Fresh off winning his first career NL Cy Young Award, Paul Skenes reiterated his commitment to winning with the Pittsburgh Pirates instead of bolting for bigger - and potentially greener - pastures.
Whispers about Skenes' future in Pittsburgh grew louder Wednesday after Randy Miller of NJ.com suggested that Skenes has been vocally pining for a move to the New York Yankees.
"Trust me, he wants to play for the Yankees," an anonymous Pirates teammate of Skenes' told Miller, adding that the right-hander is "hoping for a trade" to New York. "I've heard him say it multiple times."
Skenes flatly dismissed any notion that he's trying to leave Pittsburgh when asked about Miller's report after his historic Cy Young win.
"I don't know where that came from," Skenes said Wednesday, according to Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic. "I don't know the reporter. I don't know the player that supposedly said that. But the goal is to win, and the goal is to win in Pittsburgh."
"I'm on the Pirates. My goal is to win with the Pirates," he added, according to Colin Beazley of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "I love the city of Pittsburgh. The fans are hungry to have a winner in Pittsburgh, and I want to be part of the group that did that.
"The way that fans see us outside of Pittsburgh, we're not supposed to win. There are 29 fanbases that expect us to lose. I want to be part of the 26 guys that change that."
The Pirates, one of MLB's most historic and storied franchises, have spent much of the last three-plus decades in baseball purgatory. They've made the playoffs just three times in the wild-card era, winning just a single series - the 2013 NL wild-card game - in that span.
The Pirates have historically been frugal spenders in free agency, and have consistently fielded some of the lowest payrolls in MLB. Many of the team's biggest homegrown stars, including Barry Bonds, Gerrit Cole, and Andrew McCutchen, were either traded ahead of free agency or allowed to walk away. Skenes will become a free agent after the 2029 season.
There are signs that this year could finally be different, though. General manager Ben Cherington said this week that he has "more (payroll) flexibility than we've had in other offseasons." The Bucs are apparently planning to spend in free agency this winter, sources told Mark Feinsand of MLB.com, although the extent to which they'll make a splash isn't clear.
Pittsburgh has its work cut out in order to become contenders in 2026. The team is coming off a 91-loss season that saw manager Derek Shelton fired in early May, with Skenes' award-winning year standing as the lone bright spot. But the ace is wholeheartedly embracing the challenge of righting the Pirates' ship in 2026 and beyond.
"It’s been 10 years, the second-longest playoff drought in the big leagues," Skenes said, per Nesbitt. "Someone can check my math on how many years it's been since we won a World Series: 46 years? Sorry, I went to LSU. Yeah, 46 years without a World Series championship.
"This is why I'm going to show up to the ballpark, and I'm going to work to get everybody pushing in the same direction. I know there are other guys who are going to do the same. That's all the truth."
