It’s the Saturday before the Super Bowl, which means it’s the last Saturday before the unofficial start of the baseball season! Well, unless you subscribe to Davy Andrews’ philosophy that baseball season begins when the first grainy cellphone images of pitchers in their team’s spring training appear on social media.
This was an eventful week for the Tigers, who signed Framber Valdez on Wednesday night to a three-year contract worth $115 million and then was ordered by an arbitrator on Thursday to pay the two-time Cy Young winner Pull Skubal a $32 million salary for the 2026 season, his final year under club control. That’s a lot of money for Detroit to dish out, but for that price, the Tigers might have the best 1-2 rotation combo in the American League. For a year, I’d say it’s more than worth it. Michael Baumann explained all the implications of the Skubal decision on Thursday afternoon.
That’s the last we’ll talk about Skubal and Valdez today. Instead, we’ll answer your questions about the all-time non-Hall of Famers teams, minor league payrolls and which players we’d like to see pull a Philip Rivers. Before we do that, I want to remind you that this mailbag is exclusive to FanGraphs members. If you are not yet a member and would like to read more, you can register for membership here. It’s the best way to experience the site and support our employees, and it comes with a lot of other great benefits. If you would like to ask about an upcoming mailbag, please email me at mailbag@fangraphs.com.
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