Paul Skenes Explains How Pirates’ 2025 Struggles Could Make Him Even More Dangerous

There is no chance that Paul Skenes is happy with how the first two seasons of his MLB career have gone, at least on a team level.

Personally, the LSU product has thrived, following up the 2024 Rookie of the Year award with the ‘25 National League Cy Young. Skenes has solidified himself as one of baseball’s elite pitchers in short order. Of course, one player can only do so much to turn around a basement dwelling team like the Pirates, who have gone 147–159 in their two seasons with Skenes in the rotation.

Even through those struggles, Skenes has said all the right things. After capturing his first Cy Young, he even tried to paint an optimistic picture about a season that saw Pittsburgh fall out of contention early on, and how it could wind up being a silver lining for his development, according to Associated Press writer Will Graves.

That is little salve for the two brutal seasons that Pirates fans have endured, but it is a fair point—especially for a tinkerer like Skenes who is always looking to continue upgrading his arsenal.

Paul Skenes threw seven pitches through the 2025 season

A look at Skenes’s pitch data, per Baseball Savant, shows how Skenes developed from year one to year two.

Skenes’s devastating four-seam fastball is still his bread-and-butter pitch, which he threw over 39% of the time in each season. In 2025, he relied more on his sweeper and change-up than his rookie season, and added a “splinker”—a combination splitter and sinker that he throws just under 10% of his time. Meanwhile, his splitter remains a key pitch but was thrown less frequently than in ‘24, and he has a curveball and slider that can keep hitters offguard.

A scary thought for the rest of baseball A scary thought for the rest of baseball, further indiciation that he isn’t done yet trying to perfect his already impressive pitch mix.

Paul Skenes stats through two MLB seasons

More MLB on Sports Illustrated