INDIANAPOLIS — Friday night marked 2023 No. 1 overall pick Paul Skenes’ first AAA start at Victory Field in Indianapolis, and to little surprise, MLB Pipeline’s No. 3 overall prospect and No. 1 Pittsburgh Pirates organizational prospect looked dominant yet again.
In his two starts in AAA, Skenes has been nothing short of exceptional. He shows the makings of a future frontline MLB starter and flashes the arsenal that made him the No. 1 overall pick in the draft. Through two starts in AAA, he has thrown six scoreless innings, allowing only one hit and one walk while recording 11 strikeouts. In Friday’s 8-3 win over the Memphis Redbirds, he struck out six and only allowed two baserunners in three scoreless innings.
After a senior season at LSU in which Skenes posted a 13-2 record, 1.69 ERA and 209 strikeouts over 122 innings and led LSU to a national championship, Skenes joined Casey Mize (2018), Brady Aiken (2014), and Mark Appel (2013) as starting pitchers drafted with the No. 1 overall pick in the past decade. His signing bonus of $9.2 million set a new MLB record for the largest signing bonus ever given to a player in the draft.
Skenes relies heavily on his fastball/slider combo, throwing them about 90% of the time, with his fastball averaging 98 MPH and maxing out at 102 MPH. Skenes’ slider sits around 84-85 MPH, maxing out at 88 MPH. In addition to his velocity and swing-and-miss stuff, Skenes is an imposing presence to opposing hitters, standing at 6-foot-6 and weighing 235 pounds.
Skenes began his start Friday by striking out the side in the first inning in Memphis’ top-of-the-order in Cesar Prieto, Thomas Saggese, and Lars Nootbar on elevated fastballs, each clocking over 100 MPH. He allowed a leadoff single for Luken Baker to start the second inning but prevented any damage by adding two more strikeouts against Jared Young and Matt Koperniak.
Skenes ended his night after a quick third inning in which he got Nick Raposo to fly out, Cesar Prieto to ground out, and struck out Saggese for a second time to finish the night with six strikeouts. Skenes threw 44 pitches, with his fastball and slider accounting for 37 of them and averaging 99.8 MPH and 86.6 MPH, respectively. Of those 44 pitches, 13 were thrown for over 100 MPH, each accounting for strikes.
The question on every fan's mind is when Skenes will make his long-awaited MLB debut. Skenes definitely doesn’t lack confidence, as shown by his response when asked postgame on his thoughts on the decision to start him off in AAA following a strong Spring Training that had some speculating he would make the opening day roster.
“I threw 130 innings last year, and that’s just not what good big league starters throw, so I definitely understand the decision,” Skenes said, “and I’m kind of glad they’re starting me off here, but I definitely feel like I could get big league hitters out, and we saw that in the spring I feel like.”
Our postgame interview with him also shed some light on the next steps in Skenes’ minor league development, with Skenes telling us, “I think it’s four innings” and “for sure” in response to whether the plan was to stretch him out further in his next minor league start with one of his goals being, “facing the lineup a second time for sure, and it was nice to face the first two guys a second time today.”
Skenes’ next start will likely come April 11 during the Indians’ road series against the Toledo Mud Hens, the AAA affiliate of the Detroit Tigers.
I asked Skenes what he felt he needed to continue to work on and improve prior to making his debut.
“Just keep executing the game plan against hitters,” Skenes said. “The bottom line is hitters are better in the big leagues, so try and limit mistakes to as little as possible.”
Assuming the goal for Skenes is to work up to four innings and focus on getting through the order a second time, it seems likely he’ll make at least a couple more starts in AAA with the Pirates’ series against the Colorado Rockies from May 3-5 serving as a possible timeline for a promotion to the big league club, allowing Skenes to build up a few longer starts in AAA and face a less-challenging Rockies lineup for his first big league start.
Whenever the call-up occurs, it appears only a matter of time before we see Skenes in the majors.
