Paul Skenes Should….

10-5-23 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter

When I say something like…

Paul Skenes won’t be on the opening day roster for Pittsburgh, it’s immediately met with vitriol.

Overt anger about how cheap they are, how dumb they are, how they don’t want to win is quick to follow.

Listen, there’s a couple different things going on here. First, the Pirates have created an environment that sends people to the edge long before they’ve bothered thinking on a thing for more than a minute. Second, there is an overriding expectation that Paul being one of the five best starters in the organization on opening day is a given.

My point is really more about what I think the Pirates should do in the offseason than it is about Paul Skenes. See, I can’t make two things connect.

I can’t make Ben Cherington’s comments that the team will look to be a playoff team next year jive with purposefully starting a rookie in the rotation. Yes, even that rookie. We’re talking about a kid who just threw 6.2 innings in the minor leagues in 2023. Well, let me rephrase that a bit, I can’t square Ben Cherington TRUSTING that a rookie, even this rookie will be ready to carry the weight expected of him without bringing in options, and if you bring in options, reality is, those options are gonna play, at least for a little.

Much of the thought we should just blow past all that type of stuff and start him comes from scouts saying “he could pitch in MLB right now”, and folks, he surely could, but not likely as a starter. This kid’s arm and offerings are elite, but to be a starter he’ll need to clean some stuff up, stretch himself out a bit, and more than anything just learn.

I guess the confusion is at least partially my fault. Just simply saying he won’t be on the opening day roster leaves a ton of room for the why aspect.

So let’s do the why’s right?

Stephen Strasburg is arguably the highest touted starting pitcher drafted in the modern era. He was selected in 2009 and then after 55.1 innings in AAA he was called up to Washington in 2010, only to return to the minors for rehab assignments for the duration of his career. Injuries aside, Strasburg is a great comp for Skenes.

So, quickly is certainly on the table, but it’s fair to say the pedigree is rare air, and it’s also fair to say Skenes is at least supposed to be in that air.

Gerrit Cole another great comp for Skenes was drafted 1:1 by your Pittsburgh Pirates in the thick of climbing into relevance back in 2011 and he spent all of 2012 in the minors then made the jump in June of 2013. Gerrit put in 200 innings in the minors before being promoted.

Strasburg and Cole were both seen as incredible, close to ready talents, but both franchises were in completely different spots too. Strasburg was called up to a team that lost 93 games the year before and was one of the first really big pieces of the new look team that would eventually win. Cole was added to a team in 2013 as we discussed, but he was left in the minors during 2012 that saw the Pirates “epic collapse” finishing with 83 losses.

Sometimes the team’s place in the world is a factor. Your Pirates just finished a season in which they worked their record to 76-86, close enough to think adding a big talent could make a difference, but also close enough to feel they can affordably go out on the market or make some deals and move the ball forward without forcing the issue with a pitcher they feel could shoulder the burden. That’s the optimal word here folks, “could”.

None of this even mentions that the Pirates have some other guys, also with some degree of expectation who should be in line to play a role in this rotation. Even if they too should not be counted on to start from the jump.

Mitch Keller and Johan Oviedo will both start in the rotation, then the team will very likely bring in 1 or 2 starting pitching options. One of those will likely be an honest shot at a guy who will stay there all year, maybe a couple of years. One of those will almost be there with the hope they get shoved out of the way or into the bullpen. And finally, they’ll leave an open spot.

Could that be Skenes? Sure. But isn’t it more likely it’s Priester, Jared Jones, Luis Ortiz, Roansy Contreras?

At the end of the day, I’d simply remind you that this is a prospect. A truly highly evolved prospect. A truly likely to succeed prospect. Above all, an unproven entity, one that could very well wind up being the call up that takes this from attempt to get into the dance and turns it into got into the dance, but none of that should prompt a team supposedly looking to tip the scale over into winning territory next season, you can’t rely on maybe.

Until the day Skenes is called up he’ll be the Pirates top pitching prospect, but it doesn’t automatically make him the closest. Prospect rankings are more about projecting their MLB career outcome as opposed to projecting when they’ll get here.

Moral of the story, try not to join a camp on this and just let it play out. This team has no reason to delay this player beyond getting the extra year of team control and that barely gets you to May. If he’s good enough, this problem will work itself out quickly. If the guys they bring in make it unnecessary to force him up, hey, that probably works too.

Let’s for once let the prospect tell us the story of what their timeline should be, you know, instead of our collective impatience.