Paul Skenes' bold ambitions gets reality check from ex-Marlins president

Paul Skenes won the National League Rookie of the Year award in his debut season with the Pittsburgh Pirates, though the team fared poorly. The Pirates have not seen the postseason since 2015, and Skenes intends to change that.

The pitcher recently shared his bold ambitions in an interview with MLB.com, highlighting the need for the Pirates to be successful. Coming off a rookie campaign, his outspoken confidence comes as a surprise to many.

Former MLB executive David Samson, who was the president of baseball operations of the Miami Marlins from 2002 to 2017, voiced concern about Skenes on today's episode of his show, "Nothing Personal with David Samson."

"Paul Skenes, in his quotes, is saying, 'I'm not going to worry about what anyone else says because I'm going to be harder on myself than anyone.' But we're all being super hard on him,just by making him the favorite to win the Cy Young. So if he actually is going to be harder on himself than we are, that could be a prescription for failure. It could be a prescription for injury," said Samson [5:34].

Samson added that the Pirates' front office should be talking to Skenes to remove the extra burden. He shared what the Pirates should do in the situation.

"My thought is that if I’m talking to Paul Skenes today," Samson added, "we're still two days before his start, and I'm sitting him down to say: 'I read what you said. I love that you want to be this type of leader, but from our standpoint in the front office, we love you just the way you are. We don't need you to take on that extra responsibility,'"

The former Marlins president remarked that Paul Skenes is already one of the faces of baseball in the U.S.. He expressed hope that the Pirates will do what is necessary to protect their star ace.

What did Paul Skenes say about his plans for Pirates?

The Pittsburgh Pirates boast one of the best starting rotations in the MLB, and most of them are young. Unfortunately, the front office's offseason moves suggest they do not intend to complement their defense with offense.

However, Pirates' superstar ace Paul Skenes thinks otherwise, asserting that he owes it to the team to make them better. He cited team icon and former MVP Andrew McCutchen's return to the team as an example to show the city's allure.

"I think we owe something to the city." Skenes said to MLB.com's Alex Stumpf. "We owe a lot to the city. It's our job to go out and win for the city because this is bigger than all of us. There's a reason why Cutch keeps coming back, and specifically to Pittsburgh."

The Pirates' best teams faltered in the Wild Card Series three out of the four times they made the postseason in the 21st century. Skenes respectfully stated that the bar for Pirates must be more than that.

"We've seen it in the videos of the Wild Card game." Skenes added. "I'm tired of watching them because it was a Wild Card series. The bar needs to be set pretty high. Not taking anything from those guys, but the fact that that's considered a golden era of recent Pirates baseball, that needs to change. We owe it to the city."

The MLB network recently ranked Paul Skenes the second-best pitcher in the league, only behind Detroit Tigers' Tarik Skubal. With lofty expectations on his mind, it remains to be seen what Skenes will do in the 2025 season.