Column: Blockbuster Skenes Trade Could Help Bring Winning Baseball Back to Pittsburgh

There is one day every five to six days that every Pirate fan has come to love. That day is Skenes Day. Paul Skenes has taken the Major League Baseball world by storm and has proven to be one of the best pitchers in the game. If you ask most Pirate fans who their favorite player is, Skenes’ name will likely roll off the tip of their tongue.

However, a question has recently surfaced in the national media: Should the Pirates consider trading Skenes? While this may seem preposterous to most, the Pirates may be better off striking while the iron is hot. 

Over 34 starts, the Pirates' Ace has pitched to a 2.10 earned run average over 201.2 innings. Skenes recorded 11 wins in his rookie season, but is just three and five in year two. No, it isn’t because Skenes is pitching worse than last year, as he has a 2.36 ERA and a 0.95 WHIP over 68.2 innings with 70 strikeouts. The fact is, the team around him isn’t good enough to capitalize.

Yes, we would all love to see Paul holding up the Commissioner’s trophy in a Pirates uniform, but unless ownership does a complete 180 and spends money to put pieces around Skenes, it is just going to be another decade of losing baseball in Pittsburgh.

What can the Pirates do? The team can fast-track back to winning baseball in Pittsburgh by trading the righty for an unprecedented haul of near-MLB-ready prospects, as the Washington Nationals did with the Juan Soto deal. The Nationalss traded the all-world right fielder for James Wood, CJ Abrams, MacKenzie Gore, Robert Hassell III, and Jarlin Susana. 

Three of those players are currently key pieces to the Nationals team, with Wood and Abrams starting as everyday players and Gore currently leading the Majors in Strikeouts. Hassell has just been called up by Washington, and Susana came into the season as the team’s No. 10 prospect.

When the magical runs of 2013-2015 happened, the Pirates’ farm system was the best in baseball. Currently, the Pirates have the No. 14-ranked system in the majors with one top-20 prospect, two top-50 prospects, and four top-100 prospects. While Konnor Griffin is tearing up Bradenton as we speak, the fact is, there aren’t many bats that are a sure thing to help the team at the Major League level in the next four years while Skenes is in Black & Gold.

The fact is, Skenes is going to carry the richest contract a pitcher, if not a player overall, has ever received in baseball history. Currently, that record sits at $765 million, given to Juan Soto by the New York Mets last offseason. The richest contract ever given to a pitcher was by the Los Angeles Dodgers, who gave Yoshinobu Yamamoto a $325 million deal. What is the richest contract ever given out by the Pirates? That would be the eight-year, 106.75 million given to Bryan Reynolds. The only contract north of $100 million in team history. 

Skenes isn’t signing long-term here, and the team isn't good enough to win a World Series with a $90 million payroll. I hate to say it, but the quickest way to get back to winning baseball in Pittsburgh is to trade the most talented Pitcher in Pirates’ history.