Twenty-three-year-old Paul Skenes on Wednesday night capped his blistering rise to stardom by capturing the National League (NL) Cy Young Award.
The Pittsburgh Pirates ace was a unanimous choice by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, with the honor coming minutes after Tarik Skubal won baseball’s premier pitching prize in the American League for the second straight year as the anchor of the Detroit Tigers.
As gratified as they are by the recognition, both said they are eager for their respective teams to get in on the act next year.
Photo: AP
However, 28-year-old Skubal is entering his final year of club control, and while he would like to stay in Detroit beyond next season, he is well aware the Tigers could trade him as a business decision, considering the hefty raise the left-hander figures to command should he hit the open market as a free agent.
It is much the same for Skenes, who remains under team control for the rest of the decade, but found himself pushing back against a report that he told teammates he is eager to move on.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Skenes said. “The goal is to win and the goal is to win in Pittsburgh.”
The Pirates finished last in the NL Central this year, well off the pace of front-running Milwaukee Brewers.
The first pitcher since Dwight Gooden with the New York Mets in the mid-1980s to win Rookie of the Year one season and a Cy Young Award the next remains optimistic Pittsburgh is closer to contending than most think.
“The way that fans see us outside of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is not supposed to win,” Skenes said. “There are 29 fan bases that expect us to lose. I want to be a part of the 26 guys that change that.”
Skenes — selected first overall by the Pirates in the 2023 amateur draft after a standout career at the US Air Force Academy and Louisiana State University — did his part this year, leading the majors in ERA (1.97), while striking out 216 batters in 187-1/3 innings during his first full season in the big leagues.
Yet even with his brilliance, Skenes needed a little late help from Pittsburgh’s woeful offense to avoid becoming the first Cy Young-winning starting pitcher to finish with a losing record. Skenes won three of his final four decisions to finish 10-10.
That so-so win/loss mark did not stop the towering 1.98m right-hander from placing atop all 30 ballots. Philadelphia Phillies left-hander Cristopher Sanchez received every second-place vote, and World Series Most Valuable Player Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers finished third.
Skubal is the 12th hurler to win baseball’s top pitching honor in consecutive years, joining a group that includes Hall of Famers Randy Johnson and Pedro Martinez, who was the last American League pitcher to go back-to-back, for the Boston Red SoX in 1999 and 2000.
“I think a lot of it is not being complacent with who I am today,” Skubal said. “I still think there’s more to tap into. I don’t think this is the finished version of myself.”
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