At every turn, Paul Skenes has obliterated expectations.
The Pirates’ young ace went from first overall draft pick to big leaguer in just 10 months, faster than any other No. 1 pick since 1978. And since his arrival, Skenes has shined, posting a microscopic 1.99 ERA despite being the youngest rotation arm in MLB. A truncated but shimmering first-half earned him the honor of starting the All-Star Game for the National League, making him the first rookie to do so since Hideo Nomo in 1995.
And the Pirates, long a punchless punchline, remain in the playoff picture in August for the first time in nearly a decade. Skenes’ brilliance is a massive reason for that. In less than three months, the mustachioed fireballer has emerged as the runaway favorite for the NL Rookie of the Year Award.
But can he win the Cy Young?
Is there anything Skenes — who has tallied far fewer innings than his competitors — can do to overcome the odds and become only the second rookie to win MLB’s top pitching award?
It’s a complicated question with a dumb answer: maybe.
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Debates about bulk versus dominance have come to define Cy Young races over the past decade, and as starting pitchers shoulder smaller and smaller workloads, that trend will only continue. In 2013, 36 pitchers reached the 200-inning plateau. Last season, only five hurlers — AL Cy Young winner Gerrit Cole, Logan Webb, Zac Gallen, Miles Mikolas and Chris Bassitt — hit that mark.
The award’s voting body, which is composed of a rotating group of 30 journalists from the Baseball Writers Association of America, has already adjusted to the changing landscape. And Blake Snell’s 2018 AL Cy Young-winning campaign, in which he compiled just 180 2/3 frames, was the turning point.
Snell was magnificent for Tampa Bay that season, pitching to a 1.89 ERA and 21 wins, but his innings total was the lowest ever by a Cy Young-winning starting pitcher in a full season. The 34 ⅓-inning gap between Snell and runner-up Justin Verlander, who finished the year with a 2.52 ERA and 290 strikeouts, irked many around the game.
Then, in 2021, Brewers starter Corbin Burnes won the NL Cy Young with only 167 innings. Phillies ace Zack Wheeler, who racked up 45 2/3 more innings than Burnes, finished second.
Certain players remain incredibly peeved by the 2018 and 2021 voting results. Within baseball, nothing is respected more than players who “post.” The best ability, as it goes, is availability. To be consistent, to be reliable is to be beloved.
That dynamic is the biggest obstacle between Skenes and some more hardware.
When the Pirates sent their prized phenom to Triple-A Indianapolis to begin the season, they were heavily critiqued by fans and prognosticators alike. Many argued that Pittsburgh’s primary motivation for keeping Skenes in the minors was to delay his service time clock. The organization ostensibly believed that Skenes, who threw once a week in college, needed time to adjust to the every-five-days professional pitching schedule.
Whatever the reason, Skenes didn’t get the big-league call until May 11. And while his rate stats since then — a league-leading 1.99 ERA, a league-leading 0.942 WHIP, a 32.3 K% that’s second to only Tyler Glasnow — are eye-popping, the delayed debut has limited him to 86 innings across 14 starts. That pales in comparison to the totals of his NL Cy Young competitors. Atlanta’s Chris Sale is at 123 innings over 20 starts. Wheeler is at 136 2/3 in 22 outings. Logan Webb, whose 3.42 ERA has him on the outside of the Cy Young conversation, leads the National League with 150 innings in 24 appearances.
Notably, despite pitch restrictions that limited him for his first few starts, Skenes has worked deep into games. He’s averaging 6.14 innings per start, good for fifth in the National League and a remarkable accomplishment for a rookie. Barring injury, Skenes should make 10 more regular-season starts. At his current pace, that means he’d finish 2024 with 146 1/3 innings and the following line: 24 starts, 183 Ks and 33 walks to go with his current 1.99 ERA and 0.94 WHIP.
Wheeler, by comparison, is on pace to hit 200 innings. Sale is set to finish with around 184, a figure that would’ve been considered woefully insufficient a decade ago. But the goalposts have changed, and Sale is the frontrunner. The lanky Atlanta lefty also has the narrative heft on his side; Sale scuffled through a half-decade of injury and underperformance before authoring this magnificent bounceback campaign. He’s one of the greatest, most respected pitchers of his generation, but he has never won a Cy Young.
Had Skenes debuted in mid-April and made, say, four more starts, he’d be the clear Cy Young favorite at this point. People around baseball acknowledge that the deficit isn’t Skenes’ fault, yet it’s a massive factor working against him. Then again, whether voters agree with that premise remains to be seen. Remember, Burnes beat Wheeler 45 2/3 innings in arrears.
There also exists, improbable though it might be, a level of performance that Skenes could achieve over the remaining seven weeks that would make him the unavoidable choice. If he boosts his average innings per start to seven and averages one earned run per start, that would give him 156 innings with a 1.67 ERA. Some voters would probably think that deserves recognition over Sale’s 184 innings and 2.71 ERA.
After all, Snell beat Verlander with a 34 ⅓-inning deficit. In this scenario, Skenes would be just 28 innings behind.
That innings total would once again represent a new low for a Cy Young-winning starter. But Skenes has already upended our preconceptions so many times. Could he do it once more?
