Paul Skenes has been a unique talent
There’s little reason to believe the Pirates would move Skenes at this point anyway, aside from owner Bob Nutting’s typically frugal habits.
Skenes, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft, burst onto the scene early in the 2024 season, started the All-Star Game just a few months later, won ’24 NL Rookie of the Year honors and is now poised to win the first of what could very well be several Cy Young Awards in his career.
Since Skenes first climbed a Major League mound, he has played 55 games and posted a comical earned run average of 1.96 (1.96 ERA in 2024, 1.97 in 2025). He has struck out 31% of his opponents at a walk rate of just 5.9% and has allowed just 21 home runs in 320 2/3 innings (0.59 HR/9). Forty-seven percent of his batted balls have been grounders, and opponents have averaged a paltry 90.7 miles per hour against him. He has already staked a defensible claim to be the best pitcher in the National League, and were it not for the fact that Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is on the verge of winning his second straight Cy Young Award in the AL, Skenes could be the consensus top pitcher in the sport.
Will Pirates end up trading Paul Skenes?
Trading Skenes somewhere down the line feels almost inevitable. If he continues this trajectory, he will have a chance to break contract precedents for starting pitchers. He already has two full years in the big league and won’t turn 24 until May. He will reach free agency heading into his age-28 season. The frugal Pirates almost certainly won’t make a record-breaking extension offer, which is likely all it takes to extend Skenes.
That said, Skenes is under club control for four more seasons, and he won’t reach arbitration until after the 2026 season. In any case, the first of his arb years will be affordable, even by Pirates standards, and for a pitcher of this caliber it wouldn’t be surprising to see them retain Skenes later than some of the previous pitchers they traded away, with two years of club control left (e.g. Gerrit Cole, Joe Musgrove).
There was never really any expectation that Skenes would be traded this offseason – we didn’t include him in our list of the the top 40 trade candidates this offseason — but it’s nonetheless notable to hear the head of the team’s baseball operations say so definitively that no trade will happen. Most front office leaders tend to avoid speaking in these kinds of absolute terms.
Pirates could be active this season
Additionally, Cherington’s comment comes at a time when the Pirates are widely expected to put a little more pressure on a return to contention. The 2026 season will be the sixth year of Cherington’s GM tenure, and the team has yet to reach 76 wins during his time leading the club. Pittsburgh already fired manager Derek Shelton in May — he has since been hired as the Twins’ new skipper — and the leader of baseball operations is often next on the chopping block after a manager is shown the door.
The Athletics said Ken Rosenthal in an appearance on “Fair Territory” that agents he has spoken with have already received signals from the Pirates that they plan to be more active on the open market this winter. Of course, that doesn’t mean the Bucs will be playing at the top of the market, but in the 2025-26 offseason they could move out of the lower tiers of free agency where they typically reside. Cherington himself told Murray that he has “more flexibility than we ever had [any] other offseasons I’ve been in Pittsburgh.
As MLBTR’s Contract Tracker showsIt’s been almost a decade since the Pirates signed a free agent to a multi-year contract. That’s not an indication that they haven’t made multi-year offers, but the Pirates certainly haven’t been aggressive during Nutting’s ownership, either under Cherington or predecessor Neal Huntington.
In one appearance on the MLB Trade Rumors podcast late in the seasonCherington acknowledged that he has made multi-year offers to free agents, particularly players at the free agent position. It is understood that these offers have been rejected. Still, the sixth-year GM from Pittsburgh made it clear that he plans to continue those efforts, and there are now multiple indicators that he may have the financial wiggle room to be a bit more aggressive if he wants to make such a deal to add some offense to the lineup.
The Bucs could still trade some pitching to add one or more major league bats, but veteran Mitch Keller or 26-year-old Mike Burrows seem like more plausible candidates than Skenes, Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft or Jared Jones (who they would sell low on once he completes his rehab from UCL surgery).
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