​It’s a mere formality Tarik Skubal will reset the standard for highest-paid pitcher in Major League Baseball. And deservedly so.Skubal posted two of the most dominant seasons in recent baseball history in winning consecutive Cy Young Awards in 2024 and 2025. The left-hander doesn’t turn 30 until next week. Viable starting pitchers are running shorter in supply every year, and the cost for the highest-end talent continues rising.Topping Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s 12-year, $325 million pact (and Gerrit Cole’s nine-year, $324 million record for a player drafted and developed in the USA) will happen soon, almost certainly before Major League Baseball shuts down the industry Dec. 1. Skubal is slated for meetings with a handful of teams next week, most notably the Los Angeles Dodgers, who acquired him at the August trade deadline for a championship run that ended in the National League Championship Series.But Skubal will join the $300 million ($400 million?) pitcher’s club toting an injury history a little more extensive than the average mega-ace. He famously had Tommy John surgery in April 2016 while pitching at Seattle Pacific, recovered and was shrewdly drafted by the Detroit Tigers in the ninth round in 2018.Just as he was evolving into a potential ace in August 2022, Skubal’s second full season in the majors was disrupted by flexor tendon surgery, which limited him to 15 starts in 2023.And his bid for a third consecutive Cy Young Award was derailed in May, when he underwent surgery to remove loose bodies from his throwing elbow, undergoing an innovative nanoscope procedure that enabled his mound return in just 32 days – and maintain his value heading into free agency.A team could regard Skubal’s health history in multiple fashions.On the positive side: He’s had his Tommy John surgery, albeit a decade ago, and has cleared his other hurdles and remained dominant.A more negative orientation would revive the bromide that past injury is the greatest predictor of future injury.Yet what can the 10 largest pitching contracts in major league history teach us about how healthy these elite arms were when they signed life-changing pacts, and how they held up after?We know this much: Four of the 10 highest-paid starters ever won World Series with the teams that signed them. Two more reached the World Series in the life of their contracts.And the jury is still out on three contracts just getting started – including one ace waylaid by a major injury. A look at the 10 largest contracts signed by starting pitchers, and how these deals aged for team and player:1. Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Dodgers: 12 years, $325 millionSigned: December 2023, age 25Résumé at time of signing: Three-time Ejii Sawamura winner (Japan’s Cy Young equivalent) and three-time NPB MVPPre-contract health flags: Reportedly pitched through elbow pain in renowned high school tournament, dropping him to fourth round of NPB draft. Revised training methods apparently quelled the pain. D