Pittsburgh Pirates first round draft pick, pitcher Paul Skenes, left, poses with Pirates general ... [+]
There are sparks of hope for baseball in Western Pennsylvania. The Pittsburgh Pirates are 13-13, chasing their first season with a winning record since 2018. Calling up top pitching prospect Paul Skenes could fan those sparks into a flame, but he remains in the minor leagues.
The Pirates drafted Skenes with the first overall pick in the 2023 draft out of Louisiana State. Prior to this season, every major prospect list ranked him as the top pitching prospect in baseball. MLB Pipeline lists him as the third-best overall prospect in the game behind Baltimore Orioles shortstop Jackson Holliday and Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Jackson Chourio, both of whom are already in the Major Leagues.
Skenes has two truly elite pitches. His fastball was ranked by MLB Pipeline as an 80 on the 20-80 scouting scale. In other words, it’s one of the very best that scouts have ever seen, sitting in the high 90s and topping out over 100 mph. His slider is considered by some to be the best in the minors. He also throws an above-average changeup and possesses excellent command of his pitches.
Through five starts in Triple-A this season, he put up video-game numbers. He has a 0.53 ERA in 17 innings and has struck out 34 of the 66 batters he’s faced. For context, the average strikeout rate in MLB this year is 22.5%, and he’s fanning 51.5% of hitters. His strikeouts outnumber all of his other outs combined by a two-to-one margin.
It’s hard to argue that Skenes still needs to prove himself in the minor leagues. The only blemish on his resume is that the Pirates won’t let him go deep into starts, as evidenced by his average of 3.4 innings per appearance. His last outing was on Wednesday, in which he threw a season-high 4 1/3 innings and 71 pitches, including 50 strikes.
Even if the organization is ramping up his workload gingerly, there’s no difference in the effort required to throw a pitch in Pittsburgh as opposed to throwing one in Indianapolis. They could easily limit his innings while pitching in the Majors.
The only reason to leave him in Triple-A is an unspoken one. By delaying the start of his MLB career, the Pirates can manipulate his service time, keeping him under team control through 2030. If he had started the 2024 season on the major-league roster, he could’ve reached free agency after the 2029 season.
If they keep him in the minors until sometime in June, they will likely prevent him from reaching Super Two status, meaning he would get four years of arbitration instead of three. That would be inexplicable for a club with playoff aspirations given his prospect pedigree and how well he’s performing, but the team has not indicated a timeframe for calling him up.
The Pirates have a recent history of signing their best homegrown young talent to extensions. Keller is signed through 2028 while third baseman Ke’Bryan Hayes and outfielder Bryan Reynolds are under contract through 2030. It seems likely they will try to do the same with Skenes eventually, which renders service manipulation somewhat moot. However, the club will have more financial leverage in those negotiations by delaying him access to arbitration and free agency.
Pittsburgh’s starting pitching has been a strength of the team this year. Rookie Jared Jones has been electric, posting a 2.79 ERA and averaging 12.1 strikeouts per nine innings. Veteran lefties Bailey Falter and Martín Pérez has exceeded expectations. Mitch Keller has had a rocky start, but he has been their most reliable hurler over the last two years, and he should settle into the season over time.
The perfect opportunity to call him up was when Marco Gonzales landed on the injured list on April 13 with a forearm strain. They filled his spot with Quinn Priester instead, who is scheduled to make his second start this evening in San Francisco, but there’s no possible way to argue that he’s a better pitcher than Skenes.
Even though they’re treading water right now, the club hasn’t generated much excitement based on their average home attendance of 17,121—26th in MLB. When they eventually bring up their main attraction, that figure will skyrocket on days he’s scheduled to pitch. If he helps them climb in the standings, attendance will improve even when he’s not on the mound.
FanGraphs’ real-time playoff odds give the Pirates a 16% chance of making the playoffs this year, which would be their first postseason appearance since 2015. They have a 6.2% chance of winning their division for the first time since 1992.
Those playoff odds are at risk of shrinking each day, especially on a night in which Skenes could be pitching instead of Priester. The only excuses for leaving him in the minors are financially-based because there are no real baseball reasons remaining.
