MANHATTAN -- New York is still barely waking up, with students and dogwalkers hustling to get out of the shadows and January cold, by the time Paul Skenes is well into his workout on Monday morning. The reigning National League Rookie of the Year Award winner, fresh off the fanfare of a historic season and accepting the honor at the BBWAA dinner on Saturday with family and loved ones in attendance, was back to work preparing for the 2025 season as though he’s got something to prove.
Even amid a family vacation to New York, it turns out the “offseason” is nothing more than a nominal label for Skenes. It’s the perfect opportunity to lay the groundwork for his second year in the Majors.
“It’s refreshing to be back in the cold, but I love the city -- it’s a great place to visit,” Skenes said following his workout at New York Empire Baseball, an indoor facility on the Upper West Side. “Has everything I need here. Cool to see some of the guys at the dinner the other night. But yeah, [now] it’s kind of like, ‘Let’s turn the page and get ready for the new year, the new season.’”
It was a light catch/bullpen day for Skenes, who is on the road to being ready for when the Pirates’ pitchers and catchers report to the club’s Spring Training facility in Bradenton, Fla., in a couple of weeks. But that doesn’t mean the 22-year-old’s process to prepare changes to match the stakes. For nearly an hour, Skenes drilled through his signature warmup routine in silence, with only the intentional breaths and medicine balls colliding with the wall soundtracking the ordeal.
Even as the silence gave way to glove pops on Skenes’ fastballs and feedback on readings from the Trackman during his bullpen session, the quiet intensity remained. It’s these moments that the Pirates' ace relishes the most as his stardom ascends: the opportunity to grind when no one expects him to, when nobody is watching. It’s what he hopes will help him be the best version of himself to help Pittsburgh reach the postseason for the first time since 2015.
“You have to do it all the time -- I believe that you can’t learn to compete in the noise and the lights and the hype until you master the silence,” Skenes said. “You get out there, there’s fans, there’s noise, all that stuff. And you kind of have to create your own silence. We do it all offseason, we do it during the season, too.
“Nobody understands, other than big leaguers and coaches, how much work goes into the entire year. That was one of the things: ‘Hey, I’m coming up to New York for a few days. All right, let’s find a place to work out, let’s find a place to train.’ And these guys do everything I need, so it’s pretty easy up here. But it’s always a priority to do that."