HUGE Mets Tarik Skubal Update...

Last night, the newest notes out of the general manager meetings landed, and the New York Mets are no longer the favorites to sign Tarek Skubal anymore. Bob Nightingale of USA Today has the Dodgers as the favorites, with the Mets as their stiffest competition. By his reporting, the Mets have even downplayed their own chances. Just three days earlier, John Heyman said on MLB Network that he favored the Mets. But the same notes carry a second line. And that one matters a whole lot more for the Metropolitans. Skubal is not interested in a short-term deal, and he's looking for more than $325 million. $100,000,000. Reports say the Dodgers prefer a shorter-term contract for him, and Steve Cohen, the Mets owner, has shown a willingness to pay for length. So, is the quiet out of Queens a real step back, or are the Mets the team built for exactly what Tarek Skubal just asked for? The read on this changed fast. On November 6th, ESPN's Jorge Castillo put it simply, if Steve Cohen wants Skubal, he will sign Skubal. Three days after that, Heyman picked the Mets too, because they need an ace more than the than the Dodgers do. The next day, he broke the news that the Mets had a meeting scheduled with Skubal for next week in Southern California. Then, the rest of the league showed up. The Associated Press reported Skubal is set to meet with six different teams, and only three were named at first. Nightingale has four teams sitting down with him before Thanksgiving, and the names reported so far are the Mets, the Dodgers, the Padres, and the Blue Jays. The Dodgers traded for him at the deadline, and their general manager Brandon Gomes said this week, we loved having him. The Padres need him almost as badly as the Mets do. Joe Musgrove and Randy Vasquez are the only sure things in the rotation. San Diego met with Boras this week and is one of the teams Skubal is expected to meet in person next week. The Blue Jays are the newest name, added this week as the fourth team at the table. One big market already stepped back. The Athletic reports the Cubs aren't planning a serious run at him. For all that noise, none of the four has made an offer anyone has reported, not even LA. Through all of it, David Stearns has said almost nothing. Asked at the general manager meetings about long deals for pitchers, he gave one line, every situation is unique. That's exactly the quietness that Nightingale is describing, and it's certainly a choice. Scott Boras runs this market by getting teams to bid against each other, and this week he said the right pitcher, quote, can allow a franchise to win a coveted world championship. He also summed up the whole market in five words, there is only one Tarek. At one point, when his phone rang in the middle of that briefing, he joked it was just another owner begging to meet with Skubal. When Boras is selling a title like that, a team that looks the most desperate ends up having to pay the most. A team that just won 74 games and finished last in its division has every reason to want to look calm. It was the Mets' second straight October at home, and S&Y reports Steve Cohen is expected to push hard for Tarik Skubal, which is hard to square with the comm. Comm doesn't sign anyone, though, and what Skubal asked for last night tells you exactly where this gets decided. Skubal turns 30 next Friday, with two Cy Young awards already on his shelf. This is the last time in his career that Tarik Skubal will be able to sell his whole prime at once, which is why a short-term contract is just off the table. His numbers line up with the benchmark. $325 million is what Yoshinobu Yamamoto got, the biggest guarantee ever for a pitcher. An industry survey projects him at 8 years and $355 million. That works out to $44.4 million a year. Passed the $43.3 million record for a pitcher that Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander share. Signing him also costs no draft pick, because the midseason trade means nobody could give him a qualifying offer. Now, look at how the Dodgers like to pay their stars. Kyle Tucker got four years and $240 million from them last winter. That's $60 million a season, and then it's over. Reports say that's the shape the Dodgers could want with Scooble, too. A bigger salary for fewer years. Scooble's camp just told everybody that's not the shape that works for him. With Scooble's elbow history, the guaranteed years are the whole point. Every season past 33 is money he only gets if he signs it for right now. The Dodgers also definitely don't need Tarik Skubal nearly as much as the New York Mets do. Their rotation already has Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glassnow, Roki Sasaki, and Shohei Ohtani. ESPN went as far as calling Skubal a luxury for them. To be fair to LA, Snell and Glassnow only made 22 starts between them this year, so that luxury has a real use. Andrew Friedman says they'll keep talking with Boris. But a team with that much pitching can afford to wait for its price. Then there's the money already spoken for down the line. The next labor deal could bring a salary cap as early as 2028, and any long-term contract would have to live under it. The Dodgers already have about $262 million on their 2028 books. ESPN has the Mets at about $197 million, which is $65 million less already committed. Past 2028, only two Mets have guaranteed money at all, Francisco Lindor and Juan Soto. Add Schubela at $44.4 million a year, and the Mets' 2028 number only climbs to about $241 million. That's still about $21 million under what the Dodgers have on their 2028 books before they add him at all. If Schwellenbach really wants length, the Mets can carry it more easily than the team that's supposedly ahead of them. The catch is that the length has always been the Mets' own sticking point, too. David Stearns has never signed a pitcher to a long-term deal, and he's been especially wary of long deals for pitchers in their early 30s. Schwellenbach's medical files is where that rule gets tested. This spring, he missed six weeks after surgery to take a loose body out of his left elbow. It was his third arm operation, counting Tommy John surgery in 2017 and a flexor tendon repair in 2022. An eight-year deal would pay him until he's 38. Then you look at what that elbow did all of last year. He made 26 starts and finished with a 2.72 ERA. He struck out 186 batters in 158 and two-thirds innings. His four-seam fastball still averaged 96.8 miles an hour. His walk rate was 4.4%, better than 99% of pitchers. After the trade, he posted a 2.61 ERA in 10 starts for the Dodgers, the team he finished the year with. Now hold that next to the Mets rotation. Mets starters had a 4.47 ERA this year, 23rd out of 30 teams. Sean Manaea finished at 4.78, and Freddy Peralta at 4.99 in his Mets starts. David Peterson was at 6.09 in his Mets starts, and Kodai Senga had a 10.08 ERA, over his first 7 starts. They didn't go deep either. Mets starters threw 791 innings, 22nd in baseball. Schwellenbach averaged just over 6 innings a start. In the same year, his elbow needed a cleanup. Nolan McLean was the bright spot, with a 3.16 ERA in 31 starts as a rookie. Behind him, only Christian Scott is a lock for next year's rotation, and Tyler McGill is still working back from Tommy John. The hole at the top is the exact shape of a left-handed ace. The Mets need an ace more than any team in that room, and Stearns knows the risk better than anyone. Every situation being unique is his way of leaving the door open without saying so. He doesn't have long to make up his mind, though. The labor deal expires December 1st, 18 days from today, and Schwellenbach reportedly wants to sign before then. A deal done before a lockout should carry over into the new rules, and those rules could bring a salary cap. Thanksgiving falls on November 26th, which is Nightingale's marker for all four meetings. That leaves about five days between the last of those meetings and the deadline. That's why Scooble wants his years locked in now. And why next week's meeting has to be more than a handshake. But Mets fans have seen this movie before. In December 2023, the Mets matched Yoshinobu Yamamoto at 12 years and $325 million. He still went to the Dodgers. The pull of that clubhouse is real. And Skenes felt it in just a few months there. After the Dodgers went out in the NLCS, he called it an incredible organization, incredible teammates, and an incredible fanbase. Matching LA on money didn't beat them for Yamamoto, and it won't beat them for a guy who has already liked being there. This time, though, the Mets can beat LA on the one thing Skenes has said he wants, and that is years. Cohen has already done it with a Boris client. Juan Soto is on the books at $51 million a year through 2039. Boris clients have a long history of taking the biggest offer on the table, and Soto is the proof of the Mets knowing how to make it. Skenes at 8 years would be a shorter bet than Soto. For a pitcher this team actually really needs. If you're enjoying the Daily Mets Hit subscribe and help us get closer to 9,000 subscribers. So here's my call. The quiet is posture, not a step back. Go to eight years. Why? The Dodgers reportedly like a short-term deal for Skenes, and Skenes is saying no on short-term deals, so the Mets need to take advantage of any advantage they have, which is the fact that they're willing to go to the desired contract length that Tarek wants. Now, there is a doubt, and it's the injury history. It's the elbow. He's had three surgeries Skenes has, yes. But a 2.73 ERA in 19 starts after the last one, and the Mets were just at 4.47, just shows and highlights why we should be able to look past that. What we're going to need to watch is the meeting in Southern California next week, and then of course, December 1st. So where does Skenes sign? The Mets or the Dodgers? Well, you guys tell me in the comments. Let me know, and as always guys, let's go Mets.