Skubal’s record arbitration win could be a warning sign for Blue Jays and Yesavage

The Toronto Blue Jays could have an issue on their hands a few years down the road, thanks to Tarik Skubal. The Detroit Tigers ace just won the highest arbitration case settlement in MLB history, with the arbitrator siding with Skubal and his $32 million ask.

That's $13 million more than what the Tigers had argued Skubal was worth. Now they are on the hook for having two pitchers in their rotation who will make over $60 million combined this season after they signed Framber Valdez to a three-year $115 million deal on Wednesday evening. They also have to deal with the fact that they may have insulted their best player, a two time Cy Young award winner, a year before he hits the open market.

It's a good lesson for the Blue Jays to make note of as down the road they could be headed to an arbitration case with a star pitcher of their own in Trey Yesavage.

Skubal’s record arbitration win could be a warning sign for Blue Jays and Yesavage

We'll get this out of the way first, Yesavage has a long way to go before he can be considered on the same level as Skubal. The 29-year-old Skubal has been worth 19.3 fWAR since entering the league as a 23-year-old in 2020. Over the last three years he is ninth among qualified pitchers in K/9 (10.99), second in the league in xERA (2.63) eighth in strikeouts (571) and eighth in overall earned runs (124).

Yesavage has thrown in three regular season games and six playoff games (five starts). And while he's looked very impressive in those nine combined outings, it's a mountain to climb for Yesavage to go from sensational September call up, to Cy Young award contender.

But if, and that's a big but if, he does end up getting to a point where he is considered one of the top pitchers not just on the Blue Jays but in the American League, and maybe the entire MLB, Toronto might be wise to get him signed to a deal that buys out his arbitration years before his contract numbers become extremely non-team friendly. If the Blue Jays have learned anything from the Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette saga's it's this; signing guys earlier will save a ton of money in the long-term.

The West Sacramento Athletic's have just shown that to be true when they inked shortstop Jacob Wilson to a seven-year, $70 million extension last week. He became the fourth young core player to get such a deal from the Athletics who now have Brent Rooker, Lawrence Butler and Tyler Soderstorm locked in past their arbitration years, and buying out at least a year of free agency in some cases.

While pitchers are a lot more fragile than position players, and Toronto has had a hard time developing major league starters, Yesavage might be different. Of course detractors will point to Nate Pearson and Alek Manoah as two prime examples of highly touted hurlers who had tons of pedigree coming up through the Blue Jays system but weren't able to make it work in the big leagues once they got there.

While there is certainly no rush to get any kind of hard numbers in front of Yesavage as he is still pre-arbitration eligible, the Skubal situation should serve as a harsh warning for the Blue Jays that a giant pay day could be coming down the pipe if Yesavage does maximize his full potential.