Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes had a historic rookie season.
The 2023 first-overall pick easily won the National League Rookie of the Year after finishing 11-3, with a minuscule 1.96 ERA, 170 strikeouts in 133 innings, and a 5.9 WAR. He also set numerous records, including the most strikeouts by a Pirates rookie pitcher in a season, lowest ERA by a rookie since the Dead Ball Era, and became the first player to make an All-Star team one year after being drafted.
Skenes ended up starting for the National League in the All-Star Game.
The future is extremely bright for Skenes, but since the Pirates didn’t bring him up until May, they ended up losing out on a future prospect.
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Pittsburgh Pirates also lose extra year of Paul Skenes’ service time
The Pirates didn’t bring Skenes to the majors out of spring training. Executives said they wanted to monitor the young star’s workload and claimed it didn’t have anything to do with service-time manipulation to get an extra year of team control.
“I really don’t believe it’s played any role in this case. I really mean this,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington told ESPN’s Jeff Passan in May. “We decided in spring training that … we wanted to build the volume more slowly than an established major league starter would. Once we made that decision, functionally, it has to start in the minor leagues.”
Skenes made his Major League debut on May 11 against the Chicago Cubs, striking out seven across four innings while giving up three runs on six hits and two walks. It was the beginning of his journey to capturing the NL Rookie of the Year Award and finishing third in the NL Cy Young voting.
However, by keeping him down, the Pirates failed to gain an extra draft pick under MLB’s Prospect Promotion Incentive after Skenes was named the NL’s top rookie and finished top three in Cy Young voting. Skenes wasn’t on the Pirates’ active roster for 172 days, falling 30 days short at 142.
MLB created this program in an effort to get teams to promote their top prospects at the beginning of the season instead of holding them down.
According to MLB.com, teams can earn that extra pick after the first round if:
- Players with little or no MLB service time break camp with the team or are called up within two weeks of Opening Day. They must spend all or most of the year in the big leagues and either win their league’s Rookie of the Year award or place in the top three for MVP or Cy Young.
- Players who made an Opening Day roster and accrued the service time but didn’t factor in any awards that year retain PPI eligibility. They need to place in the top three for MVP or Cy Young before hitting arbitration, which typically allows for a three-year window.
Also, if the Pirates were trying to get that extra year of control from Skenes, that backfired as well. Skenes will now be a free agent after 2029, instead of 2030.
Hopefully, this is a lesson to MLB teams to actually bring up top prospects when they’re ready and not keep them in the minors when they have nothing left to prove.
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