The Detroit Tigers already have one of the two best pitchers in baseball.
What if they made a trade to get rid of their top-two pitcher but land the other, Paul Skenes?
That’s the premise of a new trade idea put out Friday by MLB.com’s Anthony Castrovince.
In the suggested trade, the New York Mets get Tarik Skubal.
The Detroit Tigers get Paul Skenes.
And the Pittsburgh Pirates get five strong prospects: Jett Williams, Jonah Tong, Jacob Reimer, Max Clark and Bryce Rainer.
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The Tigers have to give up multiple very good prospects, but they get Skenes for the next four seasons out of the deal.
It’d certainly be a blockbuster.
“The Tigers would replace one of the two best pitchers in the sport with … one of the two best pitchers in the sport,” Castrovince writes. “And Skenes is under contractual control through 2029 — a timeline that better meshes with their emerging core than what they have currently with Skubal. The price would be necessarily steep for both squads, but the Mets would be improving their World Series aspirations for 2026 while the Tigers would be maintaining theirs and also better positioning themselves for the future.”
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Skenes just won the National League Cy Young in his second season.
Skubal was brilliant in the postseason for the Tigers, and they know what they’ve got in him.
It’s also not clear the Pirates would actually trade Skenes.
But if they would, this would be quite the exciting way for teams to get involved and make a move to improve their chances.
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