The Mets Get Their Meeting With Tarik Skubal, and the Lockout Clock Is Running

The general managers are all in Las Vegas this week for the GM Meetings, but the biggest conversation in baseball is scheduled for California next week. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported Tuesday that the Mets have a meeting set with Tarik Skubal, the two-time American League Cy Young winner who sits alone at the top of this winter’s free-agent market. The Dodgers have a meeting scheduled too, Heyman reported, and Skubal and his agent, Scott Boras, are expected to sit down with interested clubs through the coming days.

The Mets are not being coy about it. David Stearns, the club’s president of baseball operations, identified a top-of-the-rotation starter as an objective heading into the winter, and the Post reported their focus has been on Skubal from the start. MLB Trade Rumors noted the Mets finished the 2026 season with the highest cash payroll in the sport and trailed only the Dodgers in luxury-tax obligations, so the money is not the obstacle. Heyman’s colleague Joel Sherman wrote that rival agents and executives have framed the Mets as one of the more aggressive teams of the early offseason, in free agency and in trade talks alike, and Heyman said on MLB Network that he favors the Mets to land him at this point. The honest complication is in Sherman’s own column for the Post: Skubal’s 2026 was disrupted by surgery to remove elbow chips and by the midseason trade, and it was his third elbow procedure. That is the risk half of a very expensive argument.

The incumbent and the third team in the room

The Dodgers are not a suitor in the usual sense — Skubal is theirs to lose. Los Angeles acquired him from Detroit near the trade deadline, and he started Game 1 of the National League Championship Series in Milwaukee on Oct. 11. Sports Illustrated reported the Dodgers have kept their cards close and may hesitate over another long-term contract with a possible salary cap looming in the next labor deal. San Diego is in it as well: Jon Morosi of MLB Network reported the Padres have expressed interest, per MLB Trade Rumors, and the Padres are known to be shopping at the top of the rotation market. Chicago is the contradiction of the week. ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Cubs president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer wants Skubal badly, while The Athletic reported the Cubs are expected to stay on the sidelines when the bidding gets serious. Both things can be true in November.

December 1 is doing the negotiating

Every part of this market runs on one date. The collective bargaining agreement expires at 11:59 p.m. ET on Dec. 1, and a lockout is expected on Dec. 2 that would freeze signings, trades and even contact between teams and players. The Winter Meetings, set for Dec. 7–9 in San Diego, would land inside the freeze, which is why this year’s GM Meetings carry unusual weight. Heyman reported Skubal hopes to get a deal done before the lockout arrives, and the Post pointed to the precedent: two years ago, Juan Soto’s camp arranged early-November meetings with interested clubs, and Soto signed with the Mets at the Winter Meetings that December. Skubal turns 30 on Nov. 20. He played 2026 on a $32 million salary after winning a record-setting arbitration case, according to the Post, and contract projections reaching toward $400 million have followed him through the first week of free agency. Whichever team wins him pays no tax in draft picks, either: because he was traded in midseason, MLB Trade Rumors noted, he was ineligible for a qualifying offer.

The rest of the meetings board

The week’s actual transactions, so far, are smaller. The Padres announced the signing of right-hander Ryan Weiss to a one-year contract with a club option, MLB Trade Rumors reported; Weiss reached free agency when the Astros declined a $5 million club option in favor of a $500,000 buyout. The Nationals are fielding trade interest in outfielder Dylan Crews, the former No. 2 overall pick, according to Spencer Nusbaum of The Athletic, and have also taken calls on left fielder Daylen Lile. Washington made the winter’s first real move last week, signing center fielder Jacob Young to a four-year, $23 million extension with an $8 million club option for a fifth year, according to FanSided’s Robert Murray. The next hard dates: qualifying-offer answers are due Nov. 17 — eight players hold one-year, $23.15 million offers, per ESPN’s tracker — with the Rule 5 protection deadline the same day and the tender deadline on Nov. 20.

Awards week rolls on in the meantime. Previously covered Tuesday’s Manager of the Year results in full — Will Venable’s American League win for the White Sox turnaround and Pat Murphy’s third straight National League award in Milwaukee — a night after Kevin McGonigle and Sal Stewart took the Rookie of the Year awards. The Cy Young and the new Reliever of the Year awards follow on Wednesday, and the MVPs on Thursday. By then, the Skubal meetings will be days away, and the calendar will be the loudest voice in every room.