The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft is on his way to the majors. Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes will make his highly anticipated MLB debut this Saturday in a home outing against the visiting Cubs, the the team announced.
The 6’6″, 235-pound Skenes is the embodiment of a prototypical, power-armed ace. He’s widely regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the sport — if not the top pitching prospect. Pittsburgh selected him with the top pick in last year’s draft after Skenes posted a 2.18 ERA and fanned more than 36% of his opponents in a three-year college career that included two seasons with the Air Force Academy and a third with the eventual national champion Louisiana State University Tigers. Skenes posted a comical 1.69 ERA over the course of 122 innings, striking out a hair over 45% of his opponents.
You won’t find a scouting report on Skenes that doesn’t laud him as a potential perennial All-Star and front-of-the-rotation pitcher with Cy Young upside. His fastball sits in the upper 90s and can reach 102 mph. Baseball America, MLB.com and FanGraphs all give him credit for a plus-plus (70-grade) fastball on the 20-80 scale, with MLB.com even pegging as an 80-grade pitch. His slider draws similar praise.
The Athletic’s Keith Law notes that Skenes’ four-seam/slider combo was so dominant in college that he needed to work on his seldom-used changeup and a two-seamer in order to reach his ace-level ceiling. He’s worked to incorporate both into his repertoire more regularly in Triple-A this year. ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel lists Skenes alongside David Price, Gerrit Cole and Stephen Strasburg as one of the four best pitching prospects in the past 20 years of the MLB draft.
To this point in his young career, Skenes has done nothing to suggest the hype is unwarranted. He’s made seven starts in Triple-A — the Pirates have limited his per-outing workload, leaving him at 27 1/3 innings on the season — and posted a 0.99 ERA with an over-the-moon 42.9% strikeout rate against a 7.6% walk rate. Skenes has kept the ball on the ground at a 51% clip and yielded just one homer all season. Though Pittsburgh has ramped him up in quite cautious fashion, he’s now been up to six innings in a start, so he should be able to work relatively deep into his debut effort if his performance dictates.
Skenes’ ascension to the Pirates’ rotation comes at a time when fellow rookie Jared Jones looks well on his way to becoming a high-end rotation arm himself. The 22-year-old Jones entered the season as a top-100 prospect himself and has raced out to a brilliant start: 2.63 ERA, 33.8% strikeout rate, 3.2% walk rate in 41 innings.
In an ideal setting, that electric young duo will join stalwart righty Mitch Keller, who signed a five-year extension during spring training, in forming the core of the Bucs’ rotation for years to come. Veteran Martin Perez is holding down one of the rotation spots behind that trio for now, but he’s only on a one-year contract. Fellow southpaw Marco Gonzales entered the season in the rotation as well, but he’s since gone down with a forearm strain. The Pirates are surely hopeful that some combination of Quinn Priester, Luis Ortiz, Anthony Solometo, Bubba Chandler and Tom Harrington can break through in the majors and form a homegrown rotation that can thrust the team into perennial contention.
The timing of Skenes’ promotion comes at a point when enough time has elapsed that he can’t accrue a full year of big league service time — at least not by conventional means. There will only be 143 days remaining in the season by the time he debuts, leaving him well shy of the requisite 172 for a year of service. However, under the prospect promotion incentives in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, Skenes could still gain a full year of service if he finishes in the top two of National League Rookie of the Year voting.
In the event that Skenes achieves that feat, he’d have five additional years of club control, meaning he wouldn’t be eligible for free agency until the 2029-30 offseason and wouldn’t reach arbitration eligibility until the 2026-27 offseason. If Skenes sticks in the big leagues but does not gain a year of service based on Rookie of the Year voting, he’d be under club control through the 2030 season. However, the timing of his promotion also leaves him as a surefire Super Two player in that scenario, meaning he’d still be arb-eligible following the 2026 campaign and would go through the arbitration process four times rather than the standard three.
about time
Hopefully he can be amazing in the Majors and avoid any injuries
*suffers Tommy John after 6 starts*
Bring him on.
hope he gets shelled
Skenes
Jones
Keller
Great start.just need some offense
Reds fan here and I am always rooting for you guys. You guys are kind of like Cincy East or maybe we are Pittsburgh West. (We both have cheap owners, questionable managers and the FO makes some wonky decisions).
Same. Would much rather have the Pirates at the top of the division than the Cubs or Cards. Rooting for Skenes to live up to the hype
As another Reds fan, cool with Pittsburgh, F the Brewers Cardinals and Cubs.
Best of luck to Skenes, we’re waiting on Lowder.
Can we all agree that we hate the Cardinals?
Absolutely.
And a couple of other mid rotation updide guys in the minors too, right?
I would actually manipulate service time in this scenario. Isn’t stretched out that much so his innings won’t cause a massive tur around this year.
He will probably win rookie of the year with half a year under his belt.
The masculine urge to say “We’re back” 20 minutes after saying “It’s over.”
If you were like me and wondering who their opponent is, Skenes is starting at home against the Cubs. Javier Assad is listed as the probable pitcher for Chicago.
That’s a good matchup and 1st game for Skenes
Should’ve listed the opponent in there. Sorry about that. Updated now. Thanks!
If for nothing other than I no longer have to listen to local radio opine on baseball as their way to fill air until the Steelers have some random practice and claim they know better than the front office I’m glad it’s happening.
Those of you who bet (I don’t) should consider taking the 5-inning under. Assad has been really good so far and the Cubs haven’t been able to hit their way out of a phone booth (do they still have those?) for the last two weeks.
Probably will end up a bullpen game anyway.
Have you seen how the Pirates have been hitting over the last 5 weeks? They couldn’t hit a ball off a tee while the starters pitched their rear ends off. The Pirates need a huge offensive spark to have any hope at a WC. There has been a lot of promise going into the season and to see the Pirates at 17-21, has many fans numb. Tellez needs to be released and open up Triolo/Joe at 1B and bring up Gonzales. See what he can do this third time around. Or option B, trade one of their stockpiles of middle infielders and/or Pitchers for a promising 1B who can start immediately. Maybe a guy who has 50-100 ABs at the majors but is being held back because of someone else manning 1B and DH. I’d love a long term power hitting 1B in any trade right now.
Gonna have to watch this one. No doubt this is the best looking pitching prospects since Strassburg.
or maybe Appel.
Appel was nowhere near as good as Skenes is now. Not even close. It’s Skenes and Strassburg in my lifetime.
7 YEAR MAN………….COME ON UP !!
Watched all his starts at LSU – Skenes is in rare company. Good luck, Paul!
About time. Lol
Are you one of those robots, er, commenters who add LOL to everything they post? Because it was already meaningless before you wrote this, and it makes no sense in your “incisive comment”.
And Nutting will just be happy to have a sold out park.
Hope Skenes is filthy. Team needs him to blow the doors off people.
Gonna predict he goes 4 and gets a ND in a 1-0 pirates loss where the pirates had 4 hits and struck out 11 times
That’s probably why they chose Saturday night’s game, TJECK109. To fill the stadium
Is it a fireworks night too?
Well, they did manage 6 hits and 13 strikeouts so your prediction might be accurate
No fireworks would be a waste. It’s a 4pm start.
They gave Hayes’ GG bobbleheads to the final 20,000 fans for this past Sunday’s game and only 12000 people attended the game
If those bobbleheads were for the final 20,000, who were the first ones?
Maybe they can mix and match for the next bobble head night. Hayes left overs with the insanely popular Jaromir Jagr bobbleheads! I smell a sell out
I meant the first 20,000 fans. Only someone who doesn’t have anything productive to say would make the correction
Why is it when the Orioles promote a prospect, it’s service time manipulation. But when the Pirates do it, as a service time manipulation, everyone nods and smiles? Nonsensical. That being said, I agree with Skenes starting the year in the minors. He’s still very new to pro ball. Curious to see how this goes.
Because they know that the Pirates will never be able to afford Skenes when his control is up. No one cares what the Pirates do because they know eventually if the player is good enough they will be traded
When’s the last time the O’s signed a young player long term?
I’ll be over in the corner waiting.
If anyone could break the curse of top picks flopping for the bucs this guy may be it
previous flops were a result of staying in the minors for several years before being promoted
Player development in this organization has been a problem for years so bringing him up before they have a chance to ruin his potential is a good idea
I blame a lot of their hitting development on the fact that they insist on players learning how to play every position on the field.
It’s hard enough to adjust to hitting let alone trying to learn a new position.
I really think them moving Davis around really screwed with his head. Not playing well in RF and then not hitting well has to mess with your confidence
They have some pieces to the puzzle here but don’t know how to make them fit. And they have some useless pieces, too
Really, the problems start with the GM, whose claim to fame will be that he retooled the farm system by replacing walking stiffs with very average players. His scouting and player personnel departments have been duds but hey, the PR department does a nice job with hype
I’ve been saying the same about Davis. You draft him as a catcher and he doesn’t catch an inning when he gets here. You stuff him in RF and think he’ll magically fit right in. But you have him sit for games at a time.
Then this year, he looks to be the catcher but you sign not one but two guys and then trade for another when Delay gets hurt
It’s a joke of a franchise. Sign high priced castoffs like Tellez, Taylor and. Chapman. Suwinski is regressing if that’s possible, Cruz may set a record for errors by midseason and AAA pitchers would give them a hard time
By all accounts, they’re gonna have a nice starting staff very shortly. Pity they can’t seem to have the personnel to put a team around it
at least as a right fielder, Davis didn’t hit below the Mendoza line and actually hit 7 homers
As a catcher his offensive numbers were atrocious
Paul- I get $1.00 every time someone mentions The Mendoza Line.
The GM? I’d venture to say the problems actually start with the owner. He’s right up there with the best of them.
I’m having Bryan Burlington and Stetson Allie nightmares
and the same nightmares of Tony Sanchez, Will Craig and Kris Benson
And Benson’s nightmares were of Anna
My dreams were of Anna.
Mine still are. Some dreams die hard
Having a beautiful wife certainly didn’t help his career. Same goes for Cole Tucker
Cmon, my friend. Isn’t it amazing that virtually all pro athletes have beautiful wives. Just a coincidence, I guess
Future New York Yankee!! Reply if you are mad!!
that’s exactly what yankee fans were saying about Reynolds last year and how did that turn out?
Dann- Most of the Yankee trolls had better lines than that one.
We call them AYF’s on this site.
I appreciate your comment though since we have not been graced with their presence for a while.
.99 ERA with 45 k’s over 27 innings. Is that good? Lol
The low amount of innings isn’t good.
That LOL really sealed your “point”.
And your comment is totally relevant to the discussion. Nice work!
Can he go five innings?
I’m guessing that they let him throw about 70-80 pitches. Number of innings depends on how well he’s pitching.
I’m not a Pirates fan, but I’m stoked to see this kid pitch for the first time
Padres fan here, but I’m fired up for the Bucs. Just hope their ownership spends a little money over the next few years to build on this. With two aces at the top of the rotation, and a solid #3 in Keller, things are looking up in Pittsburgh.
Your username is interesting in that no one thinks Ron Darling is a HOFer.
I know. That’s what I’m saying.
Well this is kind of fun and Pirate fans haven’t had too much to cheer about for a long, long time. So that part is all good.
The service time issues are a bit annoying though as back in the day wouldn’t they have brought him up, not to start, but to do long/middle relief for 3-4 innings at a time build arm strength? I assume they don’t do that now because of the service time issue? Or am I way off base here?
It’s only been 9 years since they won 98 games. Seems like a long time. They has Gerrit Cole,Francisco Lirano, Charlie Morton and AJ Burnett.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the Pirates traded Skenes in 4 years.
No reason to trade him that early. More like around 2029 or 2030.
Fan- I do not think that that was the issue but it had to be a relatively small part of it.
If he gets to be a ROY he gains a year until FA.
He needed the professional innings.
They did not do this with Jones but he had had several minor league years.
I hope he has a successful career. Starting after his ML debut vs. The Cubs.
they say he is the 2nd coming of Strasburg. Should have started him in his debut against WASH, as a bit of revenge after Strasburg embarrassed PIT- and Lastings Milledge- in this debut all those years ago.
he wasn’t ready despite your wishes
I guess I am the only one not excited by this. With the current offense, Skenes’ starts, even if they are incredible, will probably be wasted. They need to fix the offense first or at least get an offense.
His call up is about “butts in seats”.
Free agent at 27.
Rather have jobe
USAF Represent!!!!!
He is going to wonder why Indy has some better hitters than some of the Pirates such as Tellez, Triolo and Taylor.
Don’t stop there. Suwinski at .180. How about Reynolds, who signed a nice contract and apparently turned in his bat. Or Hayes. He provides streaks here and there but like Reynolds, is a .240-.250 hitter
At least Cruz is heating up. Too bad his glove is made of iron
Both Joe and Rowdy are constantly catching Cruz’ throws on a short hop
And every time the announcers claim how great Joe is with runners in scoring position then strikes out, I want to tell Joe Black to go back to Boston
Tired- Hayes just needs Joe Nunnaly back.
And where is Cruz’ hitting guru?
I read somewhere and I can’t remember where, the organization was against Cruz using his own batting instructor last year because they want the players to focus on Haines’ instructions
That would make sense.
But what Cherington does not realize is that his way is not working and has not worked for three years.
That makes him part of a very serious problem.
Just a note of caution to Pirate fans and I don’t want to rain on your parade but………Hunter Greene threw 100-102 when he came up and had to do TJ surgery. He’s just now showing signs of learning how to pitch and not just chuck fastballs. Be patient with him.
Well stated. Unless I’m wrong, Greene threw a no-hitter against the Pirates…and lost. What a fireballer
Skenes has a number of pitches to complement his heat but in this day and age, your point is well taken. Hope they’re smart with him. Not like he and Jones can provide enough wins to make this team a contender
I was at that game, the Reds combined for a no hitter. Greene didn’t pitch the 9th, don’t remember if he even finished the 8th but he was at 115 pitches or so. Walks and groundouts gave the Bucs a 1-0 walkoff win. Fun game
Oct- That is why they have been careful with Skenes.
As Cherington said it is not an exact science.
But we all know what eventual happens to every pitcher who throws over 92 mph.
The Phillies top prospect had to get TJ after his first ST game last year.
Thanks for your comment.
Simple physics in relation to human anatomy. Everyone and their grandmothers hit 95 on the gun now. Easy to understand the wear and tear on ligaments and nerves when kids have begun wearing them away since their teens.
They can “be careful” all they want, but it’s roulette. You hope for the best but you can’t fool nature
Tired- I’m sorry but I have to disagree with you here.
The grandmothers are barely touching 90 in more ways than one,but they still can get Pirate hitters out with moxie and guile.
I look forward to seeing him pitch and being proven wrong to think that he’s not ready for the majors, yet.
OY-What would be wrong is to waste his pitches in the minor leagues.
He will be encountering the best of the best but he is a quick learner.
Pirate fans should not expect him to be great from the start.
An ERA below 1, a WHIP below 1, a 50% GB rate and and 42% K rate isn’t hype, it’s dominant production.
Yankees and Dodgers fans have something to look forward to in the near future — pulling off a heist and trading some bottom of the barrel prospects to the Pirates in exchange Skenes.
Will be more like 5 or 6 years and only if they don’t extend him. Probably won’t be Yankees either. They don’t trade for elite pitching often. Reynolds Hayes more their interest. Padres Dodgers if still contenders will be likely spots.
Jimmy- Trolls are out today.
And his AAA whiff rate is 55%.
he didn’t pitch saturday according to the game logs, he pitched sunday and gave up 2 in 4.
I heard he had a rough outing this past week but cannot find the box score.
maybe over hyped but he is definitely a top prospect. Prospect lists are based off of more than just stats and Prospects are just that players sometimes bomb or take time to flush out or even just in an incompatible system. It happens but shouldn’t happen much less than lower first and later picks.
He also pitched on 4 days rest on Sunday and for a reason. So he could see live action before being promoted
where in my comment did I say the word “ Saturday “?
I stand corrected. Sorry Jack i miss understood..
This happened faster than I ever imagined. Looks like the Yankees or Dodgers will be getting Skenes a little earlier than than initially anticipated. We all know that in a year or two the Pirates will trade him. That’s what they do.
you can predict the future like Nostradamus, maybe you should work in a Fortune Teller Shop, stwawk
You’ve said the same thing in your previous posts. Don’t you have anything constructive to say?
And yet, what Hawk is alluding to is quite likely. Greener pastures. It’s been this way here since Bonds, Drabek and the gang, and they played on very good teams.
They traded Cole with 2 years before he hit free agency but there’s no record of them doing what you’re suggesting, stwawk, trading an elite pitcher that they drafted with only 2 years of major league experience
Mendoza is right, the trolls are out in full force on this thread
Exactly.
The top prospect lists are just totally bogus hype to get them people to watch and follow.
And the players are holograms and birds aren’t real.
Finally, someone sees the obvious truths.
“The top prospects list is totally bogus.”
“You clearly don’t understand even the most basic marketing strategy.”
OK….so…is it marketing? Or is it bogus?
Or are you going with both?
That is certainly what they did with their best pitcher from last year.
Like I said the trolls are out again.
Maverick (Skenes) and Ice Man (Jones) are fixing to buzz some towers!
PNC Park is MLB’s new Danger Zone for opposing hitters!
Scott- Unfortunately It is the danger zone for Pirate hitters too.
Meh debut with eight runners on in four innings, but he’ll get better.
I really disliked and liked his delivery.
Disliked because it’s kind of ugly and not as fun to watch as many of the other elite pitchers, but liked because if anyone might* be able to avoid the standard MLB arm injuries, it would be a guy with such a simple motion.
*might, might, might