Tarik Skubal is not even in free agency yet, and his next market is already taking shape. Jim Bowden listed the White Sox as one of his three best team fits for the two-time Cy Young winner, putting Chicago in a conversation that still looks dominated by the Dodgers.
That matters now because the bidding picture is already being sketched around a pitcher who has not officially reached the market. The Dodgers are still viewed as the presumptive favorites, while the Mets and Blue Jays are described as the other clubs with both a rotation need and the kind of spending willingness that would be required for Tarik Skubal and Scott Boras to do business.
Bowden's list was not long. His three best fits were the Dodgers, the Mets and the White Sox. That alone is enough to turn heads, because Chicago is not the obvious answer for a pitcher of Skubal's stature. But the case for it is straightforward: the White Sox have a sketchy pitching staff, and Skubal would be the kind of anchor they could build around in front of Davis Martin and Sean Burke.
There is also a reason the fit is not as far-fetched as it first sounds. Skubal has ample experience pitching in the AL Central, so the leap to Chicago is not about learning a new environment. It is about whether a club that is being discussed as a surprise fit can also act like one when the price rises.
That is the gap still hanging over this story. The Dodgers may remain the presumptive favorite, and the Mets and Blue Jays still look like the cleaner big-market matches, but Bowden's list puts the White Sox on the board in a way that forces the next question: whether Chicago would actually be willing and able to make the kind of offer it would take to land a two-time Cy Young winner.
