Pirates' Paul Skenes Named Top Award Candidate
Few players, if any, enter the 2025 season with higher expectations than Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes.
Will he live up to them? MLB.com's Will Leitch believes so and named Skenes the top candidate in the National League Central to win the NL Cy Young Award.
"He’s your odds-on favorite, and how could he not be?" Leitch wrote. "He says he’s going to be even better than in his 2024 NL Rookie of the Year campaign, and it’s not hard to believe. That’s quite scary."
Paul Skenes my lord pic.twitter.com/kTcfVfrNgY
— Baseball Quotes (@BaseballQuotes1) February 17, 2025
Along with Skenes, Leich named Philadelphia Phillies starter Zack Wheeler and Arizona Diamondbacks starter Corbin Burnes as the other top candidates to win the Cy Young in the NL. Leitch also believes this could be Wheeler's last chance to win the award before Skenes fully asserts himself as the top pitcher in the NL.
"Wheeler has come close to a Cy Young -- he has finished second twice, including last year -- but has never quite broken through," Leitch wrote. "This might be the 34-year-old’s last, best chance to earn the honor before the Paul Skenes Era fully begins."
Skenes is looking to build off of one of the greatest rookie seasons in MLB history. If he were to win the NL Cy Young award, he'd be the first Pirates pitcher to accomplish the feat since Doug Drabek in 1990.
Skenes went 11-3 with a 1.96 ERA in 23 starts while setting a Pirates franchise record for a rookie with 170 strikeouts over 133 innings. He was also the first pitcher in MLB history to have an ERA below 2.20 and over 150 strikeouts in their first 21 games and the second pitcher since 1913 to have an ERA below 2.00 through their first 22 appearances. Skenes was also the first rookie pitcher to start an All-Star game since Los Angeles Dodgers right-handed pitcher Hideo Nomo in 1995.
If Skenes can improve from his rookie season, he'd be a surefire favorite to win the NL Cy Young. And if the Pirates can improve and potentially make a push for their first playoff appearance since 2015, it wouldn't be surprising if he finds himself in the MVP race as well.
