Paul Skenes
#30 SP · Pirates
Cy Young '25Rookie of the Year '24All-MLB 1st Team '25All-MLB First Team '25ROY '24
Height
6'6"
Weight
260 lbs
Age
23
College
LSU
Draft
2023, Rd 1, #1
Experience
2 yrs
Bats/Throws
R/R
A+
A+
B-
—
Fan Verdict
Grade this player:
Career StatsA+
| Year | Team | GP | ERA | W-L | K | WHIP | IP | SV |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Career |  | 61 | 2.0076263 | 25-14 | 416 | 0.92945665 | 0.0 | 0 |
Current Contract
Length
1 year
Total Value
$1.1M
Guaranteed
$651K
AAV
$1.1M/yr
Guaranteed %60%
Performance Analysis
A+
FCA+
Paul Skenes grades as an elite performer among MLB starting pitchers, earning a A+ Performance grade. He carries a 1.96 ERA (well below the league average of 4.20, placing him among the best in baseball) and a 0.95 WHIP across 320.2 innings pitched with a 10.8 K/9 rate. His 21-13 record provides context on team support and run prevention. His strikeout rate of 10.8 per nine innings ranks among the best in the league, showing dominant swing-and-miss ability. As a sophomore at 23, Paul is a key contributor for the Pirates.
Fan & Media Sentiment
B-
Positive
NegativeNeutralPositive
Paul Skenes enters mid-season with public perception that has recovered meaningfully from a brutal nadir, sitting at a B- sentiment grade after trending up sharply over the last 30 days from a D- low. The narrative anchor dragging that grade down is well-documented: his season-opening start against the Mets was the shortest of his career, as he was pulled in the first inning and handed the reigning NL Cy Young winner's reputation a jarring early-season blow that dominated every major outlet's coverage for weeks. The disconnect between sentiment and production is stark — his performance grade remains a steady A+, meaning the underlying talent and results have reasserted themselves even as the media fingerprints from that disastrous opener haven't fully faded. There's a secondary narrative forming around whether the Pirates organization is managing Skenes aggressively enough, with recent commentary suggesting some observers believe the team has been too cautious with their franchise arm rather than letting him pitch through adversity — and the only blemish on his reputation against elite competition is a notable difficulty against the Cardinals specifically. The roster activity around him — a string of pitching depth moves bringing in names like Braxton Ashcraft and Cam Sanders — paints a picture of an organization patching its rotation around Skenes rather than building peer competition at the top, which keeps expectations on him enormous and the margin for poor starts razor-thin. At 23 years old with a 2025 Cy Young, All-MLB 1st Team honors in back-to-back seasons, and a 2024 Rookie of the Year on his resume, the pedigree is undeniable — but the narrative won't fully rehabilitate until he strings together a run of dominant outings that buries the memory of Opening Day. The bottom line: sentiment is trending in the right direction, but Skenes is still pitching his way out of a hole that a single first inning dug deep.
Recent Games
| Date | OPP | Result | AB | H | R | HR | RBI | BB | SO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thu, 5/7 | @ ARI | W 1-0 | - | - | - | 0 | - | - | - |
| Thu, 4/30 | vs STL | L 5-10 | - | - | - | 0 | - | - | - |
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About this player
Paul Skenes is a player in his 2nd MLB season listed at SP for the Pirates. FanVerdicts maintains four independent grades for every MLB player on an active roster — Contract Value Index for the deal itself, Performance for on-field production, Sentiment for media and fan reaction, and Fan Verdict for community voting. Current grades for Paul Skenes: Contract Value Index A+, Performance A+, Sentiment B-, Fan Verdict pending.
Every grade refreshes on its own cadence as new data lands. Performance recalculates when MLB game stats post; Sentiment updates with new media coverage and fan discussion; Contract Value Index recomputes when contract terms change; Fan Verdict reflects live community voting on this profile. Contract details below show the structure (years, total value, average annual value, guarantees) the Contract Value Index grade is computed against.
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