Pirates rookie Paul Skenes has become a national sensation this season. He had the most hyped pitcher debut since probably Stephen Strasburg in 2010. The 2023 No. 1 overall draft pick became the first top pick to make the All-Star team the next year and then became the first rookie to start the Midsummer Classic since 1995.
Through 13 big-league starts, the results match the hype, if not exceed it. As Skenes prepares to face the Diamondbacks Sunday, he sits 6-1 with a 1.90 ERA, 0.91 WHIP and 103 strikeouts against only 16 walks in 80 2/3 innings.
He's carrying Cy Young-level rate stats, as noted in our awards watch last week. Only Chris Sale of the Braves stands ahead of Skenes as the betting favorite. Fernando Valenzuela remains the only player to have won Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award in the same year. Could Skenes make even more history and win the Cy Young in a season that started less than a year after he got drafted?
The workload is going to be a large part of the discussion, even if Skenes keeps pitching the way he is. Logan Webb leads the National League in innings at 144 1/3. Dylan Cease, another Cy Young candidate, is second at 136 2/3. Five other pitchers have numbers in the 130s. Sale is at 123.
Despite the significant shortfall, Skenes is fourth in Baseball Reference's version of WAR for National League pitchers. I don't think this could be overcome if voting was held right now. Can he make up enough ground? Let's dive in.
If Skenes stays on schedule and makes every start the rest of the way, he'll end up making 11 more starts (finishing on Saturday, Sept. 28 in Yankee Stadium, by the way). He's averaging nearly 6 1/3 innings per start right now and though he's getting more efficient and has been allowed to work deeper into games, let's just leave it there. Surely the Pirates limit him on a few occasions moving forward. If we calculate 6 1/3 innings per start in 11 starts, that adds up to 69 2/3 innings the rest of the season.
That means he'd have 150 1/3 innings.
In going back through Cy Young winners of the last 15 years, here are five the lowest innings totals (excluding 2020):
- Corbin Burnes, 167 IP, 2021
- Justin Verlander, 175 IP, 2022
- Blake Snell, 180 IP, 2023
- Robbie Ray, 193 1/3 IP, 2021
- Clayton Kershaw, 198 1/3 IP, 2014
Every other Cy Young winner, outside the truncated 2020 season, threw more than 200 innings until we get back to a reliever (Eric Gagne in 2003). Before that, the last starting pitcher to win the Cy Young in a non-shortened season, excluding those traded from one league to another (Rick Sutcliffe) was ... no one.
Yep, there have only been five full-season starting pitchers win the Cy Young with fewer than 200 innings pitched and those all happened from 2014-23.
Skenes will be looking to somewhat follow in the footsteps of Burnes, but he's still about two starts shy in innings here if he continues on this path.
That means Skenes will have to be overwhelmingly better than the rest of the field, right?
If he keeps pitching the way he has been for the last several weeks, it's reasonable to believe he can take the lead in WAR. He has a 1.90 ERA while Chris Sale is the qualified leader at 2.71. That's commanding enough, but he likely won't win the ERA title. A pitcher has to work at least one inning per team game played in order to qualify. It would be aggressive of the Pirates to get him to 162 innings.
Skenes would lead in WHIP, 0.91 to Sale's 0.95. He'd be neck and neck with Tyler Glasnow and Dylan Cease in strikeout rate. He'd be second in strikeout-to-walk ratio to Shota Imanaga. Again, though, he won't be qualified to officially be on those leaderboards. Will that matter to voters? Should it?
He can work his way up the strikeouts leaderboard, as he has 103 while MacKenzie's Gore's 122 is good for 10th right now.
It's going to be fun to track. I think, in looking at the counting stats, that Skenes winning the award would be unprecedented. Voters are humans and many love a good story, though, so it's always possible that factors in. Plus, Skenes has already done some unprecedented things, as mentioned above with the All-Star Game. Knowing that, why would we count him out from achieving another unprecedented item?
It's an uphill battle, but Skenes has a realistic chance to win the Cy Young.
