Skenes sets bar high, expects to win with Pirates

Paul Skenes isn’t shy about saying he wants to win with the Pittsburgh Pirates, though he doesn’t directly discuss winning a World Series. Instead, the 22-year-old right-hander talks about raising the floor and the ceiling as if issuing a challenge not just to himself but the entire franchise.

Skenes is well aware of the Pirates’ checkered history with winning, which is more about what they haven’t done than what they have over the three decades before his arrival. They have not won a World Series since 1979. They have never won the National League Central Division. They haven’t reached the playoffs since 2015. The Pirates haven’t advanced in the postseason since beating the Cincinnati Reds in a wild-card game in 2013, their most memorable moment in the almost quarter century since PNC Park opened.

“I’m tired of hearing about the freaking wild-card game, I’ll say that,” Skenes said, snapping off the words in disgust. “That is such a low bar to set. I get it. People are jumping off the bridge and into the river and all that for a wild-card game. That’s the last time we’ve had a taste of it. I’m tired of hearing about it. I want people to be jumping off all the bridges, not just the Clemente Bridge.”

With Skenes — and, more pointedly, because of Skenes — the Pirates’ window to winning is wide open. In a historic season where he became the first No. 1 overall draft pick to start the All-Star Game the year after he was drafted, recorded the lowest ERA by a rookie in the live ball era, won NL Rookie of the Year honors and finished third in Cy Young voting, Skenes exceeded everyone’s expectations.

Except his own. The 6-foot-6, 260-pounder has a larger-than-life presence on the mound, with a four-seam fastball that tops triple digits, a splinker that makes hitters buckle at the knees followed by an assured leg swing and head nod that reminds them of the intention behind every strikeout.

Skenes brings a simple philosophy to a complicated game: Get better every day. The accolades don’t mean much to Skenes, who is adamant that awards aren’t why he plays the game. He wants to win, which is why he pours every ounce of himself into preparing for success.

“You talk about wanting to win. A way that you do that is by showing up and getting better every day,” Skenes told TribLive. “Showing up and getting better every day is a roundabout way of saying, ‘I want to win.’ That is the goal. It’s just a matter of how much you’re willing to give up to do it. I think that is the difference.”

‘He’s going to get even better’

Skenes knows all about making sacrifices.

He holds firm to the belief that he would have led Lake Forest (Calif.) El Toro High School to a championship if its season wasn’t canceled because of covid. He dreamed of a career in the military and was a cadet at the U.S. Air Force Academy for two years before deciding to pursue a pro career. He chased a championship by transferring to LSU, then led the Tigers to their seventh College World Series title.

When the Pirates won the inaugural lottery for the MLB Draft in December 2022, however, Skenes wasn’t on their radar for the first overall selection. His teammate at LSU, outfielder Dylan Crews, was considered the consensus choice for top pick. Baseball America had projected Skenes to be selected 10th.

For one, Skenes wasn’t even a full-time pitcher yet. He won the John Olerud Award as college baseball’s best two-way player as a sophomore at Air Force, splitting time as a catcher who batted .312 with 13 home runs, 38 RBIs and a 1.046 OPS and a pitcher who went 10-3 with a 3.15 ERA and 96 strikeouts in 85 2/3 innings over 15 starts. Skenes soon realized his future was on the mound, where his potential was limitless.

At LSU, Skenes became a pitcher only and completed one of the most dominant seasons in recent memory. He went 13-2 with a 1.69 ERA and 0.75 WHIP with 209 strikeouts against 20 walks in 19 games, winning Most Outstanding Player honors at the College World Series.

That Pirates general manager Ben Cherington selected Skenes and signed him to a then-record $9.2 million bonus drew praise from New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, who received a raving scouting report when special assistant Jim Hendry called Skenes the best starting pitching prospect he’d seen in at least a decade.

“Unfortunately, we didn’t lose enough games to be in the position to pull that one,” Cashman said of the lottery, “but the statement in its own right … Jim Hendry’s a hell of a scout; he’s been doing amateur coverage for a long time and he told me back then in real time that he’d seen the best starter in I don’t know how many decades — but it’s a lot. And he’s showed it. Cherington did a great job of navigating and deciding to make that selection with his people and it’s going to benefit the City of Pittsburgh. He’s obviously a beast.”

‘As good as anyone in the league’ The next step was taming the beast.

Given that Skenes was a workhorse who had pitched 122 2/3 innings at LSU, the Pirates were protective. After signing, they limited him to 6 2/3 innings over five starts across three levels of the minors in 2023. Wary of the tendency for power pitchers to require Tommy John surgery, they micromanaged his workload and had him start last season in the minors at Triple-A Indianapolis, despite dominant one-inning showings in Grapefruit League games and the inaugural Spring Breakout prospect showcase.

By the time Skenes was promoted last May, only 10 months after being drafted, the anticipation of his major league debut against the Chicago Cubs at PNC Park drew comparisons to Stephen Strasburg’s in 2010.

Skenes had topped triple digits a half-dozen times in the first inning when he threw an 0-2 fastball to Cody Bellinger that was clocked at 101.9 mph — the fastest recorded pitch by a Pirate since such data started being tracked. Of Skenes’ 33 four-seamers that day, 17 topped 100 mph and six touched 101.

In his second start, Skenes recorded 11 strikeouts in six no-hit innings against the Cubs at Wrigley Field. He had eight or more strikeouts in 13 of his 23 starts, including 11 in seven no-hit innings in 1-0 win at Milwaukee on July 11 and nine in six innings in the second game of a doubleheader at the Detroit Tigers on May 29. Skenes ranked in the 89th percentile or higher on Statcast in fastball run value, pitching run value, expected ERA, expected batting average, fastball velocity and groundball percentage.

But Skenes didn’t just rely on throwing heat. He had a six-pitch mix that included the overnight development of a new addition to his arsenal: The splinker, a splitter-sinker hybrid with a 30.3-inch vertical drop that opposing hitters batted .184 against and had a run value of 17.

By the All-Star break, Skenes’ newest offering was the talk of baseball.

“The sky’s the limit for him,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “He’s incredibly talented. His presence alone is unique, not just because he’s big but how focused he is, how in control of everything he is. He’s dominant. And the maturity jumps off. He’s an impressive guy and, obviously, provided health can be as good as anyone in the league.”

Hinch, who spent seven seasons in the majors as a catcher and has managed Cy Young winners in Dallas Keuchel and Justin Verlander with the Houston Astros and Tarik Skubal with the Tigers, believes the best is yet to come for Skenes.

“He’s going to learn and he’s going to grow. That’s the scary part for opponents: He’s going to get even better,” Hinch said. “They’re not finished products when they get to the big leagues — even guys like Paul, who is immensely talented, have another gear. And that’s scary for the rest of us.”

Skenes also had nine strikeouts while allowing one run on six hits and two walks in six innings in a showdown against two-time All-Star Max Fried in a 2-1 loss at the Atlanta Braves on June 29. Skenes made a strong impression on manager Brian Snitker, whose pitching staff featured the 2024 NL Cy Young winner in Chris Sale.

“Just the stuff, how he carries himself,” Snitker said. “He can slow the game down. I was impressed by the whole package. He’s very impressive. We hit him a little bit but he just kept throwing, kept firing that thing in there. I can tell he’s a great competitor.”

Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash joked that they employed the perfect strategy against Skenes: Yandy Diaz hit his first pitch, a 99.5-mph fastball over the middle, 347 feet to right field for a leadoff home run. It was the only run Skenes allowed while striking out eight in seven innings of a 3-1 loss June 23 at PNC Park.

“As impressive as any pitcher I saw last year. Young, old, veteran, rookie, starter, reliever, it didn’t matter,” Cash said. “I give him a lot of credit and I give the Pirates a lot of credit because he’s a better pitcher now than he was two years ago. He’s added pitches. He’s developed the ability and the confidence to continue altering looks, throwing different pitches in different counts and pitching behind. Where do I see him getting better? I don’t know. How much better can he get? It’s as dominating as anybody. I’m sure he’ll find a way, though, because he seems like a pretty motivated, driven guy out on the mound.”

‘It starts with one person’

The Pirates would simply love to see Skenes repeat his rookie statistics: 11-3, with a 1.96 ERA and 0.947 WHIP, a team-best 170 strikeouts against 32 walks and a .198 batting average against in 133 innings. The Pirates were 15-8 in his 23 starts, despite eight games being decided by one run and four by two runs.

“He already showed last year that I don’t know if you could put a ceiling on it,” Pirates two-time All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds said. “Obviously, it’s great when he’s on the mound for us because he’s going to be a bulldog out there. At most, we’ve got to score two runs to win. It’s a good feeling when you’ve got a guy like that in your corner.”

Still, Skenes sees room for improvement.

After throwing at least 100 pitches in nine starts but going beyond seven innings in only four, he wants to become more efficient. Although he didn’t qualify for league leaders, his 11.5 strikeouts per nine ranked behind only Garrett Crochet among starting pitchers with at least 130 innings last season. Skenes is more interested in how his strike percentage early in counts compares to that of Cy Young winners Sale and Skubal, who led the majors in strike percentage (69.7%).

“We think about starting pitchers who have been at the top of their profession, who have been huge parts of their teams and have been in postseasons,” Cherington said. “Of course, they’re performing on the field but there’s also a standard that they’ve set, in terms of how they carry themselves in-between starts, expectations, accountability, all of those things. Fortunately for us, there’s no concern about any of that stuff with him. He kind of does all of that stuff pretty naturally, and we’re lucky to have him.”

So motivated to get better, Skenes added two additions to his six-pitch repertoire this offseason, unveiling a cutter and a running two-seamer to force hitters to make more swing decisions. As much as Skenes takes ownership of his identity as a strikeout artist, he considers pitching his craft and wants to turn each outing into a mesmerizing masterclass.

“He taught himself the splinker last year; now we’re talking about a cutter,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “The fact that he’s talking about different ways to attack hitters and get people out, that’s what makes him different than a lot of people. The biggest component to it is — and he has been very open and stuck to it — the only desire is for him to get better on the mound.”

What has stood out about Skenes is how steadfast he sticks to his schedule, from his pregame plyometric routine to his bullpens between starts — especially given how many directions he could be pulled in as he became a household name. After giving more than 100 interviews at the All-Star Game, Skenes has since limited his media interactions to after throwing bullpens or starts. He is determined to prevent the weight of expectations from becoming a distraction.

“He has a lot — more than I had to deal with — especially at this point of his career. He’s barely not a rookie, you know,” said Pirates designated hitter Andrew McCutchen, a five-time All-Star and 2013 NL MVP. “The things he’s had to deal with, to watch him maneuver through all that and be able to dominate speaks volumes in itself. It shows the type of player that he is and the player he knows he is and the player we can only hope that he can be.

“Obviously, he still has a lot to learn. I hope the best for him. We roll with him. We’ll all do it together. As long as he always understands that it’s not just him. He doesn’t have to do it himself. We do it as a team. That’s going to help him a lot.”

Skenes allows his Air Force background to show at times. He shared the saying “flexibility is the key to air power,” stressing his need to learn to be flexible because it helps you to win. He claims “the winningest organization in the world is the U.S. military — because we can’t lose.”

So it makes sense that Skenes is preoccupied with winning, even if he plays for an organization that has had only four winning seasons since 1992 and followed consecutive 100-loss seasons with back-to-back 76-win campaigns. Skenes doesn’t have to talk about winning a World Series if he shows up and gets better every day.

“I’m never going to stop working to get there,” Skenes said. “I think that’s why I’m here and everybody else is here, in the big leagues, because they didn’t put a ceiling on themselves. Whether guys are putting a ceiling on themselves in the big leagues now is probably a different story, but I think that’s what got everybody to the big leagues — just working to get better every day. It shows up.”

Now that Skenes has established himself as not just a major leaguer but one of the game’s superstars — MLB Network ranked him the No. 4 pitcher and No. 15 player overall — he has vowed to become more vocal in the clubhouse this season. He trusts that it will become contagious and help build a championship culture.

“It starts with one person on an individual level. It starts with every individual player in the locker room buying into it, believing it and, most importantly, working to do it,” Skenes said. “The way we’re going to do that is by individuals making other individuals better, kind of like building a pyramid. … It’s stacking wins. It’s stacking little, 1% things. It’s so hard to define and compute but it’s very possible.”

That is the essence of Skenes’ success: Creating a highly specific framework designed to turn what’s long seemed unimaginable in Pittsburgh into a promising possibility, perhaps even an expectation. The Pirates have learned to limit Skenes is to do so at their own expense.

“We’re talking about a kid that had an historic year, in terms of his numbers, and won rookie of the year. I don’t think we put expectations on him, in terms of he’s going to get this number or do this,” Shelton said. “Our expectation is he’s going to continue to get better and he’s getting better on top of a guy that is really talented as it is. The one thing we all as an organization like about Paul is he has two things that drive him: Wanting to win and getting better. If he does No. 2, No. 1 is going to come with that for our group.”

Bridges beware.