00:00Joel Sherman back with three things. I'm talking to you from a hotel room in Toronto.
00:05Tonight, the Blue Jays host the Mariners in what we all love, Game 7s.
00:10It's a Game 7 for who wins the AL Championship, who gets to take on the Dodgers in the World Series.
00:15I'm looking forward to it, of course.
00:18But I wrote about Tarek Skubal over the weekend, NYPost.com, if you want to give it a view, and his situation.
00:25And so why don't we do three things on Tarek Skubal?
00:29Starting with number one, will he be available this offseason?
00:33I believe the Tigers, at least quietly, will go around and find out just how crazy somebody would go for him.
00:41And look, we'll use the rest of this video at some point to talk about why teams should and maybe have to go crazy if they're going to get him.
00:51But unless somebody goes crazy, the Tigers haven't won the World Series since 1984.
00:55They've made the playoffs the last two years after not doing so for about a decade.
01:01And the biggest reason they made the playoffs and the biggest reason they have a shot in the playoffs is they have Tarek Skubal.
01:06To me, unless the trade is overwhelming on steroids, you can't make this trade if you're the Tigers.
01:13You're better off just playing it out and seeing how it goes.
01:16I don't think the Tigers, how they're constructed with Scott Harris at the top in their marketplace and with Scott Boris as the agent for Skubal.
01:25Boris always, almost always, takes this kind of great player into the market and lets an open market dictate where it goes.
01:34And I can't imagine that they're, my colleague John Heyman wrote that they're about $200 million apart last year.
01:41I can't imagine them bridging the gap.
01:43So to me, if I'm the Tigers, I at least have to, unless I get a trade that the Godfather offer, I just can't say no.
01:51I think you've got to go into the season, see how your season's going.
01:54And if it's a disaster, you could always trade the player in June or July and I think reap no less than $80 to $90 or even more of a trade that you would get in the offseason.
02:05That's how good Skubal is.
02:06You know, the risk is, of course, he stays healthy.
02:09Why is he worth a lot?
02:10Number two.
02:12Look, I'll go a little crazy here.
02:14If there was, if our worst fears about artificial intelligence, AI are true, and it begins to take over, and they say the only way we're not wiping out humanity is we're playing a baseball game for this,
02:27the starting pitcher for the human side would be either Paul Skeens or Tarek Skubal, and I think it would be Skubal.
02:34He's the best player pitcher on the planet.
02:37He is a difference maker at the highest level.
02:39And to me, you can't, like, trade this player for anything, again, less than substantial return.
02:51And the history of these trades, and again, if you read the – I wrote about this on NYPost.com.
02:56The history of these trades, player being – pitcher being traded in his walk year, there's, like, one good one out of, like, the last 10 great ones.
03:06You know, it just hasn't worked out.
03:08Zach Greinke went from Kansas City to Milwaukee.
03:12Kansas City got Lorenzo Cain, Alcides Escobar, and they got Jake Odorizzi, who they eventually turned into Wade Davis and James Shields.
03:19Besides that, most of these trades have not been the kind where you give up the great starter and you feel good about it.
03:27And so unless the Tigers believe that they're going to be the one out of 10, it's hard to do.
03:33So let's go to number three.
03:34Obviously, the Mets have been mentioned for Tarek Skubal, and the Mets obviously should try to get Tarek Skubal, if not this offseason, if not at the trade deadline, if he's available, then next year.
03:46This is the might of Steve Cohen is, where is this going?
03:51He can probably go there.
03:52This is, like, potentially a Hall of Fame-bound starter.
03:56He's about to win his second Cy Young in a row.
04:00But what's the cost?
04:02I like to take you to a conversation.
04:06When I was a very young reporter, I was still covering the Yankees, which I did from 1989 to 95, and I called Billy Bean about a player on his team, one of the best players on his team.
04:17And I said, hey, the Yankees, that guy would fit perfect on the Yankees.
04:22You're not contending.
04:23He's saying, if the Yankees traded this group of players for that player, would you do it?
04:31And Billy Bean taught me a lesson.
04:34He said, you just offered me a pile of s***.
04:38So I added another player, and he just said, now you've added more s***.
04:43And he said, if I trade that player, it's going to be incredibly painful for me.
04:49If it isn't equally painful for you, then why even call me?
04:56Like, this must be incredibly painful.
04:57I'm trading Tarek Skubal.
04:59I'm trading the guy I would try to save humanity with against AI.
05:04So, like, if I'm doing that, the pain has to be equal on the other side.
05:10And I have seen, like, mock Mets trades.
05:14And essentially, you don't really get to take players off the table.
05:17But if I were the Mets, I'd say Nolan McClain's off the table because I'm hoping Nolan McClain...
05:23I've seen him pitch in the major leagues now.
05:25And I think he has a shot to be no worse than a number two starter and maybe an ace.
05:31And for a walkier pitcher, I can't do it.
05:36I can't do it.
05:37But, like, I've seen people say, you can't put Carson Benj in the trade.
05:41Now, most of the people who've said that have never seen Carson Benj play baseball.
05:44And I dare say, if this equal trade were offered in the offseason of 2022 and 23, and we said, hey, it's going to cost Francisco Alvarez, who was then a top ten prospect in the sport, a top five in a lot of places,
06:01every Mets fans would go crazy and say, well, you can't trade this player.
06:05The reality is that most prospects don't flourish to the level that you expect them.
06:10And I'm sure the internal belief of the Mets is that, like, Carson Benj turns out to be a great player.
06:16If they really believe that, then don't trade him for a year of Skubal or, you know, put a thing on it that you're willing to meet whatever Scott Boris' price is today
06:28to make it worthwhile to trade Benj because you get Skubal for more than a year.
06:33But if it's Tarek Skubal, you have to feel equal pain.
06:38This can't just be, like, Brett Beatty, Brandon Sprout, and we'll call you tomorrow with some other names.
06:47This has to hurt the Mets or any team.
06:51The Yankees, the Dodgers, the Phillies, the Cubs, whoever would want this player has to feel incredible pain to be able to acquire him
07:01because the Tigers drafted this player, they developed this player, they watched this player become a Cy Young Award winner for them,
07:10and now they have to trade him at his peak, perhaps.
07:16They are going to feel tremendous pain.
07:19You can't just put together a poo-poo platter and say, please take our quantity of OK for this.
07:27It's my Billy Bean lesson when I offered the pile of what he called s**t, and he was right.
07:34I looked back and I was, like, thinking like the Yankee side of this.
07:38If you're a Mets fan or a Dodger fan or a Yankee fan or a Cubs, Philly, whoever you are, don't think about your team.
07:45Act like you're the general manager of the Tigers.
07:48Would you do it for Brandon Sprode and Jett Williams and, you know, pick your other guys?
07:55Is that really enough for Tarek Skubal against trying to win your first championship since 1984,
08:02at least begin the season next year?
08:04This has to be extremely painful for whoever does this.
08:09Otherwise, the Tigers cannot trade the best pitcher in the game.
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