TAMPA, Fla. >> Tarik Skubal looked up when the question was asked.

“I’m kind of surprised I haven’t been asked about that,” he said. “Surprised this is the first time.”

It’s been the elephant in the room, really since before the trade deadline last season. Skubal, the reigning unanimous American League Cy Young winner, can be a free agent after next season.

Whether the Tigers should trade Skubal was the hot topic last summer, before the Tigers caught fire and stormed into the postseason for the first time in a decade. Now they have the best record in baseball and woke up Tuesday with an 8.5-game lead in the Central Division.

There is no talk anymore about trading him.

But there’s been no shortage of media chatter about his future. Can the Tigers, will the Tigers, work out an extension to keep him beyond 2026? How many hundreds of millions will he command in the open market? Where is the best fit?

So, as he sat in front of his cramped locker inside the visitors’ clubhouse at Steinbrenner Field Sunday morning, preparing for his start Tuesday against the Athletics, it seemed like a good time to see how much of that talk he’s letting in.

“Listen, winning is where my focus is at,” he said. “There’s been some comments made that are interesting. Not from me. But I’m going to be focused about winning and doing what I can do.

“And as an organization, that’s where the focus should be, too.”

Both sides, Tigers president Scott Harris and Skubal’s agent, Scott Boras, have, to this point, been resolute about keeping whatever negotiations might be going on, whatever discussions, private.

With one very high-profile exception. During a podcast with Joel Sherman and Jon Heyman last month, Harris said, “We can’t just decide we’re going to sign him. It takes two parties and some understanding of the parameters of a deal, and it takes a willingness on both sides to actually do it.”

As you would expect, the statement, despite the fact that it’s a general truth about any contract negotiations — it takes two to tango — got chopped up and debated on social media and sports talk radio, to the point where the actual statement was exaggerated and taken way out of context.

But that speaks to Skubal’s point. Stop talking about it. Period.

“I just don’t think it does any good to come out and say anything about what’s going on,” Skubal said. “If something changes, I might comment on it. But it doesn’t do any good so I’m going to keep it to myself, to my agent and to the front office.”

Harris has reiterated the same stance.

“We’re not going to talk about negotiations before we’ve reached the deal,” he said. “It’s not fair to the player, it’s not fair to the organization, and it’s not fair to the entire industry to float out offers or counters or any of that stuff.”

Skubal has never gone through this process before, but he’s very savvy about how it works and how public perception can be manipulated. So he wanted to make doubly sure nothing he said was misconstrued.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t want to be here or that I’m against any extension,” he said. “It doesn’t mean any of that. I just don’t want to talk about it. I’m very happy playing here. I like our coaching staff, I like our team.

“But there is a business side of the game that is much different than the playing side.”

Skubal is 28 and will be eligible for free agency before his age-30 season. There has been plenty of speculation about what he might be worth. Though none of the speculation is based in actual fact, the consensus is the bidding will start at $400 million total value.

“Sounds good,” he’s joked a couple of times when those numbers are floated past him.

But right now, none of that is center focus for him. When he was asked about where he envisioned his ceiling to be in this game, he didn’t list a number of Cy Young Awards or 300 strikeouts or 200 pitcher wins.

He talked about World Series rings.

“I just want to be the best version of myself,” he said. “Who that is to me is more important than the labels that might get thrown on me. I just focus on winning. I just want to win.”

Skubal was asked if any of the pitchers he’s admired, be it Randy Johnson or Gerrit Cole or Justin Verlander, set any kind of achievement bar for him.

“All of them have won a championship, right?” he said. “At some point, I want to win a championship. That’s what motivates me to keep putting in good days. I’m not saying I’m looking at a championship three months from now. I am going to put in the work to get there.

“But that’s just some underlying motivation, especially with the crappy days we’ve had in terms of travel and schedule and all that stuff. When you look at the ultimate goal of what you’re trying to accomplish, it gives you the motivation to get through all the crappy sleep schedules and stuff we’ve been dealing with.”

Skubal knows he can’t keep people from talking about where he might be pitching in a couple of years. He can’t douse the speculation or keep it from being a hot-button topic on talk shows and podcasts.

But he absolutely can choose not to fan those flames. He absolutely can choose to keep his head down, do his work and continue to be arguably the best pitcher in the game and let everything else take care of itself down the road.

“It has nothing to do with me not wanting to be here,” he reiterated. “I hope that’s clear. But there is a business side of this game that is not as beautiful as the baseball side of this game. That’s just what it is.”