Pirates Pitcher Paul Skenes Opens Up About NL Cy Young Award Finish

Paul Skenes walked off the mound on a high note to conclude his rookie season with the Pittsburgh Pirates.

The 22-year-old went 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA, established himself as one of the elite pitchers in the big leagues and was credited plenty once the award announcements were made. Skenes was (unsurprisingly) named the National League Rookie of the Year, however, finishing third in the Cy Young Award race meant even more to the right-handed flamethrower.

Skenes finished behind Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves — the winner — and Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies — the runner-up.

“Truthfully, I think being a finalist for the Cy Young Award is a little more meaningful than Rookie of the Year — because it’s all the pitchers in the league,” Skenes told Jim Lachimia of MLB.com. “It’s a tremendous honor to be up there with Sale and Wheeler. Obviously, they compete at a very high level and get a ton of strikeouts. But I think the biggest thing is their consistency every single outing. That’s something I strive for, and something they’re very good at.”

The third-place finish is nothing to hang one’s head over for Skenes. Sale, a well-respected veteran and World Series champion, waited until his age-35 season to capture a Cy Young Award. Skenes, on the other hand, only needed to make 23 starts to contend, making the sky the limit for Pittsburgh’s No. 1 pick from the 2023 draft.

When looking at the grand scheme of things, the Pirates have plenty of room for improvement. The first taste of Skenes on a big league mound was thrilling alone, but as Pittsburgh discovered the hard way, it’ll take more to get over the hump and contend with the big dogs of the NL. The Pirates finished dead last in the NL Central at 76-86, putting a bittersweet end to the tremendous first year of Skenes in a Pittsburgh uniform.

“Yeah, the last couple months of the season — especially that stretch in August — left a bad taste in a lot of people’s mouths,” Skenes said, per Lachimia. “We were in it up until then and then had a bunch of things not go our way. My hope is, we got that out of our system and we’re going to have more self-awareness in terms of how we’re going to be able to win moving forward. I know the talent here is going to get better. We just need to have an identity and some good camaraderie. From there, I’m not going to say nobody is going to stop us, but I like our chances because there are simple and straightforward ways for us to win a lot more games without any huge, sweeping changes. I know I can’t wait for spring training to start.”

But Skenes has plenty of belief in ownership and the front office to make moves this offseason and put the Pirates in a favorable position to return to the postseason for the first time since 2015.

“Obviously, being drafted No. 1 overall was a huge honor, and since then I’ve had a fair amount of visibility and conversations with (chairman) Bob Nutting, (general manager) Ben Cherington and other team officials. And they listen,” Skenes said. “I was the No. 1 pick, who cares? Whatever. I was still a rookie last year, but they were listening. And they’re listening to guys like Mitch Keller, Bryan Reynolds and Ke’Bryan Hayes, too. They’re receptive. They listen to what we think we need to do to win. Mr. Nutting is very approachable. He’s willing to listen because he wants to win, which is good because that’s not the picture that a lot of people paint of him. The only difference is we’re going to win in a little bit different way than the Dodgers and the Yankees. But we’re going to win.”

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