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Tigers ace Tarik Skubal caps dominant season with American League Cy Young Award
DETROIT — Can you imagine a better or more fitting birthday present for Tigers’ lefty ace Tarik Skubal? Or a better way to cap a sensational, breakthrough season?
On Wednesday, the day he turned 28 years old, Skubal was named the American League Cy Young Award winner for 2024 by a vote of the Baseball Writers Association of America.
Happy birthday, indeed.
Skubal becomes the fifth Tigers pitcher to win the award. Denny McLain won it twice (1968 and 1969). Willie Hernandez (1984), Justin Verlander (2011) and Max Scherzer (2013) also won the prize while wearing the Old English D.
Full disclosure: I had a Cy Young Award vote this year and I did not put Cleveland’s dominant closer Emmanuel Clase on my ballot. I have been steadfast on every Cy Young vote I’ve cast over the years that it’s an award for starting pitchers. Relievers have their own award, as they should given the disparity between the two distinct roles.
The lines on this are getting blurrier as starter innings continue to shrink and bullpen roles expand. But this season, after comparing every candidate including Clase on a spreadsheet with every relevant statistical category — sabermetric and traditional — there were five starting pitchers who scored higher than Clase.
Thus, my ballot: 1. Skubal, 2. Kansas City’s Seth Lugo, 3. Seattle’s Logan Gilbert, 4. Kansas City’s Cole Ragans, 5. Baltimore’s Corbin Burnes.
Putting Skubal at the top of the ballot was a no-brainer. And not just because he became the 22nd player in MLB history to win the pitcher Triple Crown, leading the league in wins (18), ERA (2.39) and strikeouts (228).
He joins Hal Newhouser (1945) and Justin Verlander (2011) as the only Tigers to achieve the feat.
It was much more. When manager AJ Hinch said that Skubal was “everything for us,” this is what he meant:
After dealing away Jack Flaherty at the trade deadline, the Tigers were left with two starting pitchers — Skubal and rookie Keider Montero. The other three starting slots in the rotation were, for the final two months, covered by a creative and elaborate mix of openers and bulk relievers.
For that strategy to work, the Tigers needed Skubal, especially, to cover at least six innings in his starts. Here’s how Skubal responded to that challenge:
From Aug. 2 through Sept. 24, he went 6-1 and averaged 6.2 innings in 10 starts. He limited opponents to a .206/.252/.292 slash-line with 74 strikeouts and 11 walks.
He managed to be at his best exactly when his team needed him the most.
The Tigers were 21-10 in his 31 regular-season starts, a stat that held more value to Skubal than his 18 pitcher wins. He won two of his three postseason starts and threw 17 straight scoreless innings until the fatal fifth inning in Game 5 of the American League Division Series in Cleveland (see Lane Thomas homer).
Skubal limited opponents to two runs or less in 24 of his 31 regular-season starts, covering at least six innings in 21 of those.
Skubal day turned into win day for the Tigers. There is no better measure of greatness for a pitcher.
“He’s unbelievable,” said first baseman Spencer Torkelson after Skubal posted his 200th strikeouts of the season in a 2-1 win against Boston on Aug. 31. “It’s not only his stuff. It’s the conviction behind it. The intent and the confidence he has every single pitch he throws.
“You can really look up to somebody like that. He sets the tone. It builds character in our pitching staff and even in the position players.”
He set the tone for his season on the first day of live batting practice in Lakeland when he hit 99.6 mph with his four-seam fastball. He was asked about hitting 100 mph so early in camp.
“It wasn’t 100,” he said. “We don’t round up in the big leagues.”
He would hit and surpass 100 mph legitimately on May 11 against Houston, becoming the first Tigers starting pitcher to hit triple digits since Verlander in 2012.
He took the ball on Opening Day in Chicago and pitched six scoreless innings with six strikeouts. He got the start in the home opener, too, on April 5, making him the first Tigers pitcher to start both the regular-season opener and home opener since Mike Moore in 1993.
He struck out 12 in six innings at Yankee Stadium on May 5. But his most dominant strikeout performance came in Cincinnati on July 7 when he punched out 13 and got a remarkable 23 misses on 51 swings.
By the All-Star break he was 10-3 with a 2.41 ERA and a sub-1 WHIP (0.879) and earned his first All-Star berth. He threw a perfect second inning in the game, setting down Christian Yelich, Alec Bohm and Teoscar Hernandez.
“When you needed a big performance, he was our guy,” Hinch said in an interview with MLB Network earlier this month. “When you really needed a punch-out to get us out of an inning, he was our guy. We you needed someone to show incredible competitive emotion, he was our guy.
“We leaned on him for so much leadership and performance. And he delivered in all ways. He was the definition of dominant for us and across the league.”
The mantra for the Tigers’ pitching staff all season was “pound the strike zone,” and nobody pounded it more relentlessly and fearlessly than Skubal, evidenced by his 69% strike rate and 68.6% first-pitch strike rate.
To further amplify the point, he had a 30.3% strikeout rate and just a 4.7% walk rate.
Skubal’s 6.3 WAR (baseball-reference) led all big-league pitchers. His pitching run value of 40 (per Statcast) was best in baseball. His fastball run value of 26 ranked in the top 99 percentile.
Opponents hit .197 against his four-seam fastball and .207 off his two-seamer. They hit .216 off his changeup with a 46% whiff rate. His slider (.169) and knuckle curve (.158) rare got hit hard.
“Just Skub being Skub,” said Jake Rogers, who caught every one of Skubal’s starts. “I never get tired of talking about Skub. He’s been big for us all year, and every time he gets on the mound, he gives us a chance to win.
“I’m just really glad he’s on our team.”
