Reunion with Dodgers? Richest contract ever? What's next for Tarik Skubal, MLB's No. 1 free agent

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  Alden GonzalezOct 29, 2026, 07:00 AM ET

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  ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

The sudden end to the Los Angeles Dodgers' bid for a three-peat felt especially jarring to Tarik Skubal.

The two-time defending American League Cy Young Award winner, acquired in a trade deadline blockbuster from the Detroit Tigers, was scheduled to take the ball for Game 5 of the National League Championship Series. In his mind, he said, there was no doubt he would make that start, keep his new team alive, give the rest of the Dodgers' star-studded rotation another chance and see what would happen.

Then reality set in, not long after the final out was made at 10:59 p.m. ET on Oct. 15, when the Milwaukee Brewers completed a stunning sweep.

Suddenly, Skubal was talking about his Dodgers tenure in the past tense.

"The group of guys, the clubhouse, the culture they have here -- it's real," he said. "I was honored to be part of it."

Whether Skubal will continue to be part of it is one of the biggest questions of the bizarre offseason that is now upon us.

The Brewers' win over the Tampa Bay Rays in the World Series officially kick-started Skubal's free agency. It begins with an exclusive five-day negotiating window with the Dodgers that will lead nowhere, because Skubal is a Scott Boras client who will headline an appreciably thin free agent class and undoubtedly venture into the open market. The Dodgers' best chance to sign him won't come until Monday, when every team gets a crack at the generational pitcher.

We tackled the most relevant questions surrounding his free agency.

What does Skubal want?

Skubal was predictably coy about his pending free agency when asked about it after his team's final game.

"Today sucks," he said, "and that's kind of where my head's at."

In the lead-up to that, though, Skubal was effusive in his praise of the Dodgers.

He was awed by their resources -- the players-only plane, the two-seater hyperbaric chamber, the Japanese toilets. He became fast friends with Blake Snell, the fellow left-handed ace with a similar repertoire and an affable personality. He was comforted by being in close proximity with Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the L.A.-based orthopedic surgeon who conducted the revolutionary procedure on his elbow. And he believed he fit in perfectly within a clubhouse of accomplished players with similar intentions.

Said Skubal: "I find it very easy to get along with guys that have the same goals as mine, which is to win the World Series."

Does that mean Skubal will return to the Dodgers?

Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said his front office was "still wrapping our arms around our offseason plan and strategy" when he met with the media on Oct. 21, six days after his team was eliminated. He eschewed questions about his pursuit of Skubal, but the calculus around re-signing him will be the same as it was when the Dodgers traded for him:

It can be just as easy to talk themselves into it as it would be to talk themselves out of it.

On one hand, the Dodgers are flush with starting pitching for 2027, perhaps more so than any other organization. Shohei Ohtani is adamant about being a two-way player again in 2027; Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow remain under contract; and Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan, Justin Wrobleski and Gavin Stone all seem ready to hold down a rotation spot in the major leagues.

On the other, Ohtani won't pitch a full season, Snell and Glasnow routinely don't, and though the Dodgers speak often about the importance of implementing young players in an effort to prolong their championship window, they don't fully rely on them, either. It's not hard to find examples of the Dodgers trading for superstar players and then letting them walk in free agency -- a list that includes Yu Darvish, Manny Machado, Max Scherzer and Trea Turner -- but they've been operating at a different level since bringing in Ohtani three offseasons ago.

When the fit is right, they spend the money. Whether that continues with Skubal remains to be seen.

"We have a tremendous amount of respect for him on and off the field," Friedman said. "He's put himself in this position to go out and be a free agent. And for us, it's -- continue to talk to Scott. But he and his family have to make a choice over where they want to spend the next 'X' number of years, and obviously we wish him nothing but the best."

If not the Dodgers, then who?

The Dodgers might not need Skubal, but the New York Mets certainly do.

There might be no better way to rid themselves of the stench of their collapse in 2025 and the utter disaster of 2026 than to go out and get the best pitcher -- the best player -- available this offseason.

The Mets have the need, coming off a year in which their starting pitchers put up the eighth-highest ERA in the majors while en route to a last-place finish in the NL East. They have the space, with Sean Manaea and Kodai Senga coming off the books after 2027. And, through billionaire owner Steve Cohen, who has spent roughly $700 million on payroll over the past two years, they have the financial resources.

But it's probably too early to handicap this as Mets versus Dodgers. Markets are naturally limited with contracts of this scale, but Skubal is too good, the opportunity to acquire somebody like him is too rare.

Others will surely step up -- though it seems highly unlikely that the Tigers, who never made an extension offer Skubal's side deemed competitive, will be among them.

Will he get the largest contract ever for a pitcher?

Boras' target in the Skubal sweepstakes is $325 million. That's the number secured by Yamamoto, on a 12-year deal, when he signed with the Dodgers in December 2023, still the benchmark for starting pitchers.

Yamamoto was a relatively unknown commodity coming out of Japan then, but he was also highly accomplished and brimming with potential at just 25 years old. With both New York teams also pursuing him, plus other big-market clubs such as the Philadelphia Phillies, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays, Yamamoto's price rose to record levels.

Will that happen with Skubal? Some MLB executives believe he is primed to secure a $400 million contract. His dominance -- 43 wins, 546 innings, a 2.42 ERA and a major-league-leading 18 FanGraphs wins above replacement from 2024 to 2026 -- is clear. His work ethic and tenacity are indisputable. His reputation is sterling.

But he's also 30 years old, at a time when pitchers break down and teams are only willing to dole out massive contracts to players at earlier ages, with a recent elbow surgery to boot. Skubal clearly won't get the 12-year deal that allowed Yamamoto's guarantee to stretch so high, and some executives have a hard time believing he'll get 10. Said one: "The price will be huge, but I don't think he's touching 400."

How will MLB's labor war affect him?

The last time a lockout was looming, free agency went into turbo mode. In the weeks following the conclusion of the 2021 season, Corey Seager and Marcus Semien signed with the Texas Rangers for a combined $500 million, Scherzer received more than $40 million annually from the Mets, Javier Baez secured a six-year, $140 million deal with the Tigers, and Kevin Gausman and Robbie Ray garnered their own nine-figure deals.

This time around, it's a bit more complicated. MLB owners are attempting to impose a salary cap, and while players and union officials are adamant that they won't agree to one, the uncertainty of the sport's economic model could impact Skubal's free agency.

On one side, there's the team aspect. The Mets and Dodgers, perhaps his two likeliest suitors, are also the teams that would most be impacted by a salary cap. Would they be hesitant to commit to a massive contract, worried that tighter restrictions in a new collective bargaining agreement could force them to make concessions elsewhere?

Or will the opposite be true -- that they'd be more willing to make an exception for a contract like that before it all changes? Agents and executives seem split on that.

Then there's Skubal's side. It's easy to see why Boras would look to secure a deal before the lockout comes on Dec. 1. But what if big-market teams aren't as heavily involved before then? Boras believes it's a moot point. He doesn't believe a cap will happen, and he doesn't believe the threat of one will make teams hesitant.