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Pittsburgh Pirates Rookie Paul Skenes Joins Elite Group in History with Top-3 Cy Young Finish

Skenes won the Rookie of the Year Award in the National League but wasn't able to capture the Cy Young, finishing third.

Brady Farkas

Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes (30) pitches during the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Aug 10.
Pittsburgh Pirates starting pitcher Paul Skenes (30) pitches during the fifth inning against the Los Angeles Dodgers at Dodger Stadium on Aug 10. / Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images
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Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes finished third in the National League Cy Young voting on Wednesday night, finishing behind Chris Sale of the Atlanta Braves (winner) and Zack Wheeler of the Philadelphia Phillies (runner-up).

This completes a historic year for Skenes, who won the National League Rookie of the Year Award earlier this week.

Per @MLB on social media:

Paul Skenes became just the 5th rookie to finish in the Top 3 for Cy Young, joining:

2013 José Fernández
1984 Dwight Gooden
1981 Fernando Valenzuela
1976 Mark Fidrych

It was a phenomenal first year in the big leagues for Skenes, who didn't even make his major league debut until early May. The former No. 1 pick in the draft, Skenes made his debut just 10 months after being selected first overall out of LSU.

Skenes beat out Jackson Merrill (San Diego Padres) and Jackson Chourio (Milwaukee Brewers) for the Rookie of the Year, becoming the fifth former No. 1 draft pick to win Rookie of the Year honors.

Skenes finished his rookie season at 11-3 with that 1.96 ERA. He struck out 170 batters in just 133.0 innings and looked every bit the part of an ace moving into 2025. With Skenes and Jared Jones, the Pirates and their fans finally look to have some optimism moving forward. They also still have longtime ace Mitch Keller in the rotation as well.

The Pirates finished last in the National League Central this past season but will look to improve upon the 76-86 record in 2025. They finished 17.0 games back of the Brewers.

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Brady Farkas
BRADY FARKAS

Brady Farkas is a baseball writer for Fastball on Sports Illustrated/FanNation and the host of 'The Payoff Pitch' podcast which can be found on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Videos on baseball also posted to YouTube. Brady has spent nearly a decade in sports talk radio and is a graduate of Oswego State University. You can follow him on Twitter @WDEVRadioBrady. 

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