Skubal Will Not Talk About His Future, So Blake Snell Is Talking for Him

Tarik Skubal’s season ended on Thursday night with the Dodgers swept out of the NLCS, and his free agency began in the same clubhouse, in the same hour. Asked whether he hoped to be back in Los Angeles next year, the biggest pitching name on this winter’s market shut the question down. Two lockers away, his closest friend on the roster opened the bidding in public, telling reporters he had already told Skubal he cannot leave. One man said nothing about his future. The other said everything about it for him.

What did Skubal actually say about his future?

He declined, completely and on the record. “I’m not going to comment on my future really at all,” Skubal said, according to comments shared by Sonja Chen and reported by Athlon Sports. “Today sucks, you know, and that’s kind of where my head’s at.” The New York Post carried the same line from the clubhouse. What he would discuss was the three months behind him. Skubal called the Dodgers an “incredible organization, incredible teammates, incredible fanbase,” said the clubhouse group “works their a— off and goes out and competes with the best of them,” and said he was extremely grateful for how he was welcomed from day one. It was praise without a single forward-looking word attached, from a pitcher who had been due to start a Game 5 that the sweep erased. This is the same pitcher who, a week earlier, celebrated the NLDS win with a beer-soaked interview that made him look like a lifer. The celebration was real. So is the silence.

What is Blake Snell’s pitch to keep him?

It started before the room had emptied. “I just said, he can’t leave me, especially on these terms,” Snell told the California Post, in comments reported by the New York Post. “The goal is to win a World Series, and we weren’t able to do that, so now that it’s over, it’s like, ‘Don’t leave.’” Snell said he would love nothing more than for Skubal to be back, called him a great human and a great pitcher, and, asked how badly he wanted the re-signing, grinned and answered, “Really bad.” Sportskeeda carried the same message from Snell’s farewell post: “He can’t leave me.” Snell also kept the door honest, saying he is excited for whatever comes next for Skubal, with the Dodgers or elsewhere. A teammate recruiting in public costs the team nothing and tells the market something real: the clubhouse wants this player back at a price the front office has not yet named.

Why does the friendship matter in a free agency race?

Because the friendship and the negotiation run through the same people. The Post reports Snell and Skubal are both left-handed two-time Cy Young winners who talked practically every day after the deadline trade from Detroit, referred to themselves as best friends in social media posts, and share one representative: Scott Boras. A Miguel Rojas AI video of the pair went viral during the season. Snell said the two never discussed Skubal’s future while the season was alive, which is why the timing of the pitch matters. It began the night the season died, from inside the room, weeks before front offices make their formal approaches next month. The Dodgers also have the recent memory of how this series turned on pitching depth, from Henderson’s two throwing errors gifting runs in Game 2 to the benching conversation that ran through Roberts’s talk with Ohtani before Game 3. Keeping the rotation’s new ace is the simplest answer to all of it, and everyone in the building knows it.

What is Skubal’s market, in numbers?

The résumé prices itself. Athlon Sports records a 12-7 regular season with a 2.72 ERA and 186 strikeouts in 158 2/3 innings, following consecutive American League Cy Young Awards in 2024 and 2025, then a 2.45 ERA with 14 strikeouts in 11 postseason innings for Los Angeles. The Post notes the 29-year-old could break the record contract for a pitcher, held by his own teammate Yoshinobu Yamamoto at $325 million. EssentiallySports adds the calendar pressure: Boras would reportedly prefer a deal completed before the collective bargaining agreement expires on December 1, with owners pushing for a salary cap the players’ association refuses. Treat the record talk as projection rather than reporting of an offer. No bid has been reported from any club, and Skubal’s side has said nothing at all, which is itself a negotiating position.

What could get in the Dodgers’ way?

Money rules, mostly. The Post reports the threat of a lockout, and a possible salary cap or stricter financial regulations, could complicate adding another mega-contract to a payroll already carrying Yamamoto, Snell and Tyler Glasnow on long deals. The Dodgers are still expected to pursue Skubal, as they did when they made him a deadline priority, and plenty of other clubs will make their own approaches when the offseason opens. The sweep also widened the story beyond one pitcher: the same Thursday night produced Willson Contreras arguing on Instagram that his brother was the real NLCS MVP, then deleting the posts. Milwaukee’s win closed several arguments at once. Skubal’s is the one that stays open all winter.

What happens next?

The market opens next month, and the first verified step will be a reported offer, a Boras comment or a Skubal sentence that goes further than Thursday’s. Until then, the record stands as the clubhouse left it: the ace praising the organization and refusing its future, and his best friend on the roster making the case in public that the front office will soon have to make in numbers.