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Report: Paul Skenes will not be traded anytime soon
Report: Paul Skenes will not be traded anytime soon
If you were hoping that the Pittsburgh Pirates were ready to offload pitching phenom Paul Skenes, don’t hold your breath.
According to MLB insider Jon Heyman of MLB Network, a Pirates source confirmed to him that there’s “no chance, no way, no how,” that Skenes gets moved any time soon. While there wasn’t much traction to the trade rumor, ESPN’s Jeff Passan argued that Pittsburgh should kick the tires on it with the franchise continuing to be run very poorly and no looming extension on Skenes’ doorstep.
You could argue that Skenes is the best pitcher in MLB right now. In 33 career starts, he’s posted a 2.12 ERA, 2.54 FIP and 232 strikeouts in just 195.2 innings. Since making his MLB debut, no pitcher has a lower ERA than him while he places in the top-4 in strikeout rate, K-BB rate, ERA-, FIP- and expected FIP, according to Fangraphs.
From Pittsburgh’s perspective, it’s probably best not to trade him right now.
First off, it’s pretty embarrassing how they still fail to even try and build a competitive team around their star pitcher, who took home the NL Rookie of the Year award and finished top-3 in NL Cy Young voting despite making his debut in mid-May. Pittsburgh’s biggest upgrade(s) this offseason were bringing in Tommy Pham and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. Not to mention, they entered 2025 with the fourth-lowest percentage of their payroll relative to their revenue share. That’s not enough, point blank.
Skenes has roughly four-and-a-half years of control left, so they still have time to not only generate jersey sales (while he’s still there), but build at least a somewhat competitive team before heads begin to roll and Skenes wants out. Even with two years of control left, the 23-year-old would deliver a haul of prospects.
It’s still unfair to the fans that the foregone conclusion is Skenes will continue his career elsewhere in a few years. A lot can change between now and then, but if we’ve learned anything about the Pittsburgh Pirates, they won’t, and that’s the sad part.
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