Done anything interesting in the past year and a half?
Here is the short list of what 22-year-old Paul Skenes has done in the past 17 months: won the College World Series at LSU, was drafted first overall by the Pittsburgh Pirates, signed the largest bonus in draft history ($9.2 million), started the All-Star Game after just 11 starts in the majors, posted the lowest ERA by a rookie pitcher in the 112-year official history of earned runs (1.96, minimum 20 starts) and Monday night won the National League Rookie of the Year Award. He is also a finalist for the NL Cy Young Award, to be announced Wednesday.
Skenes is on a rocket ship to stardom. San Diego Padres outfielder Jackson Merrill would have won the ROY award in any other year, but he was up against something bigger than a peer: historical greatness.
Skenes’s ERA and strikeout rate (11.5 per nine innings) were jaw-dropping in a historical context. With Skenes there also is a halo effect of how he has met and even exceeded the high expectations. He has the imprimatur of greatness, not just the statistics.
Skenes was not a unanimous ROY selection. Merrill did capture seven first-place votes, including both votes from the BBWAA’s San Diego chapter representatives. But there is real evidence in stuff and performance that Skenes fills the vacuum opening behind Justin Verlander, Max Scherzer, Clayton Kershaw, Gerrit Cole and Jacob deGrom as the next great starting pitcher. The train is just leaving the station, and who could blame a voter for wanting to jump on board?
The night was a rare great night for the waning craft of starting pitching. Skenes and Luis Gil, 26, of the New York Yankees became only the third pair of starting pitchers to sweep the ROY awards, and the first since the late Fernando Valenzuela and Dave Righetti in 1981.
Let’s not get too carried away. Neither Skenes (133 innings) nor Gil (151 2/3) threw enough innings to qualify for the ERA title. Neither ever threw more than 107 pitches in their 52 combined starts. But in the context of today’s game, the Pirates and Yankees did superb jobs navigating long seasons with their rookie pitchers. Gil and Skenes pitched with at least five days of rest in 42 of their 52 starts, including all 23 by Skenes.
What does a rookie season tell us about what comes next for Skenes? Here is a look at how the window is just opening for Skenes to dominate his generation.
Velocity
Skenes averaged 98.8 mph with his four-seamer, the highest in baseball among those who threw at least 750 heaters. He is the second-hardest throwing starter in the past four years:
We know that elite velocity is an injury risk factor. The above list is loaded with injuries, including Tommy John surgeries for Greene (2019), Strider (’24) and Alcantara (’23).
The best way to mitigate the elite velocity risk is to modulate velocity—that is, not maxing out all the time. Skenes does a good job keeping an extra gear in reserve. He also is a complete pitcher who throws his four-seam fastball only 39.2% of the time, ranking 41 out of 98 pitchers who threw 2,000 pitches. His power sinker, a sinker thrown with a split grip, is an even nastier pitch than his four-seamer.
Mechanics
Skenes has one obvious quirk in his delivery. Before he raises the ball into the loaded position he raises his right elbow over his shoulder. Stephen Strasburg, a hard thrower who could not stay healthy, had the same quirk.
The quirk is not a red flag in and of itself. What matters is how it affects timing. No matter how the ball gets there, it should be in the raised, loaded position as the front foot lands. Strasburg was late, with the ball not yet raised. Skenes is on time, if barely so.
When the White Sox considered drafting Chris Sale in 2007, another pitcher who “lifts the ball with the elbow,” their evaluators debated whether the quirk was a red flag. They decided that Sale was “borderline,” but slightly on the right side of being on time.
Everything else that Skenes does in his delivery is impressively efficient. At 6'6", he throws with a low release point (5.7 ft.) and major offset to the third base side (2.3 ft.), which makes him a bigger, nastier, harder-throwing version of Scherzer. His strong vertical approach angle is gold in today’s game.
Durability
It’s the ultimate test of greatness. Here’s what most impressed me about Skenes’s rookie season: he threw his best baseball at the end of the longest season of his life. He posted a 0.75 ERA in five September starts with a strikeout rate of 12.8 per nine innings. Both figures were his best of any month. His fastball velocity climbed from 98.6 mph in July to 98.6 in August to 99.0 in September. He is built to last.
He threw 160⅓ innings (including the minors), up from 129⅓ in 2022, a reasonable jump of 24%. He should be good for 180 to 190 innings in '25.
In winning the ROY, Skenes also is credited with a full year of service time. That means the Pirates’ plan to have him make seven controlled starts in Triple-A instead of the majors came back to bite them. Skenes gets a full year of service anyway (which brings him a year closer to free agency) and the Pirates don’t get the compensation round draft pick they would have received if they carried Skenes on the Opening Day roster.
Historical Comps
Hitters have a very tough time getting on base against Skenes. He posted the lowest WHIP among rookie pitchers with at least 130 innings in the Live Ball era (since 1920).
Hughes was a 29-year-old rookie with the 1967 Cardinals when he threw 231⅔ innings, including two starts in the World Series. He blew out his rotator cuff the next spring.
Eichhorn was a workhorse relief pitcher. Fernandez died three years later at age 24. Buehler (twice), Paddack (twice) and Strider have all had Tommy John surgery.
Modern Comps
Let’s be honest, the pitching environment for Hughes in 1967 has little relevance to what Skenes knows in 2024. Velocity, spin and strength are up, workload is down. Training, nutrition and recovery are known as “high performance” skills with teams of experts to monitor them.
So, let’s stick to the past decade, the age of technology and analytics. Here are the rookie power pitchers Skenes most resembles, including their four-seam fastball velocity and use:
Similar workloads, similar results in depressing offense. Skenes has the most velocity and steps on the accelerator the least.
It’s hard to ignore that his three best modern rookie comps have five Tommy John surgeries between them. But Buehler and deGrom had their first surgeries shortly after being drafted. Skenes has the bigger frame among them, especially his lower half.
Bottom Line
The comps can seem ominous. Elite velocity so young is a risk factor. That can’t be ignored. But you must dig into what makes Skenes uniquely great rather than rely solely on silos of comps.
Skenes had been a two-way player who arrived at velocity and full-time pitching later as an amateur. Unlike Buehler and deGrom, he entered pro ball healthy. Unlike Strasburg, he has efficient mechanics. Unlike most young power pitchers, he relies more on an assortment of pitches than leaning into his four-seamer.
It’s easy to be bullish on Skenes. The past 17 months have been a rapid ascension filled with massive achievement. To think the best is yet to come tells you this could be a generational talent.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Paul Skenes Is the Last, Great Hope for Workhorse Aces.
