Tarik Skubal to Dodgers: The WBC Start That Changed Him

Tarik Skubal agreed to make exactly one start for Team USA, and he said so out loud, more than once, because he did not want anyone to think otherwise.

“I’m making one start,” he said in Lakeland in February. “The reason I didn’t announce it earlier was I wanted to keep the momentum on the WBC, but I’m just making one start and then I’ll stick around for a few games.”

That was the condition of him going at all. The Tigers built his entire spring around a third straight Opening Day assignment, pitching every five or six days, and the World Baseball Classic had to fit inside that or not happen.

“There’s some risk obviously, and I’m trying to do both things,” Skubal said. “I understand I need to be here with these guys and get ready for the season. I think it’s kind of the best of both worlds in that aspect, and I’m grateful they took me in that capacity.”

Then he pitched

March 7, Daikin Park in Houston, against Great Britain. Five strikeouts. And a crowd chanting his name as he walked to the outfield to warm up — in the same building where he had been booed relentlessly during the 2024 postseason.

He went back to Lakeland on schedule, as promised. Then he spent the next week trying to find a way to undo it.

“It’s nine days away, and then I’m going to miss Opening Day on that decision, and now I’m impacting my team,” he said. “Trying to navigate all that information and then trying to create a plan, I just felt like I was doing too much.”

He asked whether the calendar could be negotiated with.

“I tried to add a day from Opening Day. I’m like, ‘Can March 25th happen twice?’ That’s what I’m trying to do. It’s like the leap year. Is there an extra day I can add?”

There wasn’t. He was on the back fields at Joker Marchant Stadium for a bullpen when Team USA lost to Italy, and he watched it on television feeling his body get tired.

What he actually took from it

Not the start. The room.

“Just being a fly on the wall in that room is going to impact my career in a positive way,” Skubal said. “The conversations I was able to have with a multitude of different guys, watching these guys prepare, scouting. Everything that they do is what makes them great, and it pushes me to want to be a better version of myself.”

“We’re coming home off a bus and it’s 1 in the morning and guys have the video of the next day’s starter up, and I’m just like, ‘Dude, I love this. This is baseball.'”

It changed how he watches everything else, too.

“You watch the Winter Olympics and you’re like, ‘There’s no way this is a sport.’ But someone’s doing it, and they’re dedicating their life to it. All those weird sports where you’re like, ‘Where do you even train?’ That person has bought in on that, and you just have a respect level for all those guys, because I’m doing the same thing but for the Detroit Tigers.”

Venezuela beat the United States 3-2 in the final. Maikel Garcia was named Classic MVP.

The 2028 question

Asked whether he would play if major leaguers take part in the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028, Skubal did not hedge.

“Absolutely. I’m in. Let’s get the timing right, make sure I’m healthy and feel good, and absolutely I’m in.”

He said that in March, as a Tiger, about a tournament that would be played in Los Angeles. On Saturday night he was traded to the Dodgers.

Whether major leaguers participate in 2028 has not been settled, and Skubal will be a free agent long before then. But a pitcher who described representing his country as career-altering, who tried to invent an extra day on the calendar to stay longer, now pitches in the city that will host it.

How he got here

Skubal won back-to-back American League Cy Young Awards, the first consecutive AL winner since Pedro Martínez in 1999 and 2000. He set an arbitration record with a $32 million ruling in February, far above Detroit’s $19 million offer. The Tigers held onto him through the winter and built a rotation around him.

Then a loose body in his left elbow cost him six weeks — less than the usual six to eight after arthroscopic surgery, thanks to a minimally invasive procedure that spared the surrounding tissue. He returned in mid-June, wobbled briefly, then was himself again: seven scoreless with nine strikeouts against the Angels on July 18, a season-high 12 over 7.1 innings against Kansas City on July 24. His fastball has touched 99.9 this season.

He finishes his Detroit career 61-42 across 150 starts, and this season 7-5 with a 2.79 ERA and 116 strikeouts in 16 starts. The underlying numbers are the best of his life — a 2.50 xFIP, a 2.67 SIERA, and a career-low 3.7 percent walk rate.

On July 29 against Baltimore, in the first inning, he recorded his 1,000th career strikeout and tipped his cap to Comerica Park. He sits at 1,005. Nobody in the building knew it was the last time.

Detroit led 7-0 after six that night and lost in extra innings. The meltdown pushed the club seven games under .500 and effectively ended the season.

The free agency problem Detroit could not solve

Skubal hits the open market at season’s end and will be the best pitcher available. That inevitability is what finally moved the Tigers.

Atlanta, Milwaukee, the Cubs, Philadelphia and Tampa Bay all pursued him. Los Angeles won, and owes him roughly $10 million for the remainder of the season. The trade does not guarantee he stays. It does not hurt.

He becomes the sixth reigning Cy Young winner traded in-season, after Justin Verlander in 2023, Cliff Lee in 2009, CC Sabathia in 2008, David Cone in 1995 and Frank Viola in 1989.

A rotation with a flag on every sleeve

He joins a staff that includes World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto, All-Star Justin Wrobleski, Emmet Sheehan, Roki Sasaki and Shohei Ohtani, with Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow returning.

Before Detroit’s camp opened this spring, Skubal faced Gleyber Torres, Jahmai Jones and Hao-Yu Lee in live batting practice — three hitters who went on to play for Venezuela, Korea and Chinese Taipei in the Classic. Nobody made solid contact.

Detroit’s Josue Briceño got him the next time out, a lefty-lefty home run off the slider.

Teoscar Hernández is a teammate now.

What Detroit got

Three prospects, all American, out of a farm system built largely abroad.

Zyhir Hope, the Dodgers’ No. 5 prospect and No. 25 in baseball, is a 21-year-old outfielder hitting .293 with 23 home runs at Double-A Tulsa.

River Ryan, No. 7 and No. 68, is a 27-year-old right-hander with 20.1 big league innings, a Tommy John reconstruction and a hamstring injury.

Brady Smith, No. 17, is a 21-year-old from Bean Station, Tennessee, with a plus changeup and 113 strikeouts in 74.1 innings at Single-A and High-A.

The Dodgers kept Josue De Paula, Eduardo Quintero, Emil Morales, Christian Zazueta, Joendry Vargas, Marlon Nieves and Ching-Hsien Ko — the international core of the best farm system in baseball.