In MLB terms Paul Skenes is just a baby. He’s not arbitration eligible until 2027. He can’t be a free agent until 2030. He however already looks as good as any pitcher in the game coming off a historic rookie season and there’s more good Pirate pitching coming:
Paul Skenes on a potential long-term deal with the Pirates:
“I haven’t heard a whole lot”
Classic Pirates.
— Ben Verlander (@BenVerlander) January 20, 2025
The thing is most MLB teams these days try to lock up potential greatness early. The Braves of course have won at this with deals for Ozzie Albies and Ronald Acuna Jr and others, saving big in the long term as everyone watches salaries escalate.
Braves young player blueprint
The Braves also present their future stars with a team that promises to compete, both in spending and keeping other top flight talent.
The Pirates of course don’t rake in Dodgers money, not even Braves money but the Pirates payroll was twenty-ninth out of thirty last season, barely above what the Dodgers paid Shohei Ohtani.
It’s been that way for years. At some point you have to ask, why do you own a baseball team? I mean he’s stuck in Pittsburgh for at least five years but why would Paul Skenes want to stay there?
The clock is running on the righthander’s greatness, the time is now to build a winner around this pitcher and the ones on the way. The time is also now to find out how to keep this talent in Pittsburgh. That the subject hasn’t been broached is egregious but not shocking.
Much hitting needed
The 2024 Pirates featured only three hitters that were better than league average. Twenty-five year old shortstop and now centerfielder O’neill Cruz, twenty-nine year old outfielder Bryan Reynolds and thirty-seven year old DH Andrew McCutcheon.
So far this off season the Pirates have brought in shortstop Isiah Kiner-Falefa and first baseman Spencer Horwitz. the former a placeholder at best, the latter at least an improvement but neither a star.
There are a pair of top one hundred hitter prospects in the chain, 2B/SS Termarr Johnson (20), fourth overall in the 2022 draft and Konnor Griffin (18), ninth overall in last year;s draft.
Not much for Skenes to look back at when he’s on the mound in his second season. As we wrote earlier there’s hope for a significant rotation around Skenes but the clock has already started on how long they’ll have him at an affordable price. They may want to talk to him about that soon.
