LAS VEGAS — Baseball’s hot-stove season is driven by storylines, and none is more compelling than the potential trade of the sport’s most dominant pitcher.
The Detroit Tigers seem unlikely to trade left-hander Tarik Skubal this winter, but the mere possibility has generated ample buzz.
The other outcome before Skubal reaches free agency — an extension with the Tigers — also seems unlikely. His agent, Scott Boras, often counsels his clients to test the open market in search of a big payday. But Boras said Wednesday at the GM Meetings that he is always willing to listen.
“We talk a lot through the course of the offseason, and we’ll continue to discuss,” he said. “Our point of view is we always listen. We’re prepared to listen to anything that Chris (Ilitch) or Scott (Harris) has to say. So we’ll just see how it goes.”
Boras, in his typically pun-heavy style, said there is no doubt what the fans want.
“All we know is that the fans in Detroit want the Tigers to build a Tarik Barrack,” he told a group of reporters. “Little Caesar’s running around town saying, ‘Cy! Cy!’”
“They understand that organization is substantially different if he’s not there. It’s kind of like it should be Scooby-done, right?
“I think the fans would certainly think it’s a Detroit doink if they don’t.”
Tigers executives have generally not commented on Skubal’s future, with or without puns.
With Harris, the club’s president of baseball operations, back in Detroit to attend to a family matter, general manager Scott Greenberg represented the team in Wednesday’s media session at the Cosmopolitan.
“Tarik is a Detroit Tiger,” Greenberg said. “We know how good he is. We know what he’s meant to this organization, especially over the last couple of years. We’re not going to talk about our players in the context of trade or extension. Scott made that very clear at the end-of-season press conference. I think that’s in fairness to Tarik, that’s in fairness to the Tigers.”
Skubal, for his part, won his second consecutive Cy Young award on Wednesday night.
“I want to be a Tiger for a very long time,” he said.
Evan Woodbery has covered the Detroit Tigers and Major League Baseball for MLive.com since 2016. He has previously covered the Saints/NFL for The Times-Picayune/NOLA.com; University of Tennessee athletics for…
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