Tarik Skubal’s next contract already sounds like it could turn into one of baseball’s biggest bidding wars, and the conversation around his free agency is drifting straight toward the kind of monster deal that changed the market for Juan Soto.
On the “Baseball Tonight Podcast,” Buster Olney was joined by Alden Gonzalez, Jesse Rogers and Jorge Castillo, and Castillo made the boldest prediction of the group: he sees Skubal landing with the New York Mets. Castillo went so far as to call the Mets “the favorites” for the left-hander and tied the idea directly to the Soto sweepstakes from a few years ago.
“If Steve Cohen wants Skubal, he will sign Skubal,” Castillo said. “Skubal is another Scott Boras client, just like Juan Soto.
The Yankees went up to 16 years, $760 million, and the Mets went a little higher over 15 years. And I think that will happen in this situation.”
Castillo also pointed out that Skubal could decide to leave a little money on the table if he prefers another destination. The Mets, after all, finished last in their division this year, while the Dodgers won the NL West and reached the NLCS.
That kind of disappointment, especially for a club carrying one of baseball’s biggest payrolls, can push a team to act even more aggressively when the offseason opens up.
“This is the second most expensive payroll in baseball the last couple years, and they have not reached the postseason. They need to reach the postseason,” he explained.
Still, the Dodgers are hardly out of the picture. Gonzalez said that if everything else were equal, Skubal would head back to Los Angeles.
“I do believe that all things being equal, Tarik Skubal would go back to the Dodgers,” he explained.
Gonzalez added that Skubal recently told him how much he enjoyed his time with the Dodgers’ coaches and the teammates around him, especially fellow ace Blake Snell.
“I do think Tarik Skubal is the type of guy who values familiarity, somebody who came up in the Tigers organization and only knew that place,” Gonzalez said. “I don’t know that he wants to go through change again.
But having said that, Scott Boras is his agent. He’s going to chase a record-setting contract.
I don’t think there’s any doubt that he’s going to get it.”
So the race may come down to two things: how badly the Dodgers want him back, and how far the Mets are willing to go to pry him away.
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