Tigers, Tarik Skubal will have to bridge massive contract offer gap

The immense gap between Tigers and Tarik Skubal, reported here first, is even bigger than first believed.

The Tigers offer a year ago to Skubal was below $80 million for four years. It was only reported here originally to be less than the $170M the Red Sox signed Garrett Crochet for, and it turns out to be less than half. Evan Petzold of the Detroit Free Press reported it was under $100M.

Skubal’s comp is pretty obviously Gerrit Cole, who received $324M six years ago.

Rivals still don’t believe it’s likely the Tigers will trade Skubal in winter because they are a contending team that made the playoffs two years running.