(Photo: Courtesy of Erie SeaWolves)
Detroit — Wherever Scott Pleis has gone this summer, invariably, someone will ask him about Tarik Skubal. Like this week at the Major League Baseball scouting directors’ meetings in California.
“The first thing everybody says, ‘Holy cow, did you know Skubal was that good?’” said Pleis, the Tigers' director of amateur scouting. “I always say, ‘Sure we did.’”
His laughter belies any actual sincerity.
The Tigers had no idea Skubal, a left-handed pitcher from Seattle University they drafted in the ninth round in 2018, would be this good — certainly not this soon.