On May 25, at around 1:45 P.M., 2024 American League Cy Young Winner Tarik Skubal of the Detroit Tigers let loose a 102.6 MPH fastball for his 13th strikeout of the game. This K finished off a 94-pitch complete game shutout against the Cleveland Guardians, registering a 102 game score, his fourth game so far with a game score above an 80. To put that in perspective, no other pitcher in the top 10 in fWAR has more than two starts with a game score above an 80.
Two months into 2025, Skubal is even better than he was in his Cy Young campaign from the previous season. Through 12 starts, Skubal has pitched 75.2 innings, posting a 2.26 ERA, 1.89 FIP, 2.15 xFIP, 2.09 SIERA, 34.7 K%, and a 2.5 BB%. What has elevated Skubal’s game to above a Cy Young caliber pitcher is he has improved both his changeup and sinker to both being some of the best pitches in baseball.
Skubal has had a fastball run value that was in the 100th percentile in the 2024 season due to his elite four-seam fastball. This season for the Detroit Tigers, he’s in the 99th percentile but not because of the four-seamer. It’s his sinker doing the work. In 2024, Skubal’s sinker had a 9-run value on 584 sinkers thrown. This year, Skubal has already tied the 9-run value mark on just 272 pitches.
The sinker typically isn’t a swing-and-miss pitch as the average Whiff% on sinkers is 14%, which is far below the average Whiff% on all pitches of 25.1%. Skubal’s sinker has a 26.8% Whiff%, far and away the highest by a qualified starter. Even when batters do make contact, they only make hard contact 28.3% of the time. This combination makes Skubal’s sinker elite as he is the only pitcher with a HardHit% below 30% and a Whiff% above 20%.
Skubal is throwing his sinker in the zone 64.7%, up from 61.7% in 2024. While he’s throwing his sinker in the zone more often, he’s also getting batters to swing and whiff at the pitch far more than last season. His Z-Swing% is up to 65.9% this season while his Z-Contact% is down from 91.4% in 2024 to 81% this year. For sinkers outside of the zone, his O-Contact% is down from 75.9% to 43.5%.
What has made Skubal’s sinker better than last season is his location in combination with an increase in movement in velocity. Skubal has an overall Zone% of 50%, good for second in the league. His sinker’s aforementioned 64.7% is the highest of any of his pitches and has a BB% of 1.4%, the lowest of his career. Skubal also added velocity, as his sinker averaged 97.6 MPH making it the fastest sinker for a qualified starter in the league. He also added an inch of vertical movement on his pitch, up from 7.3 in 2024 to 8.6 in 2025. All of this combined has made his sinker a deadly pitch in 2025.
Like with the sinker, Skubal has added velocity to his changeup, going from 86.3 MPH in 2024 to 88.5 MPH in 2025. Also like with the sinker, batters are making contact with the changeup far less than this season, which is why batters have a 7 wRC+ against the pitch this year.
Unlike the sinker, though, the changeup is used as a swing-and-miss pitch, which Skubal has been achieving. Skubal has a 47.9 K% and a 49.2 Whiff% on his changeup. These rank sixth and third, respectively, for any pitch by a qualified starter. Skubal’s changeup Whiff% only had a slight increase in 2025, but his K% had a major jump from 34.9% in 2024 to 47.9% in 2025.
As for the quality of contact, across the board, Skubal has been able to increase his batted-ball numbers across the board. Among qualified pitchers with a changeup, Skubal’s HardHit% ranks sixth at 22.2%, down from 28.6% last season. Skubal also improved his Barrel/PA% from 4.3% to 2.1% and Barrel/BBE% from 6.8% to 4.2%. His Average Exit Velocity on his changeup also had a major decrease, going from 86.1 MPH in 2024 to 82.9 MPH in 2025.
Skubal’s combination of weak contact and swing and miss is why his changeup is why this pitch has seen such an improvement. Among qualified pitcher’s with a changeup, Skubal’s is the only one with a K% and Whiff% above 40%, and a HardHit% below 23%. As a result, Skubal’s wOBA on his changeup is .160 in 2025, down from .261 in 2025, making it one of the best pitches in the sport.
Skubal uses his sinker to get ahead of the batters. During 0-0 counts, Skubal of the Detroit Tigers throws the sinker 37.4% of the time, most of any of his pitches. When falling behind 1-0, Skubal’s sinker is also his used pitch at 33.3%. On 0-1 and 1-1 counts, Skubal most often then brings out his elite changeup to get to two strikes. With strikes, Skubal will usually throw a changeup or a four-seamer depending on the amount of balls in the count. This pitching formula with his elite changeup and sinker is what Skubal has been doing to get strikeouts or weak contact through his campaign to repeat as AL Cy Young winner.
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