Paul Skenes has a lot on his mind. The chances of the perpetually curious National League Rookie of the Year staying with the Pittsburgh Pirates indefinitely is not one of them.
Not yet anyway.
“I haven’t given it too much thought,” Skenes said when asked about the chances of him signing an extension with the Pirates.
The 22-year-old star might be one of the few.
Pittsburgh’s quiet offseason in free agency has done little to quell angst among the fanbase that the club is already living on borrowed time with the hard-throwing right-hander, who became a sensation the moment the top pick in the 2023 draft made his big league debut last May armed with an electric 100-mph fastball and the swagger to match.
Skenes’ arrival gave the city and the franchise a needed jolt. Yet it hasn’t exactly spurred general manager Ben Cherington to go on a spending spree over the winter to juice up an offense to complement what could be one of the better rotations in baseball led by Skenes and 23-year-old Jared Jones.
One fan has begun a billboard campaign urging Pirates chairman Bob Nutting to sell the team. A small chant of “Sell the Team!” even broke out at the club’s annual fanfest, with vice president Travis Williams responding during a Q&A session that Nutting had no interest in moving on.
Neither — at this point anyway — does Skenes, who pointed to Pittsburgh’s young core of talent and tweaks to the coaching staff as proof that the team has not sat idly by following a second straight 76-86 finish.
“The group that we have from last year is going to be better I think than we were last year,” Skenes said. “We’re going to have more experience. I don’t think you can overstate the impact that coaches can have on it, too, so we made some good additions there. It’s not a complicated thing. It’s hard to do, but it’s not complicated.”
The Pirates hired Matt Hague to run their hitting program and brought on longtime pitching guru Brent Strom to help a staff loaded with potential but short on experience.
The external fear is that the club could be limited on time to maximize its window while Skenes is on the roster. Though the Pirates have locked up some of their cornerstones for the long term — including outfielder Bryan Reynolds and pitcher Mitch Keller — in recent years, keeping Skenes would be another matter. He will become eligible for arbitration after the 2026 season, and the list of high-end pitchers the club has parted with…