Well, that's not quite accurate, and that's my point. What raises the floor are the actual awarded salaries. Given that Skubal has been historically good, offering a figure that was at the limit of historical records (unadjusted for inflation) was a miscalculation. Their choice wasn't to give Skubal 19M or 25M. It was offer 19M and almost assuredly lose and thus pay his requested figure which is much larger, or offer more and increase their odds of winning.
I completely understand the nature of the process and the motivations of the teams. This is a particularly interesting case of game theory and in my opinion, they should have anticipated that Skubal was going to ask for 30+M and increased their odds of winning by offering more. They didn't, and now they've successfully set a brand new record.