Analyst Makes Bold Pirates’ Paul Skenes Claim

PITTSBURGH — Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes has served as one of the best pitchers in baseball since arriving last May, but one MLB analyst sees even more from him.

Tom Verducci of Sports Illustrated analyzed what makes the Pirates pitcher so great at such a young age.

He noted that Skenes throws all seven of his pitches for a positive run value and for strikeouts, including his four-seam and split-finger fastballs, sweeper, changeup, slider, curveball and his recently added sinker ahead of this season.

Skenes has the best ERA through 37 games in the liveball era (since 1920), with at least 18 starts at 1.93, which is 0.24 less than the second place pitcher in Stan Bahnsen at 2.17.

He also has thrown 262 strikeouts, 10th best on the list, but his 30.5% strikeout rate is second best behind Stephen Strasburg at 31.9%.

Skenes is also just one of three pitchers younger than 26 years old that shows up on both strikeout and ERA, with Matt Harvey and Jose Fernandez, who both underwent Tommy John surgery after their 36th start.

He also has the best WHIP (walks and hits per inning pitched) at 0.90 and is second best with a K/BB (strikeout/walk) rate of 5.04, with Strasburg just ahead of him at 5.20. Strasburg also needed Tommy John surgery after 12 starts himself.

Verducci also introduced the Phenom Boost (PB), which analyzes when a pitcher starts and when others do so and looks at how their team performs in both games.

The Pirates have won 21 of the 37 games that Skenes has pitched, 56.8%, and gone 64-89, as of June 9, 41.8% in his absence, giving him a PB of 15.0%.

That PB ranks fourth best, lower than pitchers like Detroit Tigers star Mark Fidrych, New York Mets sensation Dwight Gooden and Strasburg.

Verducci also praised Skenes' sinker and sweeper, who batters are struggling with, batting .125 and .111 against it, making his case that Skenes is the best phenom of all-time.