11-12-24 – By Gary Morgan – @garymo2007 on Twitter
No matter what the Pirates do this offseason on the free agent market or manage to spin back in a trade, there’s a solid chance fans remain in wait and see mode as to how they feel the team is on the making an effort scale.
They could sign just about anyone not named Corbin Burnes, Juan Soto or Blake Snell and there’s a solid chance most fans simply won’t be moved. If you thought they weren’t trying before, you probably won’t think they are suddenly based on who they do bring in.
For me, there’s one thing this team could do that would change how the team is at least perceived and it’s to immediately extend Paul Skenes.
From the moment he was drafted, it was clear he was special, and as a 47 year old Pirates fan, it was also clear he’d be gone before he hits free agency. Unless this team does something they really never have.
This isn’t about getting him cheap, although he gets more expensive with every single inning he dominates. It’s not about believing an extension of this one player guaranteeing a championship, although it sure wouldn’t hurt your hopefulness.
It’s got nothing to do with paying him more because he’s better than a rookie deal wage, but hey, it might just kill two birds with one stone.
No, what this is about is once and for all showing the fans that they can trust they’ll be watching Paul Skenes as a Pittsburgh Pirate for at least a little longer than most of us believed plausible.
The way the fans feel right now, even a successful team could find themselves in June or July before fans have begrudgingly decided to take one more ride with them after an offseason of tough talk and challenging the owner to step up or step out. An extension of Paul Skenes would give fans an example of their dreams not being too big for this franchise, at least as it comes to this one issue.
If you think about it, by calling him up to MLB when they did, they clearly didn’t care about earning a draft pick by playing him from the start, and they clearly didn’t feel stressed about seeing him earn a full season of playing time for being a Rookie of the Year finalist. Point is, they made decisions as though they didn’t care about Super 2, or losing a year of control, or gaining a draft pick, so I’m inclined to think they don’t care about those things and maybe, just maybe that’s because they have designs to extend this player and make it all moot.
I’d offer him 10 years and 300 Million, an AAV of 30 Million per year. The way MLB is structured, the Pirates have leverage to make this appealing.
First, this gives him insurance should he be injured and miss significant time. We’ve all seen guys who looked like they might dominate this league for a long time wind up barely being able to string together two healthy seasons. I’m not saying that’s Paul’s future, I’m just saying it’s a possible future for every player, and it’s mighty hard to turn down 300 Million as opposed to the paltry amount he could be looking at if he goes year by year and suffers injuries.
Yeah, you read that right, and yeah, all those scary things are exactly the types of things a franchise like the Pirates would struggle to live through if the worst things that could happen actually did. But the risk of allowing the fan discord to grow, and intensify as he inches closer to free agency year over year, well, imagine the Bryan Reynolds offseason from a couple years back and add some torches and pitchforks.
Not to mention, the longer you let it go, the less of that risk leverage you have, the more that 30 Million AAV starts to look more like 40. The closer you get, the more intriguing the numbers his agent starts throwing at him for what he could command.
If the Pirates decided to tear this whole thing down in 4-5 years and start over with more kids, they could be building around a veteran Paul Skenes, or, trading him like Washington did Soto to just about rebuild the system in a season. It’s not like a healthy Skenes will every be worth less than that contract right? Don’t do this and he’ll be the single biggest reason they HAVE to tear it down, because he’ll be the first domino to fall.
Risk is not something this team does often or well. Paul Skenes is arguably the lowest risk big time arm you’ll ever find. He hasn’t been pitching since he was 7 so he has in theory more life in his arm than most. He didn’t toil for 3-4 years in the minors before getting here, again, more arm than most left in the tank.
Finally, he’s a guaranteed box office draw. The Pirates averaged 21,239 paying customers, not turnstile, paid attendance. PNC can hold 38,747, the average ticket price is $26.21. Paul himself is a draw, Paul on a winning team well, you can max out that park more often is the point, and in many ways Paul will help pay for himself.
Sign Christian Walker. Go get Michael Conforto. None of that is moving the needle toward fans trusting you get it, it’s different, something is building, more than extending a guy most of us assumed would be a Yankee or Dodger by 2028 give or take.
I can think of no better gesture of good faith this club could put forward. In fact, I’ll predict it right now, if they did it, we’d start to see some of those who have long since decided they were an unserious franchise be shouted down. At least for a bit.
More than anything, if you truly want to claim you’re competing for a World Series, you have to have at least 1 superstar. That’s not to say Paul is the only one they could draft/develop/acquire, it’s just to say, I’ve been here a long time and aside from Barry Bonds and Andrew McCutchen, I haven’t seen it.
The team can fix a lot that ails it with one big move. A move that might allow them to buy some credibility that they’ve eroded over the past decade, and on top of all of that, they get a lock down top of the rotation for the foreseeable future.
Do this Bob. I have little doubt this isn’t the type of move Ben Cherington can make without you, but for once in your life, buy the attraction you expect we all will show up for, especially since we’ve already shown you we will.
Sign him, and watch how many of us sign up right along with him.
Steel City Pirates 
It seems to me he is a pretty confident young man. At his age he may think that he is invincible and take the risk to land a record breaking deal.
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