary for an arbitration-eligible player was $31 million, the record salary for an arbitration-eligible pitcher was $19.75 million and the record salary awarded by an arbitration panel was $19.9 million. Now, all of those records belong to Skubal, who will be paid $32 million in 2026 after winning an unprecedented decision in the history of MLB’s arbitration system. The way the system works, players with between three and six years of service time are eligible for arbitration. Those players and their team must come to an agreement on a one-year salary by a certain deadline. If they can’t, the player and club exchange salary figures for the upcoming season. They can still continue negotiating up until the date of a hearing, where an independent three-person panel considers arguments from both sides before picking either the player’s number or the team’s number. The Tigers wanted to pay Skubal, the 29-year-old back-to-back American League Cy Young Award winner, $19 million entering his final season under team control in Detroit. Instead, Skubal, one of eight members on MLB’s executive subcommittee — a group that plays a key leadership role during collective bargaining — was thinking far bigger. A year ahead of what will likely be a hostile labor battle between MLB and the MLBPA, Skubal filed at $32 million, a number never before attained by any player — let alone any pitcher — in arbitration. Skubal beat Juan Soto’s 2024 highwater mark for an arbitration-eligible player by $1 million and obliterated the previous record for an arbitration-eligible pitcher set by David Price, who settled with the Tigers at $19.75 million in 2015. Since then, one-year deals for position players have jumped considerably. For pitchers, however, little progress had been made over the last decade. Until now. What’s Next For Superstars and Arbitration Prior to Thursday’s decision, the record year-over-year jump in salary for a pitcher in arbitration belonged to Jacob deGrom, who was coming off his first Cy Young season and entering his second year of arbitration eligibility when he settled with the Mets at $17 million in January 2019. That deal gave him a $9.6 million raise from the previous season. Skubal’s raise more than doubled deGrom’s. – World Baseball Classic: Where Skubal Fits In Team USA’s Lineup The Tigers ace will make $21.85 million more in 2026 ($32 million) than he did in 2025 ($10.15 million). His circumstances differed from deGrom’s. Not only had Skubal already won two Cy Young Awards at the time of his hearing, he was also entering his third and final year of arbitration eligibility — a vital part of winning his case. Players with at least five years of service time (as Skubal has) can compare their salary to any similar player, not just those in arbitration. That opened a door for Skubal, who leads all qualified starters in ERA and strikeouts over the past two seasons. He was still seeking a lower number than the average annual value of other star pitchers, including Zack Wheeler ($42 million), deGrom ($37 million) and Gerrit Cole ($36 million), and he only had to prove he was closer to being worth $32 million than he was to being worth $19 million. Had the Tigers filed at $22 million or $25 million, it’s possible that Skubal wouldn’t have set every record. All of these factors led to Skubal’s victory, but what does it mean for players to come? He’s in such a league of his own that it’s hard to say. There aren’t many pitchers who will accomplish what Skubal has before hitting free agency, but NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes — who is not even arbitration eligible yet — is certain watching. Maybe teams will think twice before undervaluing their stars.  Maybe pre-arb talents will think twice before signing team-friendly extensions. At the least, every star player entering his final year under team control now has a new number to shoot for, at least as long as the system exists. It’s possible this is the last year we see it in its current form, depending on what happens with the next CBA negotiations. What’s Next for Skubal More details will emerge, but at least initially, it doesn’t seem like Skubal was as insulted by the arbitration process as former Milwaukee ace Corbin Burnes was when he went to his hearing with the Brewers in 2023. (It doesn’t hurt that Skubal, unlike Burnes, won his case and will be a much richer man in 2026.) Burnes was traded after the season. It remains to be seen if, or when, the same will happen with Skubal, who could beat Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s $325 million benchmark for a pitcher in free agency next winter if he continues on this trajectory. – World Baseball Classic: USA or Japan? Ranking All 20 Teams Will the Tigers really be willing to go to those lengths to keep Skubal? If not, will they try to recoup as much value as they can right now by trading him before the season? Or will they wait until the deadline to make that call, when they’ll have a better idea of their ability to contend and when other suitors won’t have to pay Skubal’s full salary? (Suddenly, it’s no longer the bargain it could have been, which might scare some interested parties off.) At the very least, the Tigers have now shown they’re capable of giving a pitcher a nine-figure deal. Just hours after arguing they shouldn’t have to pay Skubal $32 million, they gave Framber Valdez a three-year deal worth an average of $38.3 million per year (not accounting for deferrals). The timing is interesting. Did they sign Valdez, the best free-agent starter on the market, to acquire one of the best starting tandems in MLB for the rest of 2026? Or did they sign Valdez as Skubal’s replacement atop the rotation should they decide to trade him or move on after this year? What’s Next for the Tigers After doing little for most of the winter to improve a group coming off a late-season collapse and second straight ALDS exit, the Tigers finally gave their fans reason for excitement. The addition of Valdez on a three-year, $115 million deal raises both the floor and ceiling of a Tigers’ rotation that ranked 22nd in innings pitched and 11th in ERA last season, even with Skubal pitching to a 2.21 ERA in 195.1 innings. Will there be more ahead, or will the results of Skubal’s hearing now stop them from adding? The Tigers are on track for the highest competitive-balance tax payroll in franchise history, a figure that’s only about $10 million away from the first luxury-tax threshold after Skubal won his case. They have uncertainty with their local TV deal, and they have already spent far more on their team than any competitor in their division, so they might be content to take this group into 2026. Then again, the lineup looks largely the same after a year in which the Tigers scored the ninth-fewest runs in MLB after the All-Star break. If they don’t sign a free-agent position player, perhaps top prospects Kevin McGonigle and Max Clark will be able to create a spark at some point in 2026.