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The most anticipated pitching debut in 14 years will go down in Pittsburgh on Saturday. And if anything is guaranteed, it's that the radar gun will get a workout.
Paul Skenes will see to that in his first career start for the Pittsburgh Pirates. It's been less than a year since the Bucs—who, at 17-21, are in third place in the National League Central—chose him at No. 1 in the 2023 draft. But his fastball, at least, is good to go.
It topped out at 102 mph and averaged 100 mph (yes, averaged) in the minors, wherein the 21-year-old right-hander allowed only three earned runs with 45 strikeouts and eight walks over 27.1 innings.
Skenes isn't just coming to MLB as the reigning No. 1 pick. The 6'6", 235-pound LSU alum is the No. 1 pitching prospect in the sport right now, with a reputation as having been the best collegiate hurler since Stephen Strasburg.
Otherwise, the Strasburg comparison borders on unfair. No two pitchers have ever been exactly alike, and Skenes is a long way from having had Strasburg's career. Ideally, we'd wait until he's also a multi-time All-Star and a World Series MVP before having this conversation.
At the same time, though, the comparison is unavoidable.
When Strasburg Hit MLB Like a Meteor
For anyone who's too young to remember or who would just like a trip down memory lane, Strasburg's debut was more hyped than even the one on tap for Saturday.
Strasburg, likewise, had been the No. 1 pick in the draft just a year prior to his call-up on June 8, 2010. Some called him the "best amateur pitcher" they'd ever seen. Others even likened him to Roger Clemens.
His debut for the Washington Nationals was an event before it even happened. Requests for media credentials reportedly reached "World Series proportions," and it would end up being the most attended game at Nationals Park since Opening Day.
It should have been impossible for Strasburg to live up to all that. But that, of course, is what made him surpassing it so magnificent.
Strasburg carved up the Pirates for 14 strikeouts, the third-most a pitcher has had in his first major league start.
And his stuff was just as impressive as the scouts promised. At 98.7 mph, his average fastball was the highest by a starting pitcher to that point in the season.
Skenes Could Also Hit MLB Like a Meteor
Even if it ends up being like Strasburg's in no other way, Skenes' debut will be similar in that it will be very well attended.
Though attendance has been down at PNC Park in 2024, the Pirates' official site mostly shows sold-out sections for Saturday's tilt against the Chicago Cubs. Meanwhile, seats behind the home plate are listed as high as $5,632 on the resale market.
Every ticket sold for Skenes' debut would ideally have a couple disclaimers. As he topped out at 75 pitches and six innings in the minors, it's hard to imagine him replicating Strasburg's 94-pitch, seven-inning debut. And unlike in those days, velocity isn't that special anymore. Whereas the average starter's fastball sat at 90.7 mph in 2010, now it's 93.4 mph.
Still, let's not put it past Skenes to do some proper wowing.
Million-dollar arms may be a dime a dozen nowadays, but what Skenes has is something like a two million-dollar arm. There have been 189 pitches of at least 100 mph in the minors this year, and he's responsible for 98 of them. He sat as high as 100.5 mph in one start, or about 1 mph above Hunter Greene's high for an MLB starter this year.
It isn't just the fastball that Cubs hitters need to worry about. Skenes also possesses arguably the best slider of any prospect. Both that pitch (42.9) and his splitter (38.1) drew higher whiff rates than his fastball (33.0) in the minors.
It also bears mentioning that the Cubs are a good target for swings and misses. They rank fourth out of 15 National League teams in overall whiff rate and for fastball whiff rate.
This seems like an opportune time to go out on a limb with a prediction for Skenes' debut, so here goes with a pitching line: 6 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 10 K.
Not quite Strasburg-ian, perhaps, but good enough to be worthy of the legacy.
Strasburg Is Part Cautionary Tale, Part Model for Skenes
The uncomfortable part of applying the Strasburg comp to Skenes is that things weren't always great for Strasburg after that fateful day in June 2010.
He had to have Tommy John surgery before his rookie year was even finished, and he would go on to make 30-plus starts in only three of his 13 seasons. His infamous shutdown in 2012 was meant to stave off such a future, but the injury bug continued to harass him until it finally rendered him unable to pitch. He was 33 when he threw his last pitch in 2022.
As much as one doesn't want to imagine Skenes' durability also failing him, it's hard not to.
The link between velocity and injury risk is as undeniable as it is alarming. And while the Pirates have been at least as careful with Skenes as the Nationals were with Strasburg's, what befell Strasburg doesn't exactly bode well.
As J.J. Cooper noted in a May 6 article for Baseball America, it's possible that limiting young pitchers' throwing does more harm than good. And while he's obviously signed off on such a plan, even Pirates general manager Ben Cherington isn't sure it's what's right.
"I don't claim that we have any sort of scientific master formula for how we're doing this," he told ESPN's Jeff Passan. "I don't know for sure that this plan is right. I can't say that."
Then again, Strasburg didn't need to have it both ways to have a great career.
He posted a 3.21 ERA and was a top-10 pitcher by WAR between 2012 and 2019. Other stars like Bryce Harper, Max Scherzer, Anthony Rendon and Trea Turner came and went, but Strasburg was the one constant as the Nats won more games than all but one other team in that span, culminating in the franchise's first World Series title.
For their part, 1979 marks both the last time the Pirates went to the World Series and the last time they won it. But if anything, Skenes' arrival is cause to argue that they're ahead of where the Nats were when Strasburg debuted.
The Bucs already have an ace duo in history-making rookie Jared Jones and All-Star Mitch Keller, who recently joined Bryan Reynolds and Ke'Bryan Hayes in signing up for the long haul. And if 6'7", 215-pound shortstop Oneil Cruz can at least be a diet version of Elly De La Cruz, well, that's still a fun player.
Otherwise, Skenes isn't the only reason B/R's Joel Reuter has Pittsburgh's farm system ranked at No. 5 in MLB. Second baseman Termarr Johnson and fellow hurlers Bubba Chandler and Anthony Solometo are also top-100 talents. All three have major league ETAs of 2024 or 2025.
The Pirates are coming, in other words. Maybe not as fast as a Skenes heater, mind you, but fast enough for the rest of the National League to be on notice.
If they ultimately get where they want to, we'll be able to look back on Skenes' arrival as the moment the journey started in earnest.
Stats courtesy of Baseball Reference, FanGraphs and Baseball Savant.
