7-9-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
Look folks, plenty of people are going to give you all the stats and all the breakdowns of his pitches. People far more qualified than me, so I’m going to talk about this selection in more of a what does this do to the Pirates timeline here?
Oh, I’ll talk about Paul Skenes and what I think too, just wanted to kinda lay out, if you’re looking for how many RPM’s he generates with his slider, yeah, probably not gonna get there in this piece.
He’s 6’6″, but not a bean pole, he’s 250lbs. Big guy, big foundation, size 15 shoes yo.
209 strikeouts, a 0.75 WHIP, 1.69 ERA. He’s the only player to win the College World Series, the College World Series MVP and be selected number 1 overall.
He’s an impressive specimen, and being on record as thinking it should be Skenes or Crews, I have to admit Langford crept into my “good pick” territory too.
Let’s just face the elephant in the room. You can’t look at a guy like that with those kind of stats and think they’ve picked a bad player, but everyone is already looking at their 5 year planners and trying to figure when he has Tommy John right?
It’s the fear when you draft a pitcher for sure. Strasberg has obviously suffered injury issues for most of his career while sprinkling in brilliance when he was capable. Cole is, was, and will remain a horse, at least so far. Taillon certainly was another extreme example, and it really made the pick not work for that iteration of the Pirates.
It’s a risk, no doubt, but lets be very real, pitching always is. Think the Yankees were pleased Rodon just made his first appearance? You can sign experienced good pitchers, but you’re going to pay, and realistically for the very best of the best, you’re likely going to pay more than the Pirates can or will.
It’s hard to deny though, they need it desperately. I’m not ready to wash my hands of Ortiz or Roansy, Priester or Jones, Solometo or Jun-Seok Shim, but as good as any of those guys could be, the ceiling on Skenes is simply higher. When you have a chance to add that, and feel you have a chance to add it in pretty short order at the MLB level, man you add it. If you think it’s a difference maker, if you think the talent is what takes you from leaving a playoff series frowning, even just once or twice, you take it.
I don’t have to toss shade at Dylan Crews, Wyatt Langford or anyone else to recognize why passing on something like this would have been very hard to do.
In fact, maybe the very fact the line between Crews and Langford became so blurry itself is reason to potentially see why Skenes separated himself for the Pirates a bit. If you wanted THE pitcher this year, you got THE pitcher.
I’m not saying ten years from now there’s zero chance that Crews or whomever winds up looking like the better pick, but that can happen every year. I mean, Mike trout was picked 25th in the first round back in 2009. 24 teams were like, yeah, this Trout guy might turn into something, but he’s not worthy of a 1:1.
There were a lot of good players in this draft and a whole lot of us probably got a little too passionate about how right we were, and more than anything, about how little trust we clearly had that Ben Cherington was going to somehow just take like the 10th best guy and the Pirates would for the first time ever not spend their bonus pool.
From a timing perspective, I love this pick, I could argue Crews would have been just about the same timeline, but either way, this has the potential to impact the Major League club as early as next year.
Everyone isn’t going to agree, that’s life, but I can honestly say the Pirates had more good players to pick from than any draft in recent memory, even for those of you who were sure they’d screw it up, have to admit, Skenes is up there.
Bottom line, The Pirates added a fantastic prospect, he’ll be the Pirates number 1 prospect immediately, and I suspect fairly high on the MLB Top 100 as well.
I’m struggling to find a reason to complain.
Welcome to Pittsburgh Paul Skenes, and uh, give it a couple days before reading our comments, some of us have a steaming plate of crow to eat real quick.
Steel City Pirates 
Taking a college guy is likely going to lead to more major league seasons during the team years of control. If Skenes turns out like Cole he will move on after seven years, so good to get 5-6 big league seasons out of him before that time.
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good point
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Pirates made a huge mistake. Take the talent over need at the top of any draft pool. Crews has more upside and far less risk. I am not fond of pick #2. You take a short with 0 HR power, a weak arm and one that makes questionable decision in the field. That is not a player you run to take. Pitching depth will always be needed and there was plenty of quality arms that could have been taken which even includes a former teammate of Skenes. Round #3 selection, my thinking it was a good gamble on the upside. Regardless, nothing is more upsetting than turning away for future all-star with realistic Hall of Fame potential even if it costs an additional 1 M in signing bonus money (quality over quantity). Heck, they blew 25 M this last offseason on many free agent flops. Ben’s results are tracking in the D range since he has been named the Pirate GM.
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