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Pittsburgh Pirates rookie Paul Skenes will be taking the mound again this weekend, and if the first seven outings of his young MLB career are any indication, it could very well be appointment viewing. Skenes has gone 4-0 since the Pirates brought him up in mid-May, showing off not only his dazzling four-seam fastball, but his full array of complementary pitches—especially his split/sinker known as a “splinker”—to dominate with a 2.29 ERA, a 0.992 WHIP and 53 strikeouts against just seven walks in 39.1 innings pitched.
Skenes is good, the rare top prospect who almost immediately pays off dividends. He was drafted with the first overall pick out of LSU last July, and at age 22, he is already looking like an ace.
As is always the case with bright young prospects toiling for small-market teams, one of the looming questions with Skenes is whether the Pirates can and will pay him—and how much. Skenes could go through the normal process of spending six seasons in pre-arbitration and arbitration, or the Pirates could get aggressive with him and make an early extension offer.
But for a pitcher who is laying out Skenes’ level of work, it would have to be a doozy—a record-setter, even.
Paul Skenes Is Baseball’s Top Prospect
That’s the view from the folks at Spotrac, who looked at Skenes’ early production and projected that not only would the Pirates have to pony up the kind of six-year, $73 million (seven and $92 million including a team option) contract the Braves gave to Spencer Strider last year, but they would have to double it.
Yes, double the contract of a player who went 20-5 with a 3.86 ERA and a league-high 281 strikeouts last season. Spotrac’s Mike Ginnitti suggests that the kind of deal Skenes could warrant in an early extension would be six years and $150 million.
Spotrac MLB contracts expert Dan Soemann, speaking on “The Spotrac Podcast,” said he was at “80 to 100% of that” number, meaning $120-$150 million over four years for Skenes. That would shatter pre-arb contract records in baseball.
But Skenes is showing he is worth it.
Earlier this month, Baseball America moved Skenes to the No. 1 spot on its prospects list, writing, “Skenes has pitched like a front-of-the-rotation starter from his first day in the majors. He held the Cubs hitless for six innings while striking out 11 in his second MLB start. He immediately became the hardest-throwing starting pitcher in the majors. … He’s continued to adjust and add to his arsenal year after year. He now throws his splinker almost as often as his fastball. He didn’t even use the pitch at LSU.”
Pirates Will Have 6 Years of Control
It would take a record-breaker to get Skenes to sign early. He would likely do well to go through the arbitration process, where he would have established himself as one of the top few pitchers in the game and be rewarded in kind.
Either way, we’re not talking about the Pirates losing Skenes or needing to trade him any time soon. Pittsburgh will have control of Skenes for the next six years.
“Part of the thesis of Pittsburgh drafting him—obviously we see what he has developed into—but part of the thesis was, if he is a bona fide ace, Top-5 type pitcher in the league, the Pittsburgh Pirates are not gonna have access to that type of player cheap,” Soemann said. “This path would be a fraction of that cost. I think they’d be pretty happy getting six years of Paul Skenes as is. They would definitely be motivated to get an extension done but I’d be pretty shocked unless it is a record-setting, historic type of extension.”
The Pirates might want to buy out Skenes’ arbitration years, exchanging them for cost certainty, but Skenes might not have enough motivation to do so.
“I think the team would be motivated, and if it is a historic type contract, like maybe there would be more value in waiting four years and then trying to sign some sort of extension once we know what the financial landscape looks like at that point. But if you’re gonna, as a pitcher, lock in some sort of historic pre-arb extension I wouldn’t totally discount that,” he said.
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