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Visual evidence from this past weekend suggests that Paul Skenes may have added another lethal pitch to his arsenal. Skenes shined in his first full season, posting a 5.9 WAR with a 1.96 ERA, 2.44 FIP and 0.947 WHIP over 133 innings.
His dominance earned him NL Rookie of the Year honors with 91% of first-place votes. Most impressive were his 11.5 strikeouts per nine innings and 5.3 strikeouts-per-walk ratio, outputs reminiscent of Jacob deGrom's Cy Young season in 2018-19.
From the remarks insider Buster Olney made about the debut of the new pitch on Monday's Baseball Tonight, Skenes's new cutter could elevate him to or even above deGrom's strikeout-to-walk ratio. He could potentially earn the righty NL Cy Young bragging rights after finishing third in voting last season.
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"It was crazy!" Olney said. (5:10 onwards)
"It was this obscured cut fastball that seemed to move about 18 inches in a span of about two feet. It was crazy how much movement there was on this pitch."
Olney stated that Paul Skenes had been experimenting with the pitch in the offseason. His time in the lab certainly made an impression on Olney, along with Tim Kurkjian, who spoke extremely highly of Pittsburgh's staff ace later in the podcast.
"This is what great pitchers do," Kurkjian said. "From the point he came up until the end of the year, he was arguably the best pitcher in baseball." (11:31 onwards)
"But that's not good enough. He's got to go get another pitch, and he introduced it yesterday. That's how good he is. That's how competitive he is, and that's how interested he is in being great. They never settle for where they are, and he is already a classic example of that."
Paul Skenes to keep Pirates competitive in 2025
The Pittsburgh Pirates aren't expected to make much noise this season. The team is the owner of a 77.5-game win total at DraftKings Sportsbook after only winning 76 games last season. It's also expected to finish dead last in the NL Central behind the Reds (+650), Cardinals (+600), Brewers (+260) and Cubs (+125), going by the team's current +700 divisional odds at the sportsbook.
Even with his team only expected to flirt with a .500 record, Paul Skenes has still demanded the respect of oddsmakers. The second-year pitcher is the 4/1 favorite to lead MLB in strikeouts, 14/1 to lead the league in wins - behind only Chris Sale (14/1), Tarik Skubal (10/1) and Zack Wheeler (10-1), and 3/1 favorite to win the NL Cy Young.
