The best pitching prospect in baseball, Pittsburgh Pirates 21-year-old righty Paul Skenes, is expected to be called up tomorrow to make his major league debut against the Cubs. The 6-foot-6 leviathan has a 0.99 ERA in seven Triple-A starts this year and has struck out 42.9% of the batters he’s faced in 27 1/3 innings. He’s a starter ready for the front rotation, a Herculean physical presence with even bigger stuff, and perhaps the most important part of an increasingly promising situation in Pittsburgh, a city with three baseball playoff appearances in the last 30 years.
Almost two years ago, Skenes was a two-way player at Air Force, going on to post a dominant 8-inning, 10-strikeout start against San Jose State, then reaching base seven times in the final two games of that series. His pace increased throughout the season, and at the end of it came the decision of whether he would return to the Air Force Academy for a third year and effectively lock himself into a two-year service contract, or use a new transfer portal. rules to facilitate the introduction of one year in pro baseball to the major program.
Skenes transferred to LSU and was a member of the 2023 College World Series champions, a true All-Star team with several high-profile transfers, the closest thing college baseball has had to its Fab Five phenomenon. Although he was a first round pick at Air Force, Skenes’ stuff, consistency, and physicality all took LSU by storm. He moved up very high on the 2023 draft boards and was a worthy first pick. (There were people in baseball who would have taken Dylan Crews or Wyatt Langford instead, but no one thought Skenes was a bad choice.) Even though Skenes threw more than 120 innings that spring at LSU, the Pirates surrounded him with other relievers, and pitched 6 2/3 innings after the draft before they shut him down for the year.
The Pirates have given Skenes some development boxes to check in 2024 before he is promoted to the big leagues. That is, Skenes made his first start on four days’ rest (college starters play once a week). His stuff was good enough to compete with the big leaguers early in the season, but the NL Rookie of the Year field was probably too crowded for the Pirates to be swayed by the Prospect Promotion Incentive instead of an addition. control year. However, Skenes made his debut less than a year after being appointed as a member, at the age of 21.
All of this is happening very quickly, and Skenes has been evolving and improving all the time. His pace had been steadily creeping northward for the past two years, even now. 2024 average fastball velocity (99 mph, peaking at 102) is significantly higher than 2023. He often uses his fastball as a finishing pitch and mixes it evenly into his panel of second basemen early in the count. Skenes’ fastball plays not only because of its velocity but because his lower arm hole creates shallower angles on that pitch than his pitcher’s size. This heater has equal parts vertical and horizontal breaks, which can sometimes show off the fastball movement, but the performance of the Skenes heater and its visual appeal speak for themselves.
So far Skenes has paired this fastball often with a solid slider. This was a perfect fit for his high school tone. He controls the shape and speed of it depending on what he is trying to do. It can curve between 83-86 mph and serve as a curveball that steals strikes, or it can peak at 90-92 mph and look more like a cutter. Traditional sliders are placed somewhere between those two types of tone. Because Skenes pulls off the lower slot there are times when he swings to the side of his slider a lot and the pitch doesn’t have the two-plane break of the untouchable, but hitters should be locked in to hit 99-100 mph. fastballs they don’t usually blow on those little sliders anyway. Perhaps the only unifying pitch in things, but Skenes’ east/west slider has his fastball and his ability to carve his breaker into shape will likely help him play well.
I qualify Skenes’ slider as “his second college pitch” because his changeup has taken a step in pro ball. Not only that, but Skenes actually developed a second revolution. He has a traditional swing from his amateur days, but added a mid-90s “splinker” a la Jhoan Duran of the Twins. It is a modified seamer that uses something close to a split grip. Skenes often pronounces the top of his native change. The baseball comes out between his ring fingers to create a downward movement under the surface. This type of release actually imparts spin to the baseball, so Skenes’s changeups tend to sit in the low 90s at around 2,100 rpm, while his splinker sits more in the mid-90s, spinning a little (closer to 1,800 rpm), and has a linear action towards the knees of right-handed hitters.
The extent to which Skenes has learned some of these new tricks (including how he changes his position on the rubber depending on the batters) is very impressive. This guy is better now than last year, when he was the first to be selected in this program. You could make an argument that the Pirates have two top pitching prospects in baseball in the major league rotation right now: Skenes and Jared Jones. (I know “prospects” isn’t exactly right, but “rookies” is easy given how Japan’s starters look.) I think Eury Pérez, who made his debut at age 20 in 2023 and is out for a recovery season. from Tommy John surgery, all are as talented and amazing as Skenes (if not). But the mystique of Skenes – driven by the fact that baseball fans have an existing relationship with him because of his college activities – made his debut perhaps the most watched pitcher since Stephen Strasburg and Gerrit Cole, and more until we see Roki. We left in a year or two.
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