What would YOU trade for Tarik Skubal

Right now Tarik Skubal is the hottest name that is being floated out as a possible trade candidate ahead of this year’s trade deadline. 

The question with Skubal isn’t whether your team should trade for him, it’s are you willing to pay the price in prospects to get him. He is at worst the second best pitcher in the American League, he is just 27 and he is under contract through 2026 so the Tigers are going to drive a hard bargain and even though it may be to their benefit to sell high on Skubal with 2.5 years of control left they are not up against the clock and if they don’t get the offer they are looking for they can easily trade him either in the offseason or at next years trade deadline and still expect to a very large package in return. (or they could sign him to an extension and make him their franchise player which would be nice for them but doesn’t benefit my favorite team so I don’t want that to happen) 

Anyway this is the situation that as an Orioles fan you dreamed about when Mike Elias first took over, the plan was always to draft and develop the bats and then trade for proven pitching similar to when the Astros traded for Cole, Verlander and Grienke. 

Our major league roster will soon be at its limit and there will be nowhere to put the prospects coming up the pipeline so it makes sense to start trading them. 

There are only 5 positions in the infield so good luck fitting Adley, Gunnar, Westburg, Holiday, Mayo, Norby, Basallo, Mountcastle and O’Hearn all on the same roster. 

At the same time you don’t want to be forced to massively overpay just because the Tigers know that we have the resources to over pay. It would be optimal if we could spread out these top prospects to get a few different good pitchers and it is also good to have depth, I know that I would be annoyed if we traded away Holiday and Norby and then there was an injury and we had Jorge Mateo and his .260 on base percentage starting everyday in the playoffs. 

However if you are Mike Elias you do have to go into these trade negotiations knowing that you aren’t going to get a discount on a guy like Skubal, trading Skubal is going to hurt the Tigers so we have to be prepared for what we give up to get him to hurt us. I would be disappointed if we heard that the reason that we didn’t trade for Skubal is because Elias and Co were trying to win the trade. 

I will say that based on Elias’ and Sig’s track record we can expect that they would rather let the deal fall through than get fleeced. They are not on the hot seat so they won’t feel the pressure to make the deal go through or else which in a way is a comfort because you don’t want make a massive costly gaff that gets mocked for years but it also takes the wind out of your sails because I imagine it’s fun to have an AJ Preller style GM that will let it rip. 

Anyway, back to the original question: What should we be willing to give up for Tarik Skubal? 

I have decided to answer this I would tier off our top trade pieces  and then make it a choose your own adventure from there. And I am not going to include guys like Adley and Gunnar who are obviously not being traded in the deal. I’m also not going to include guys that have no trade value at all like Keegan Akin. 

Tier 1: Would do a 1 for 1 swap 

Jackson Holiday – Heston Kjerstad – Jordan Westburg 

The title of this tier speaks for itself but basically these are guys that I consider pretty much untouchable but if the Tigers said they’d do a 1 for 1 swap I don’t think I could say no. Holiday had a disappointing first stint in the majors but he is just 20 years old, even if he somehow got stuck in triple A for 2 more years he would still be very young when he got called up again so I am still very optimistic about him.

By comparison here is where the other top 5 picks in Holidays draft are in the minors: 

Druw Jones – A 

Kumar Rocker – ROK 

Temarr Johnson – A+ 

Elijah Green – A

So consider Holiday well ahead of schedule. 

As far as Westburg is concerned I saw his name floated out there by some Tigers pages and my first thought was no way we trade him but I thought about it and I guess young all star position player for young all star pitcher would be fair but in no way am I giving up Westburg AND stuff. 

I almost put Heston in the next tier but I thought about it and I thought if I put all those names on the table and said pick one and they picked Kjerstad I would be upset so that means that I value him more than those guys. We don’t actually have that many outfield prospects and I think Kjerstad has the potential to be the single best power hitter on the team. 

As a final note on this tier I say 1-1 swap but if the Tigers asked for 1 of these guys and then a few guys I’ve never heard of that are hanging out in rookie ball then I would do that I just mean you’re not going to get 1 of these guys and another top prospect. 

Tier 2: Package headliners

Mayo – Basallo – Cowser

I think all of these guys are going to be studs but you have to give something to get something so if we are serious about trading for Skubal then these guys have to be on the table. Ideally the Tigers pick one of these guys to headline the package and then the rest of these guys are off the table. If they wanted 2 of these guys I think they would have to start throwing in more on there side like a reliever or 2. 

Mayo is interesting for the Tigers because he could be a great replacement for the now floundering Torkelson so it feels like he would be the guy they would pick, Basallo is the kind of prospects that people who know prospects say will one day be the number 1 prospect in all of baseball and his timeline lines up with Jackson Jobe and Max Clark so maybe the Tigers would prefer him. It would hurt to lose either of these guys but we have a lot of prospects that play their positions so I have to consider them expendable in that sense. 

Cowser in this tier may be a little controversial because he’s been in the kind of prolonged slump that makes you think that maybe he just isn’t good but he plays elite defense in center and he has an electric swing that if he can get it timed up again is just explosive. Plus after he struggled last year he worked his tail off in the offseason to improve which points to the kind of strong mindset and work ethic that will allow him to work through his current slump and be a great player. 

Tier 3: Good Player Tier 

Connor Norby – Enrique Bradfield – Vance Honeycutt – Ryan Mountcastle – Kyle Stowers

These guys are not quite good enough to headline a package for an Ace like Skubal but they are good players that should have a lot of trade value to bolster a package. This tier is a little all over the place as Norby is a AAA prospect on the verge of being called up, Bradfield and Honeycutt are the Orioles last two first round picks and this time next year they will both be top 3 prospects in the O’s system. Mountcastle is a known commodity who as long as he can avoid vertigo can be expected to give you a high .700 to low .800 OPS and the reason for trading him would be to make room for Mayo. Stowers is another pretty blocked guy who is quite old to be in triple A and has performed well in the opportunities he has gotten. I don’t know if the Tigers will value him but he will be available and I believe he has some juice.

As far as who would be in the deal you are going to see in the deal almost every fake deal includes Norby because he is our most blocked prospect who simultaneously is a good prospect but is our 6th best infielder so it makes a lot of sense to move him, Stowers is in a similar situation. As far as Bradfield and Honeycutt I think the O’s would be willing to part with one of them but not both in the same deal so it’s a pick one deal. Mountcastle is in this tier in case the Tigers want to make their current team better while they wait for their top prospects to get to the bigs, I don’t think it is likely they’ll want him but it wouldn’t be the craziest thing. 

Tier 4: 2026 reset 

Beavers – Horvath – Fabian – Tavera – Wagner – Arias – Rhodes – Williams 

All of these prospects are in AA or below and won’t be expected to make it to the majors until the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. They would all fit the timeline of the Detroit Tigers top prospects. 

I would feel comfortable trading a handful of these guys, obviously you don’t want to trade guys just to trade guys but I don’t think any of them are in the Orioles long term plans (maybe Beavers or Fabian because again we don’t have that many outfield prospects) but our scouting team has proven to be very successful in finding hitting talent so I would give all these guys a good shot at developing into good players so they should have value to a team like the Tigers and who knows some of these guys are so early in their development that they could pop and become great prospects. 

I would rather trade all 8 of these guys than any one of the guys in the top 2 tiers so if I was Elias I would try to offer a package with a high volume of mid tier prospects. I don’t think the Tigers would go for it but a guy can dream. 

Tier 5: Some pitchers

Povich – Mcdermott – Johnson – De Leon – Baumeister 

Obviously in a trade where you trade away a great pitcher you want to get a pitching prospect back but if I were the Tigers I would be pretty underwhelmed by the Orioles pitching prospects. Povich and McDermott are both fringe pros right now and while they have some good qualities they both struggle mightily with command. Johnson is 25 in double AA. Baumeister and De Leon both have more potential and maybe they are the guys to go but they are both quite far away from being anything. If the Tigers want any of these guys I’d throw them in the deal without hesitation. 

Tier 6: Flipping Major League Guys 

Mateo – Mullins – Hays – Urias 

I don’t think the Tigers would want any of these guys in a deal for Skubal but most of these guys do still have some form of value to different teams around the league. Mateo and Mullins as speed and defense guys could be valuable to contending teams that need to strengthen their depth. Hays has good splits against lefties and has a reputation as a good defender and Urias won a gold glove 2 seasons ago (Urias might not have a lot of value tbh). 

Trading these guys could serve 2 purposes. One, they could get more prospects to throw at the Tigers and two, it would open up more roster spots for up and coming prospects. 

These guys have not produced much this year so by flipping them we could get a few prospects to help bring in an ace pitcher and simultaneously we could upgrade their roster spots with guys we already have in the organization. 

Now I don’t think we would be getting back top 100 prospects for any of these guys because they have struggled so much and I wouldn’t trade Mullins especially unless we were getting a good return so it’s a tricky needle to thread but like I said in the previous paragraph there are benefits to turning these guys into prospects and giving their 26 man roster spots to the young guys. 

So now that we have the tiers lets talk about a reasonable package for Skubal. 

Here is the general outline I think we would follow

1 Tier 2 Guy 

2 Tier 3 Guys

2-3 Tier 4-6 guys 

So it could look like this 

Orioles Receive: Tarik Skubal 

Tigers receive: Coby Mayo, Connor Norby, Enrique Bradfield, Jud Fabian and Creed Williams 

Or Orioles receive: Tarik Skubal 

Tigers receive: Samuel Basallo, Ryan Mountcastle, Kyle Stowers, Mac Horvath, John Rhodes and Cade Povich 

As I mentioned earlier if they wanted a tier 1 guy the number of prospects they would get back will be much smaller it could look like this 

Orioles receive: Tarik Skubal 

Tigers receive: Jackson Holiday and 1 teenager currently in rookie ball that nobody has heard of but the Tigers scouts like. 

I also mentioned that I could see a world where the package is just 2 of the tier 2 guys and that could look something like this 

Orioles receive: Tarik Skubal, Jason Foley

Tigers receive: Samuel Basallo, Colton Cowser, Kyle Stowers and Max Wagner 

So there are a lot of options, I tend to think that what I am cooking up here is pretty reasonable but I did just log onto twitter and see a trade proposal where a Tigers fan said they were going to get Holiday, Westburg, Mayo, Kjerstad, and Basallo so maybe I’m completely off the mark.