The Dodgers have already shown they’re willing to let stars walk rather than chase the wrong end of a massive contract, and that history hangs over every Tarik Skubal discussion now.
Corey Seager left for Texas on a 10-year, $325 million deal. Trea Turner followed a year later, landing an 11-year, $300 million contract from the Phillies. Andrew Friedman let both go instead of locking into those back-end seasons, and that same caution is why the Skubal question matters so much after Los Angeles pulled off the blockbuster in August.
Katie Woo of The Athletic, speaking on 97.1 FM, laid out the likely Dodgers approach - and why it may not line up with what Skubal wants. "I can't see Andrew stomaching a 10-year, $400 million contract if it gets up that high," she said, pointing to "the financial uncertainty from the CBA expiring and whatever is going on with Mark Walter."
One possible blueprint would look a lot like Kyle Tucker’s January deal: four years, $240 million, a $60 million average annual value, opt-outs after 2027 and 2028, a $64 million signing bonus and $30 million deferred. Woo framed it as the kind of shorter-term structure with opt-outs and a sky-high AAV that lets the Dodgers keep their focus on "making sure that this competitive window is extended" instead of paying a pitcher deep into his 30s.
The problem is obvious. Skubal is represented by Scott Boras, and he hasn’t spent two Cy Young seasons building leverage just to accept a deal that falls short of the biggest number available. Dodgers fans have seen that movie before, too, since Seager was also a Boras client when he took the Rangers’ money.
Woo also pointed to Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s 12-year, $325 million deal as the benchmark Boras will want to beat. That matters even more because the Dodgers probably aren’t eager to carry two contracts of that size on the same pitching staff, especially with a new CBA potentially bringing a salary cap into the conversation.
There is at least some room to imagine a middle ground. Tucker isn’t a Boras client, but Skubal’s close friend Blake Snell is, and Boras knows the Dodgers’ internal workings well after negotiating Snell’s five-year, $182 million contract, which included a $52 million signing bonus and $65 million in deferrals.
A compromise could mean five years and $330 million, a $66 million AAV that tops Tucker’s, with opt-outs after the second and third seasons and a sizable deferred portion to ease the luxury tax hit. That would give Boras a headline figure above Yamamoto’s deal, give Skubal another shot at the market in his early 30s and spare Friedman from paying for the decline years he avoided with Seager and Turner.
Whether Skubal would actually sign off on that is another matter. But if there’s a path to make it work, it’s through Boras and a Dodgers front office that has already shown it will reshape the deal to get its man.
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