Tarik Skubal is the best pitcher in baseball.
The 29-year-old left-hander has secured plenty of hardware over the past two seasons – becoming the first back-to-back American League Cy Young winner in the 21st century – but in his six-year MLB career, he still hasn’t won the World Series.
It’s his No. 1 goal.
“You want to win this award as many times as you can in your career,” Skubal said Nov. 12, after taking home the 2025 AL Cy Young Award, “but I’d gladly trade a Cy Young for a World Series. That would be an easy trade for me.”
Skubal has spent his entire professional career with the Detroit Tigers, beginning as a ninth-round pick in the 2018 draft from Seattle University – his only Division I offer out of high school. He made his MLB debut in August 2020.
The Tigers haven’t won a World Series since 1984, but Skubal isn’t to blame.
Without Skubal, the Tigers wouldn’t have advanced to the postseason in 2024 and 2025. From 2024-25, the Tigers logged a 42-20 record in 62 games started by Skubal, but only a 131-131 record in 262 games not started by Skubal.
“The goal needs to be winning a championship,” Skubal said. “That’s where I’m at mentally. That’s what I use to fuel me each and every day. I want to be the best version of myself, and I want our team to win a trophy and be able to have that the rest of our lives.”
Skubal has raised his performance level in each of the past three seasons.
From 2023-25, Skubal registered a 2.39 ERA with a 4.5% walk rate and a 31.5% strikeout rate across 467⅔ innings in 77 starts – and most notably, his 15.9 fWAR ranked first among all MLB pitchers throughout those three seasons.
“A lot of it is not being complacent with who I am today,” Skubal said. “I still think there’s more to tap into. I still think that I’m not the finished version of myself. When I retire, that’ll be the finished version of myself. I’m still looking to get better each and every single day.”
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Skubal has been the primary driver of the Tigers’ resurgence, but despite his dominance, the Tigers were eliminated in winner-take-all Game 5s of the ALDS in 2024 and 2025.
Both Game 5 losses were started by Skubal.
In 2024, Skubal allowed five runs over six innings on 84 pitches. He surrendered a fifth-inning grand slam that led to a 7-3 loss to the Cleveland Guardians.
This year, Skubal allowed one run over six innings on 99 pitches. He exited with a one-run lead, but the bullpen gave it up immediately in the seventh inning in a 3-2 loss to the Seattle Mariners.
“We’re just a couple of outs away and a couple of pitches away from getting deeper into a season – maybe an ALCS appearance,” Skubal said. “Who knows what can happen in a best-of-seven series? That’s what I think about a lot: making a few different pitches, getting a zero here or getting through this hitter a little bit earlier here and getting our team in a better position, not only myself, but our team, to pitch deeper into ballgames.
“I’m proud of the guys, and I’m proud of our season, but obviously, we came up short of what we wanted to do – and that’s to win a championship. You want to win a championship. That’s where I’m at mentally. That’s a ton of motivation going into this offseason for me, personally.
“You can be proud of what we accomplished, but ultimately, you want to end the season on a win. I’m not saying a regular season win and you’re out of the playoffs in Game 162. I’m talking about the one deep in October, maybe even November, that you get to play in. That’s where I’m at mentally on our season.”
The 2026 season may represents Skubal’s last opportunity to chase a World Series with the Tigers.
He is set to become a free agent in the 2026-27 offseason. High-spending, star-studded annual contenders – the Los Angeles Dodgers, for example – are expected to pursue him, leaving the Tigers potentially on the outside looking in.
The window is closing for Skubal to win a championship in Detroit.
“It means a lot,” Skubal said. “Anytime you accomplish an award of this honor, it’s really cool. At the same time, during the season, it’s not something that I was chasing. I was more focused on our team and trying to win a World Series – because that’s what ultimately matters in this game.”
Contact Evan Petzold at epetzold@freepress.com or follow him @EvanPetzold.
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This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Detroit Tigers’ Tarik Skubal wants World Series more than Cy Young
