BRADENTON, Fla. -- The cavalry came from the clubhouse to watch their guy, their ace and their axis.
If it wasn’t the entirety of the Pirates’ Spring Training roster assembled around a back field Thursday at Pirate City to watch Paul Skenes throw a simulated session, it was pretty close. And there was no shortage of fans on hand, too, to watch Skenes toss three scoreless “innings” before taking the time to autograph their wares.
“Paul! Skenes!” they chanted. “Paul! Skenes!”
People obviously gravitate toward Skenes because of what the reigning National League Cy Young Award winner can do on the mound, where his 1.96 career ERA is the best in MLB since the start of 2024 (minimum 300 innings) by more than one-third of a run. Next on the list is back-to-back AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal at 2.30.
But it’s what Skenes does elsewhere that sets him apart as a leader for his team and a great representative for both his sport and -- coming soon to a World Baseball Classic venue near you -- his country.
“It’s our game,” he said. “We’ve got to leave it better than we found it.”
Skenes is a rarity in both stats and standing. He’s all of 23 years old, with just two years of service time and a role in which he takes the field roughly once a week. And yet he’s the closest thing Pirate City has to a mayor and the Pirates to a captain.
When Skenes made remarks toward the end of 2025 about the importance of not letting that 91-loss season go down as a “wasted year,” his words reverberated.
“I think — individually, as a team and as an organization — we know the adjustments we need to make,” Skenes had said at that time. “Now we’ve just got to do them.”
The Pirates did make adjustments with their most aggressive winter in at least a decade, putting a few more veteran voices in the room with the acquisitions of Ryan O’Hearn, Marcell Ozuna and Brandon Lowe. Though Skenes clearly wasn’t the one pulling the trigger on trades and free-agent offers, his input had an influence on the Pirates’ roster construction.
“He's coming into the conversation like, ‘I think this could be better, so let's talk about how to make it better,’” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. “We truly appreciate that about him.”
When the Pirates were picking out a new pitching coach, Skenes was a part of the process, feeling out eventual hire Bill Murphy, from the Astros’ organization, on whether he was interested in the role simply because it’s a Major League gig or whether he was truly inspired by the idea of bringing championship baseball to playoff-starved Pittsburgh. (That Murphy is here tells you he answered correctly.)
Passionate about that project himself, Skenes was asked if he feels the Pirates have adequately addressed their roster.
He nodded.
“The players that we brought in obviously make the team better,” he said. “They were clearly very intentional about who they brought in, who was going to be in this circle and out of this circle. So there are definitely some guys willing to do what it takes to take the jump. I’ve found, in my two years, it’s kind of hard sometimes to expect guys that are on one-year deals to be that person. With that said, there are guys that are on one-year deals who are the right people, who want to do it.”
Skenes said one thing that “drives him nuts” is when people are so supposedly self-aware that they put limits on their capabilities.
He doesn’t want to be surrounded by players like that.
And it’s clear Skenes is putting no limits on himself. It’s why he’s willing to pitch for Team USA despite the injury risk before he’s made his mint. It’s also why he views himself not just as a Pirates employee but a partner with the coaching staff and front office.
“You're the average of the five people that you surround yourself with most,” Skenes said. “And I guess, in me saying that, it's not just me, it's other guys in the clubhouse that are going to make other people better. And that's what people want to latch onto.”
And Skenes, of course, intends to do his part to get better this year. Improving upon his already infinitesimal ERA might prove impossible, but he expects to go deeper into games and log more innings this year.
“Last year, frankly, there was really no point to go 200 innings and do anything drastically different from what I had done before, because we were out of it,” said Skenes, who reached 187 2/3 frames. “I’m planning to throw seven innings of baseball starting March 26. I don’t know how many innings you play in the postseason, but the plan is to be ramped up for that.”