Why Just Baseball is Taking a Stance Against Paul Skenes’ Mock Trades

How could anyone realistically mock a trade for Paul Skenes?

This is a 22-year-old unicorn who is already the most popular pitcher in all of baseball. Skenes started the All-Star Game last year, which was technically only the 12th start of his MLB career, and would go on to win Rookie of the Year.

This is a guy to build your entire franchise around, not one that should be in trade rumors in the middle of just his second year in the show. Yet here we are in the middle of the summer, and baseball fans are starting to wonder if Skenes really could be on the table sooner than anyone could think.

When Skenes won Rookie of the Year, the Pirates may have said publicly that they were thrilled for him, but deep inside that front office, you have to think they were really rooting for Jackson Merrill.

See, due to a new rule from the latest CBA, the Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI) was created, giving teams incentives to start superstar prospects as soon as they are ready.

If a team has a player accrue a full year of service time during their rookie season, they are awarded with a pick after the first round if that player wins the Rookie of the Year, or places in the top three for MVP prior to hitting arbitration.

Unfortunately for the Pirates, they did not promote Skenes until early May, so while he won the award, Pittsburgh received no incentive. Even worse, by winning Rookie of the Year in less than a full season, under the new CBA, Skenes was awarded a year of service time.

This means that the Pirates’ window with Skenes was shortened from six more years, down to five in the blink of an eye. Like I said, Ben Cherington was ready to quietly pop some champagne if Merrill took down Skenes in that Rookie of the Year race.

Now, all of a sudden, the Pirates find themselves in a strange position with the fleeting face of their franchise. They can let their fans enjoy these early seasons of Skenes’ career, or they can be opportunistic and try to dangle what is undoubtedly the most valuable trade chip in the history of Major League Baseball and try to reset their franchise.

It’s a fun narrative to kick around in the middle of June, but is there even a 1% chance that Skenes is wearing anything other than Black and Yellow by the time we hit August 1st? Or is all this talk a waste of energy on an impossible math equation.

Which is how a team could ever afford to give what it would take to land five years of the most valuable arm in the sport.

If Luka Can Get Traded…Why Not Skenes?

The answer to this question is a complicated one, and can really be boiled down to one thing. Does Ben Cherington have some Nico Harrison in him?

Most NBA GM’s names would not be recognizable to baseball fans, but there is a chance that Harrison’s is after the infamous trade that took place at this year’s NBA trade deadline.

Harrison, the Mavericks GM, traded then 25-year-old superstar Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers in the wee hours of the night on February 1st. If you asked any sports fan on January 31st if Doncic was going to be traded, they would have laughed in your face. Then he was gone.

Now, if Cherington was paying attention at all to the aftermath of this deal, and how Harrison’s name has been dragged in the mud ever since, he is probably running into the hills even considering the idea of moving a fan favorite like Skenes.

Most Pirates fans don’t care how many prospects you can get in return for the best pitcher in baseball (with four and a half years of control!). All they want is to go to PNC a few times a year and get the chance to watch their young phenom ace pitch in one of the most beautiful parks in baseball.

The gate is going to be there for Skenes every time, which makes him very valuable to Pirates owner Bob Nutting, because 15 Skenes’ starts a year will bring in a lot of money. Especially when he is still pre-arb for this year and next.

Once the arbitration clock hits, that’s when superstars are typically in play to be on the move from their small-market teams. Right now, we are in the honeymoon phase with Skenes and the Pirates. Sit back, watch him win the first of many Cy Youngs for your city, and wear it with pride.

Maybe next year, the front office will spend their $15 million budget a little bit better, a few prospects bring life to the roster, and the Pirates have a frisky Wild Card run in them with Skenes. You never know what a hot Pirates rotation could do when things get right.

Do any of us actually believe that’s all going to happen, and the Pirates will be legitimate contenders in the next three years? Sure, it can happen, but I’d put my money in the Cubs, Brewers, and Cardinals stock in the NL Central over the Pirates.

Fast forward to 2028, and 25-year-old Paul Skenes has just won his second Cy Young award in three years. The Pirates won 83 games, as Skenes pitched to a 1.59 ERA, striking 325 batters in 220 innings of pure domination. He went 13-9.

At this point, with two years left of team control, the Pirates would start to really consider the possibility of trading Skenes. They might try to ride the wave to the deadline, but if things aren’t going their way, Skenes won’t make it to free agency without getting moved.

If Skenes only had one and a half years of control and was shopped right now, the Pirates might be able to match the Nationals’ return for Juan Soto in 2022.

This gives Pittsburgh all the incentive in the world to kick the can down the road on this conversation for at least a few years.

What Could the Pirates Ask For if They Traded Skenes?

After providing all the caveats for why this won’t happen, let’s dive into the reasons why it should.

If the Pirates were able to get the Soto package for 1 1/2 years of Skenes, what would they get back if they traded 4 1/2 years of him? You can make an argument (from a purely Moneyball perspective) that trading Skenes gets the Pirates closer to a sustainable winner than trying to keep him in this narrow window.

Soto was in his first year of arbitration, giving the Nationals two and a half years of control to dangle at the trade deadline. After shopping him around the league, the Nationals landed on a deal with the San Diego Padres, netting five prospects and Luke Voit in exchange for Soto and Josh Bell.

Here we are not even three years later, and the Nationals starting shortstop, budding superstar left fielder and current ace all came from that trade. Only time will tell if the Nationals win in the James Wood window, but they have a much better shot than they did at the end of the Soto’s.

If two and a half years of Soto netted the Nationals five prospects, what does four and a half years of Paul Skenes net the Pirates?

Which Teams Would Sell the Farm for Skenes?

While every team in baseball would love to have Skenes headline their rotation, most teams cannot afford it. A premium pitcher is the most valuable commodity in the sport. When they hit free agency, they can cash in. When they are under team control, they net massive prospect returns in trades.

Look no further than what the White Sox got for Garrett Crochet this offseason.

Since Crochet’s path to being an ace began with a detour in the bullpen, the White Sox only held two years of control when they dealt him to the Boston Red Sox. Still, they netted four prospects in the deal, with two of them being top 100 prospects in catcher Kyle Teel and outfielder Braden Montgomery.

Chase Meidroth was in the deal as well, and he has been the real steal so far. The rookie is hitting .299 through his first 43 games, solidifying himself as a potential fixture up the middle for the White Sox.

With Skenes having double the amount of control, not to mention being a far more popular and marketable figure, it would be feasible for the Pirates to ask for eight prospects in a trade. But what teams could truly put that much capital on the table, dealing what could be 40 years of service time for one pitcher?

Why Just Baseball Won’t Mock Paul Skenes Trades

When I originally began writing this article, the intent was for it to crescendo into a madness of mock trades at the end, where we looked at how much prospect capital the Mets and Dodgers would put on the table to land Skenes right now.

Each trade would have likely been six of the team’s top 10 prospects as a starting point. And it could have been a team’s six-best prospects, and we wouldn’t bat an eye. This is where cooler heads prevailed at Just Baseball, and we decided not to get fully swept up in the Skenes trade buzz madness.

The Mets and Dodgers each have deep farm systems right now, with both having six top 100 prospects in our most recent update. Would either team really put all six of those guys in a package to land Skenes right now? Or, would they just wait to try to sign him in five years or trade for him in three for a lesser return instead?

It is an impossible trade to make, and that is why we decided against trying to mock one.

There are too many factors that go against the Pirates making that type of franchise-altering move, even if there are some merits in doing so.

In two years, Just Baseball will be your home for the most realistic and intriguing Paul Skens mock trades at the 2027 deadline. For now, we are going to sit out and cover what truly could be on the table at the trade deadline.