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He's the most intimidating starting pitcher in baseball today. A formerly unheralded prospect who blossomed into the quintessential modern-day ace. An innings-eating strikeout machine who's powered his way to back-to-back Cy Young Awards and should soon command one of the biggest contracts in the history of professional sports. This is the story behind Tarik Skubal. Tarik Daniel Skubal was born November 20th, 1996 in Hayward, California, the third of four boys born to Russ and Laura Skubal, who later added a fifth to their clan when they took in a friend of their sons who was experiencing family
issues. Tarik was actually born with a club left foot, a condition that made his foot turn inward and required the infant to undergo corrective surgery. But as the son of a high school basketball coach and growing up in a house full of brothers, that didn't stop young Tarik from partaking in the so-called Skubal games, the family's endless competitions of one-on-one basketball, wrestling, you name it. And even as a boy, Skubal's competitive fire burned hot. Memorably, in the seventh grade, Skubal almost single-handedly made champions out of his youth basketball team. With a title and an undefeated season on the line and his team trailing by double digits after three quarters, Skubal told his
teammates, "I'm not losing this game," then promptly went out and scored 12 points in the game's final six minutes to propel his squad to victory. But he wasn't just a beast on the hardwood. The left-handed Skubal also showed promise on the baseball diamond, specifically the pitcher's mound. As a boy, Skubal was a Tri-Valley Little League All-Star. And as a high schooler, after his family relocated to Kingman, Arizona, Skubal earned All-State honors in both baseball and basketball. With his long 6-foot-3 frame and funky high leg kick delivery, Skubal pitched to a 1.03 ERA as an upperclassman while striking out more than 43% of the hitters he faced. He was good, but he didn't scream can't-miss
MLB prospect. For one, he didn't throw that hard, sitting in the mid-80s with his fastball. Plus, it wasn't like he faced elite competition in Kingman, a town of less than 30,000 people that resides along Route 66 in Northwestern Arizona, basically in the middle of nowhere. And so, Skubal wasn't heavily recruited. Major college programs didn't even bother to take a look. The majority of the interest he received was from small schools like Yavapai College, the Arizona Juco that Curt Schilling attended. In the end, Skubal received only one offer from a Division I program. Seattle University, a humble Western Athletic Conference program that at the time had produced exactly two big
leaguers, a pair of brothers who made their MLB debuts in 1953. Actually, Seattle's baseball program didn't even exist from 1986 to 2010. But, despite the program's extremely modest pedigree and his own reservations about moving to Seattle, Skubal ultimately accepted. And it was there that Skubal turned himself from an unexceptional talent on an unexceptional team into a legitimate big-league prospect. As a freshman, Skubal was solid and poised beyond his years. He started 14 games for the Redhawks that year, finishing third on the team in innings pitched while crafting a respectable 3.24 ERA. In fact, he was a freshman All-American. But, his stuff remained pedestrian and he wasn't racking up many strikeouts.
So, ahead of his sophomore season, he locked in. Skubal started lifting. He started long tossing. He started doing yoga. He transformed his body and his routine, and his velocity started to climb. As a sophomore, Skubal was a different pitcher, one now capable of hitting the mid-to-high 90s with his heater and overpowering opposing hitters like never before. Actually, in his first start of his sophomore season, Skubal struck out 13 batters and allowed just three hits over seven scoreless innings. And he quickly established himself as the Redhawks ace, racking up 49 strikeouts and pitching to a 1.5 ERA over his first seven starts. During that dominant run, however, Skubal started
experiencing pain in his left forearm, pain that continued to build. And after he failed to make it out of the first inning in his eighth start of the season, Skubal couldn't ignore it any longer. He went for an MRI and his worst fears were confirmed. His UCL was torn, which meant Tommy John surgery and a foreboding pause to a college career that was just beginning to take off. In the end, Skubal missed not only the remainder of his sophomore season, but all of the following season as well. Now, as it happens, while he was recovering, Skubal was actually selected by the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 29th round of the 2017 MLB draft, but he preferred to go back to school. After all, if he could get back to his
pre-surgery form with the RedHawks, with the stuff he had been showing, Skubal had a chance to be an early round pick in the 2018 draft. But, that's not exactly how it played out. Although his surgically repaired left arm held up in 2018, allowing him to throw 80 innings for Seattle, Skubal was more erratic than he'd ever been. Don't get me wrong, the stuff was there, power fastball, plus slider, and he racked up a team-high 106 strikeouts. But, whether it was due to the aftereffects of surgery or nerves about his draft stock, Skubal struggled mightily with his control as a redshirt junior, issuing a whopping 56 walks, or 6.3 per nine innings, on route to a 4.16 ERA. And so, he wasn't chosen in the early rounds of
the 2018 MLB draft. Instead, Skubal ended up getting chosen in the ninth round, going to the Detroit Tigers with the 255th overall selection and receiving a signing bonus of $350,000, which was actually less than he'd been offered by the D-backs the year prior. But, as the rebuilding Tigers would soon find out, they'd found a potential steal in Skubal, who began his pro career less than two months out from the draft and quickly made it clear that the rest of the league had messed up letting him fall to the ninth round. In his first summer as a professional, Skubal terrorized what was ultimately inferior competition in the low minors.
Across 22 and a third innings in 2018, Skubal allowed one earned run and struck out 33 batters against just four walks. His control issues, it seemed, were a thing of the past. And in 2019, in his first full season as a pro, Skubal was no less dominant even as the competition level increased. That year between High-A and Double-A, Skubal again averaged more than 13 strikeouts per nine innings while crafting a 2.42 ERA. Suddenly, the former ninth-round pick who couldn't throw strikes coming out of college was a legitimate prospect, a potential middle-of-the-rotation left-hander with strikeout stuff and an even higher ceiling if his changeup and
curveball continued to develop and he kept refining his command. Well, he did. And he actually continued his development at the major league level. See, the COVID-19 pandemic kiboshed the entire 2020 minor league season, which meant that if Skubal, who was now 23 and the Tigers' fifth best prospect, was going to pitch competitively that year, it had to happen at the major league level. And sure enough, roughly halfway into the unprecedented 60-game season, Skubal got the call, joining the Tigers along with fellow top pitching prospect and former number one overall pick Casey Mize. And although the results left
something to be desired in his first taste of the big leagues, Skubal showed some compelling flashes in those empty ballparks. As a rookie, Skubal racked up 37 strikeouts over 32 innings and turned in a handful of starts that hinted at the big future to come. Notably, six innings of six-strikeout, one-run ball in his fourth big league start and another six-inning, eight-strikeout effort two outings later. His stuff, his composure, his pitchability, they belied his ugly 5.63 ERA. And the following year, with rookie nerves and COVID chaos in the past, Skubal leveled up. In 2021, Skubal cemented himself as an integral piece of the Tigers' future, starting 29 games for Detroit while improving in
several key areas. His home run rate went down. His walk rate went down. And ultimately, his ERA went down by more than a full run. And thanks in part to Skubal's growth, the Tigers finished 2021 with their best winning percentage since 2016. But the left-hander was still just scratching the surface. And it was in 2022, after overhauling his pitch mix, that Skubal began to take off for real. See, to that point in his brief big league career, Skubal had thrown his four-seam fastball almost the time, basically every other pitch. But he changed that up in a big way in 2022, utilizing a much more balanced mix in which he actually threw his slider more than his fastball. And the results were
staggering. He was still able to generate whiffs and pound the zone, but the home run problems that had plagued him over his first two seasons in the majors practically vanished. Actually, from 2020 through 2021, Skubal had the worst home run rate in baseball. But in 2022, he posted a top 15 mark. And as a result, Skubal posted then career best in both ERA and FIP. For the first time in his career, the stuff and the results were lining up. He looked like a frontline starter. And although his season ended on a sour note with August flexor tendon surgery sidelining him until almost halfway through the 2023 season, a breakthrough had nevertheless been made. But as it turned out, the
Skubal that came back in July of 2023 after undergoing his second major elbow surgery was even better than anyone could have imagined. When Skubal rejoined the Tigers rotation that summer, he wasn't just armed with a rebuilt flexor tendon and the wisdom of experience. His stuff was also nastier than ever. See, for the first few years of his career, Skubal sat at roughly 94 mph with his four-seamer, which, to be sure, is pretty good for a starter, especially a left-hander. But when he came back in 2023, Skubal's velocity was on another level. That year, he averaged almost 96 mph with his fastball and routinely touched 99. And this version of him was pretty much unhittable.
Actually, in his season debut, he threw four no-hit innings with six strikeouts. His next time out, he allowed just two hits over four innings while striking out five. And very quickly, mowing the opposing team down just became par for the course. In his 15 starts that season, Skubal notched an astonishing 102 strikeouts. In seven of those starts, he didn't allow a run. And in all seven of those shutout starts, he allowed two hits or less. All told, Skubal finished his abbreviated season with career bests in ERA, whip, strikeout rate, and WAR. Skubal wasn't just back, he was the best version of himself by a lot. And if these stuff gains were real, Skubal was primed to solidify himself as one of baseball's top starters. And he did. Actually,
believe it or not, Skubal's stuff got even better in 2024. His fastball averaged 97 mph that season and went as high as 102. And with no injuries to contend with, Skubal assumed his place in 2024 as one of baseball's true aces. Across 31 starts that season, Skubal posted an AL-best 2.39 ERA while leading the majors with 228 strikeouts. Meanwhile, no pitcher in the AL managed a higher percentage of quality starts than Skubal, who had more outings with nine or more strikeouts than he did with more than three runs allowed. He was, simply put, a monster, throwing absolute gas and breathing fire on the mound and almost single-handedly propelling the Tigers to their first playoff appearance
in a decade. And the 86-win Tigers nearly earned a spot in the ALCS because of him. In Game 1 of the Wild Card Round, his postseason debut, Skubal threw six shutout innings against the Astros to help the Tigers to a 3-1 victory and an eventual series sweep. And he followed that up with seven shutout innings against Cleveland in Game 2 of the Division Series, another Tigers win. Unfortunately, Skubal suffered one of his worst outings of the year five days later in the decisive Game 5 of the ALDS, a 7-3 Guardians victory. But make no mistake, the Tigers don't get within 100 miles of Game 5 of the ALDS without Tarik Skubal. And not long after the Tigers were eliminated from the playoffs, Skubal received the coronation he so richly deserved. Skubal
took home the 2024 AL Cy Young Award in a unanimous selection, garnering all 30 first-place votes. The former ninth-round pick from Seattle University had cemented his place in the pantheon of Tigers pitching greats, etching his name alongside the likes of Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, and Denny McLain. And then, he pitched his way to baseball immortality. Skubal followed up his incredible 2024 campaign with, somehow, an even better 2025 season. The 28-year-old improved in virtually every conceivable way after unanimously winning the Cy Young. In 2025, with his velocity inexplicably still going up, Skubal made 31 starts and posted a better ERA, FIP, whip, strikeout rate, walk rate, and opponent's batting
average than he did the season prior. Of his 31 starts, he recorded double-digit strikeouts in 10 of them, and he went at least seven innings in 13 of them. And once again, he was a beast in the postseason for a plucky Tigers team, racking up an unbelievable 36 strikeouts across three outstanding starts, and pitching Detroit within one win of an ALCS berth for a second straight year. The Tigers' pennant dreams were ultimately dashed by the Mariners in the bottom of the 15th inning of another decisive ALDS Game 5. Still, Skubal's continued dominance earned him a second straight All-Star nod, plus the starting
assignment for the American League team in the midsummer classic, and you guessed it, a second straight AL Cy Young award. The honor made him just the 12th pitcher ever to win back-to-back Cy's, and the first American League pitcher to do it since Pedro Martinez a quarter century prior. And ultimately, in the span of only a few years, Skubal had not only established himself as one of baseball's preeminent starters, but as one of the great starting pitchers in modern baseball history. And now the question is, where will the next chapter of Skubal's extraordinary career take place? Because Skubal, who did not receive a long-term extension offer from the Tigers following his second Cy Young season, is
on the precipice of one of the most compelling free agency journeys baseball has ever seen. He's already set the record for the most money ever commanded by an arbitration-eligible player, and assuming he hits the market as scheduled following the 2026 campaign, Skubal could also set the record for the most money ever given out to a starting pitcher in free agency. Even with early season elbow surgery in 2026 hampering his platform campaign. No, he's not nearly as young as Yoshinobu Yamamoto was when the Dodgers gave him $325 million, and yes, Skubal is even older than Gerrit Cole was when he commanded $324 million from the Yankees. But Skubal also has more Cy Young awards than both
of those pitchers combined. And the left-hander's combination of pedigree, ceiling, and solid runway of prime years remaining could earn him a deal that blows those two contracts out of the water. And when he eventually puts pen to paper, it'll mark another incredible milestone in Skubal's extraordinary journey. One in which an under-recruited left-hander from Kingman, Arizona, with an ordinary fastball evolved into one of the most dominant and accomplished starting pitchers in modern baseball history.
