Where ESPN Ranks Pirates’ Paul Skenes Among MLB Players

Pirates ace Paul Skenes earned his first win of the 2025 season when Pittsburgh defeated the Tampa Bay Rays 4-2 Wednesday at George M. Steinbrenner Field.

The reigning National League Rookie of the Year struck out six Rays batters over seven innings without issuing a walk and surrendered just three hits in his second start of the campaign. He generated 13 swings-and-misses but did not strike out his first batter until the third inning. It was the first time in his career that Skenes went the first two innings of a game without recording a strikeout.

With a nearly perfect stat line like that, it’s no wonder ESPN ranked Skenes fifth among the top 100 MLB players.

“Splinkers, cutters, sinkers and more. Skenes, the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year, has added to his arsenal and is poised for a sophomore campaign without major innings limitations,” ESPN’s Jesse Rogers wrote in a column published Tuesday. “The kid gloves are off after he produced a 1.96 ERA in 23 starts over 133 innings last season. Don’t be surprised if he repeats a sub-2.00 ERA but over 170 innings or more. That would put him in Cy Young territory, an award he’s bound to win at least once — if not several times — during his career.”

Rogers added that he believes Skenes will “flirt with a 20-strikeout game at some point this year.”

Only Shohei Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr., Mookie Betts and Aaron Judge ranked higher than Skenes among the top players in the league.

Skenes’ teammate, Oneil Cruz, placed 59th on the list as the only other Pirate to reach the Top 100.

“For the Pirates — a franchise that hasn’t spent much money on position players to complement an uber-talented starting rotation — the 6-foot-7 Cruz is crucial to their success,” ESPN’s Jorge Castillo wrote. ” Now a full-time center fielder after moving from shortstop in August, Cruz is an elite athlete with a cannon for an arm and speed to wreak havoc on the bases. In the batter’s box, he hits baseballs harder than anybody in the sport (he was third in the majors in average exit velocity in 2024 and hit the hardest ball of the season at 121.5 mph), but he has been plagued by the strikeout.”

Castillo predicted that Cruz would reduce his strikeouts and improve his overall production, with at least 30 home runs and 100 RBIs this season. In Pittsburgh’s first seven games of the season, Cruz is slashing .261/.400/.522 with two home runs and four RBI.

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