DETROIT — In the silence of January, before the vortex was raging, Tarik Skubal realized something in his elbow did not feel right.“I knew something was wrong,” he said. “I didn’t know what was wrong.”Consider this dilemma: Skubal was a back-to-back Cy Young Award winner entering a contract year, with a chance to receive a record salary in arbitration. His Detroit Tigers were projected to be among the best teams in the American League. The baseball industry presumed that so long as Skubal made it through the 2026 season healthy, he would eventually sign the most lucrative contract ever given to a pitcher.Given all that, Skubal did his best to ignore the symptoms, to will them away.Looking back now? In an alternate universe, one without the stakes and the frenzy bubbling in the distance, Skubal might have gone about things differently.“If I could go back, I probably should have got an MRI in January and hammered it out to where I was done with it in the offseason,” Skubal said. “But there were also other factors in play. I was going through arbitration. The decision by the organization to take me to court, I think that probably had some impact subconsciously.”That is the sort of admission that both Skubal’s harshest critics and biggest fans will scrutinize. Those words matter because they came from the mouth of arguably the most fearsome left-handed pitcher in the sport. Skubal is not blind to the potential for headlines that exists every time a microphone or camera enters his vicinity. Rather than shy away from the hysteria, he has welcomed the costs of success. Skubal seems to comprehend how his performance and his words both hold weight.“I understand where I’m at in my career,” Skubal said. “I understand how public everything that’s happened in my career has been. The fans want to engage. There’s some clickbait-y headlines that the media has to write. That’s the media’s job. I get it. Do I agree with all of them? No. But I get it.”Sometimes, though, the weight of attention can still be a heavy thing to carry.During a winding conversation at his locker along the back wall of the Tigers’ clubhouse in late June, Skubal was unabashed in talking about this new reality. It’s the sort of strange existence that has led many athletes to recoil at the sight of reporters, to seek privacy when the spotlight turns bright. Skubal has handled it differently. Reserved and intense as a young player, he opened up as his profile grew.Tarik Skubal poses for a selfie with a fan before a game at Wrigley Field. Not all of his fan encounters have been so pleasant this season. (Matt Marton / Imagn Images)But navigating it all can still be odd. When you are Tarik Skubal, even explaining the human side of a challenging year means sharing things that can take on a life of their own.Skubal did not say those words about the MRI and the arbitration hearing with any malicious tone. But seated in a gray chair, he glanced up with a knowing look.“It happened,” he said. “It is what it is. I feel good. I feel healthy now.”In January, the Tigers filed to pay Skubal $19 million for the 2026 season. Scott Boras, the high-powered agent who first courted Skubal when he was an unknown southpaw at Seattle University, shot for the moon and sought $32 million.There was little negotiation between the two sides. A three-person arbitration panel ultimately awarded Skubal his $32 million. That decision gave Skubal a record salary in the system baseball uses for players with fewer than six years of service time. It was a victory not only for Skubal but potentially for other young aces in the future.The arbitration drama kicked off six months of Skubal as baseball’s central character — arbitration trendsetter, Team USA lightning rod, injured ace-turned medical marvel, and now, as the Aug. 3 trade deadline approaches, the most important player on the market.Soon, Skubal will be either a massive asset traded to a championship contender or an undisputed No. 1 starter tasked with leading his team’s against-the-odds charge.In some ways, this sort of drama is what Skubal has worked for his whole life. The top of his craft. The talk of the sport.Reach these heights, though, and the trade-off is non-negotiable.“When you’re put on a pedestal,” Tigers catcher Jake Rogers said, “there’s good and bad that comes with it.”Skubal’s stature in the game comes with a target on his back. Noise. Rumors. Constant critics.You don’t get one without the other.“I want to have those expectations on me,” Skubal said. “It’s a privilege. Not everybody that plays this game gets to wear that burden.”It is easy to forget Skubal did not always seem destined for this rare air. This is the pitcher with well-established lore, the Arizona teen whose only Division I offer was from Seattle University, a school that at the time did not even have its own baseball field.He threw a haphazard bullpen session in a goofy pair of K-Swiss sneakers and signed a scholarship offer even though he initially did not want to go. He had Tommy John surgery in 2017 and spent a summer driving his now-wife’s Dodge Dart to and from rehab sessions. He became a long-haired ninth-round pick, hampered by command issues. He came out of the bullpen for eight of his first nine professional outings. He had to prove to his own organization he could be a starter.