Examining Detroit Tigers Ace Tarik Skubal's Changes That Led to Dominance
The Detroit Tigers selected lefty pitcher Tarik Skubal in the ninth round of the 2018 MLB draft out of Seattle University. He was a solid but unspectacular pitcher for the Redhawks, a member of the Western Athletic Conference. It led to a run in the minors that saw mixed rankings for the pitcher, ranging as high as the 20th-best prospect in MLB heading into 2021, and as low as the 99th.
Skubal made his Major League debut in the COVID-shortened 2020 but remained a prospect and had a solid but unspectacular rookie year in 2021, pitching to a 4.34 ERA across 149 1/3 innings in 31 games (29 starts) with 164 strikeouts and a 98 ERA+. There was no Rookie of the Year ranking, no All-Star appearance, and little recognition for his efforts across the baseball landscape.
The pitcher has toyed with his rotation throughout his career, throwing a split-finger fastball in only 2021, and a cutter only 15 times in his career, split between 2020 and 2021. His repertoire since 2022 has included a four-seam fastball, a changeup, a sinker, a slider, and a knuckle curve.
Dropping the split-finger and cutter going into 2022, and beginning to incorporate his changeup more, showed signs of success that year before an injury would cut the campaign short. On August 3, the Tigers would place Skubal on the 15-day injured list with left arm fatigue, and he would not return to the mound in a Major League game until July 4, 2023.
While Skubal was out of action, he began looking for answers on how to improve his game and become a better pitcher. Detroit's pitching development staff was out to help the pitcher in that quest.
“I just got hurt, I’ll try anything,” Skubal said earlier this year. "They present information very simply, you throw harder when you do this, you throw less hard when you do this, we think this is good for you based on how you move, now whatever you want to do, you do. I was a little more crossfire so now I’m more linear, and they said that the less crossfire I throw, the harder I throw.”
"Throwing crossfire" is what it is called when a pitcher throws over his landing foot. While it can help improve deception, it can also decrease velocity. Straightening his body and not throwing over his landing foot since returning from that injury has increased his velocity, as his highest average MPH on his fastball from 2020 through 2022 was 94.4 MPH in 2020, and since returning he held an average velocity of 95.8 MPH in 2023, and 96.9 MPH in 2024.
Per Baseball Savant, in 2023 Skubal's fastball ranked in the 92nd percentile in run value with 13, and in 2024 it ranked in the 99th percentile with 26. His four-seam fastball may not have as much horizontal movement as others in the sport, sitting 1.7 inches short of the Major League average in that metric, it has more "rise" than the average fastball, 0.7 inches more to be exact. And with his velocity ranking in the 89th percentile, it's no wonder it is one of the best fastballs in the sport.
The ace has increased the usage of his changeup drastically, throwing it 27 percent of the time in 2024. It ranked in the 93rd percentile for offspeed pitches in run value with seven. While most pitchers want their changeup to fall off the table, Skubal wants more horizontal movement on his offering.
“Changeup, I’m looking to kill vert and get as much horizontal as I can,” the lefty said of the shape of his pitch. “I’m also throwing that pitch harder, so the seam effects have less time to push it down, so it’s running more.”
He has achieved exactly that, getting 0.1 fewer inches of vertical break on the league average, while getting 0.8 inches more horizontal break than league average. At an average velocity of 86.3 MPH, just over 10 MPH slower than his four-seam fastball, that one-two punch has quickly become one of the most lethal in the game.
Skubal threw his four-seam fastball and changeup a combined 60.4 percent of the time in 2024, racking up a total of 157 strikeouts. For the year, he tallied 228 strikeouts, with his primary and secondary offerings accounting for 68.9 percent of them.
The changes to his delivery, as well as his pitch usage, have greatly improved his production on the mound, leading to an American League Triple Crown and Cy Young Award in 2024.
Skubal will only be 28 in 2025 and is under team control with the Tigers through 2026. With the lefty's dominance in 2024, it is hard to anticipate regression.
We are now approaching the prime years of Tarik Skubal, and the rest of the league better be ready for one of the best one-two punches of any pitcher in the sport.
