The frontrunner for American League Cy Young is Tarik Skubal, who lowered his ERA to 1.92 in yet another dominant outing in the Tigers' win over the first-place Brewers on Sunday. Is he also emerging as a candidate for MVP?
Jim Costa makes the case:
"The Tigers are 10-3 when Tarik Skubal starts, 22-30 when he doesn't. It speaks to just how valuable this guy is. ... He has the lowest ERA for a Tigers starter through 13 starts since 1945. He's off to a better start than when Justin Verlander won the MVP for the Tigers. If the question is value, don't we have to make the case that this team, without him, isn't even in the race? Isn't even within striking distance of a playoff spot? But when you wake up today, flimsy as it may be, they're a couple games out. And it's mostly because of Tarik Skubal."
Without Skubal, says Costa, the Tigers would be eight or nine games out of the wild card race and on track for 90-plus losses. But with him, "they're at least in the fight."
"Every fifth day he takes the mound and you have supreme confidence that whatever losing streak you're on is over, whatever win streak you may be on is going to continue. When Tarik Skubal is on the bump, you know you've got a great chance to win. He's the best pitcher in baseball. He's the sole reason this team is in playoff contention. His value is undeniable right now."
And if not Skubal, who has the best case for AL MVP?
"Aaron Judge? They've got Juan Soto. Soto? They've got Judge. I get it, the Yankees are good. But if you took one of those guys off the team, are they still a first-place team? Are they still a World Series contender? Yes. If you take a player off a team, what do they become? Isn't the best way to judge value?"
Jon Jansen agrees that "if you took Tarik Skubal off of the Tigers, it's more of an impact than removing any other player from their team across baseball. And by definition, most valuable player, that's it. How important are you to your team's success?"
Judge leads the majors in homers, OPS and WAR on the best team in the AL. At this rate, he's the runaway favorite to claim the second MVP award of his career.
The year that Verlander won AL MVP by also winning the pitching triple crown, the second- and third-place finishers for MVP were Jacoby Ellsbury and Jose Bautista. By the standard of WAR, neither one came close to matching Judge's impact this season. So Skubal would have to produce one of the greatest pitching seasons of all time to give Judge a run for the award.
Costa admits that Skubal "won't win it. My point is, there's a case that he should win it. And we do this too often where we say you have to be the best player on the best team. That's not the same thing as most valuable. And I think Tarik Skubal is a player that if you take off the Tigers, the wheels would fall off this team."
