ARLINGTON, Texas — First things first. Paul Skenes Said Pirate After he signed he was told he wasn’t good enough.
At least, not yet.
It was late July 2023 and the newly drafted No. 1 overall pick, fresh off the greatest pitching season in college baseball history, was interviewing with his new employer in Bradenton, Fla. Skenes, director of player development John Baker and pitching coordinator Josh Hopper were seated in Hopper’s office at the Pirates’ spring training facility.
Even Skenes’ most optimistic outlook could not have predicted this future. Less than a year later, the 6-foot-6 pitcher Start the National League All-Star Game He is the first player to be selected to an All-Star team the year after being drafted first overall.
And the honor is well-deserved: Skenes has taken MLB by storm, dominating hitters with a 1.90 ERA through his first 11 starts, striking out batters, capturing imaginations and eyeballs along the way.
But the road to professional stardom first runs through Florida’s Gulf Coast, where the three met to plot a path of development. The objective of their meeting was clear: find a way to lead the most enticing pitching prospect of the past decade to major league dominance. Baker and Hopper had prepared a series of proposals, but before sharing them, they asked Skenes to evaluate himself.
“He didn’t even look at our list. [our recommendations] “We’re going to finish the game in the right order,” said Baker, who has similar meetings with every player who joins the team. Pittsburgh“It’s something he thought about himself,” he told Yahoo Sports about the minor league system. “It’s his first time being in this environment with rookies.”
“And his list was more comprehensive than ours, and also more self-deprecating.”
High on Skenes’ list of priorities was adding a reliable third pitch that could more effectively neutralize lefty batters. He dominated hitters as a junior at Louisiana State University, posting a 1.69 ERA, 209 strikeouts and allowed a .449 OPS in 122 2/3 innings, but that was while relying almost entirely on two pitches, a fastball-slider combo. The mustachioed flamethrower occasionally chucked a quality changeup, but he told Baker and Hopper he wanted something different, something better, something that could fool the best hitters on the planet.
Skenes then began to create and refine the unicorn gift that would eventually become the “Splinker.” Sinker speed and splitter vertical depthIt was a cheat code that induced strikeouts and ground balls, and it helped catapult Skenes to superstardom.
That he developed such an effective pitch in such a short time speaks volumes about how unique Skenes was: only someone with a rare combination of athletic ability, competitive drive, hard work and intellectual humility could have mastered and deployed such a pitch.
Skenes made Sprinker, and Sprinker made Skenes.
Skenes had been toying with the pitch during his brief pro debut, which saw him pitch in five games last summer, but Pirates officials hadn’t actually seen it until late last winter.
Sources told Yahoo Sports that Skenes spent part of last offseason at the University of Georgia, working with Bulldogs head coach Wes Johnson. Johnson, one of the most respected figures in pitching, served as Skenes’ pitching coach at Louisiana State and played a key role in developing the Air Force transfer into one of the best pitching prospects in MLB history.
Late last offseason, Hopper and Pirates pitching coach Oscar Marin traveled to Athens, Georgia, to watch the pitches for themselves. Their report was incredible.
“I remember hearing about it… he was pitching something in ’95-’96 and it was negative. [vertical movement]”Nobody has ever seen anything like this,” Baker told Yahoo Sports.
“It was the kind of situation where if you heard that about other players, you’d think, ‘Yeah, I see.’ But [Skenes]and we say, ‘Yeah, that’s probably true.’ And then when he showed up to spring training, we got to see it.”
Pirates Catcher Henry Davis We also saw some early production on the pitch during the offseason.
“It was a pitch that was more vertical than a changeup and had more depth,” Davis told Yahoo Sports, “but he was throwing it around 92 mph at the time. He wasn’t fully up to speed yet and was just seeing if it could add to his arsenal.”
The assistant director of pitching said: Jeremy Bleich“The biggest thing is he had a vision of what he wanted to be, and our staff guided him probably the last five yards or so.”
The finished product is pitch Unique: It has so much vertical movement that Statcast classifies it as a splitter, but it averages 94.1 mph and has topped out at 97 mph multiple times. On a velocity basis, what Skenes calls a sinker has been the most effective pitch in MLB this season. According to Statcast’s Run Value metric:.
“That’s incredible — the best I’ve ever seen,” Davis said. “And how many years has it been since he’s been a full-time pitcher?”
In fact, it was just two years ago that Skenes played his final game at the Air Force Academy before transferring to LSU. In that regional playoff game against the University of Texas, Skenes played cleanup catcher and batter for the Falcons.
When Skenes arrived in Baton Rouge, it was immediately clear that his future was on the mound. From the moment the dashing pitcher began taking part in fall scrimmages, his new teammates began to understand the kind of person and player they had in the team.
Two of Skenes’ former LSU teammates — Nationals Outfielder Dylan Crews Raise First baseman Tre Morgan was in Arlington, Texas, over the weekend to take part in this year’s Futures Game, a gathering of minor league prospects. Neither showed any surprise. About Skenes’ lightning-fast path to becoming a major league star.
“When I went to college with him, I thought he was a big leaguer at that point, a starter for a major league team,” said Cruz, the No. 2 pick in last year’s draft. “He’s a special talent.”
Still, Morgan marveled at how Skenes’s dominance is still on full display at the highest level: “It’s great to see him doing the same things he did in college, literally the same things, against the best hitters in the world,” he said.
But Skenes isn’t quite the same pitcher he was a year ago. Sprinker has refined his pitching combinations, making him more formidable against righties as well as lefties, where he needed a different answer. That wasn’t the case last season, when he dominated college players. That has changed.
But Skenes’ essence — his determination, his fastball, his slider and his energy on the mound, like a contented Rottweiler having fun while he’s beating up opponents — remains unshakeable.
Plus, probing self-reflection and constructive self-criticism are a big part of what makes Skenes a generational player. It would have been easy, and understandable, for him to rest on his laurels and stubbornly stick to the pitch combination that propelled him to incredible heights in college. Most pitchers, baseball players, and people in general need to experience failure before they can admit that change is necessary.
Not Skenes.
“he, [just] “It’s amazing,” Bleich said. “He wants to be the best.”
Present and Future Pittsburgh Pirates He adapted when he had to, before his superiors told him to. His willingness to evolve and his freakish athleticism to create brilliant new pitches enabled his rapid rise and historic first 11 starts in the major leagues.
“He could have gotten major league hitters out with just his fastball and slider,” Baker said.
“But I don’t know if he’s an All-Star.”
