PITTSBURGH \u2014 Few players are dominating baseball quite like Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes.<\/p>\n
Just a year and a half after making his Major League debut, he\u2019s won both National League Rookie of the Year and the Cy Young Award. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s clear that it\u2019s all in the rearview for the Pirates ace. He told Channel 11 that in 2025, and he\u2019s looking ahead to 2026.<\/p>\n
RELATED COVERAGE >>> Paul Skenes sits down for one-on-one with Channel 11; discusses keys to success in upcoming season<\/a><\/p>\n He\u2019ll join a Pirates team that had one of its more aggressive offseasons in recent memory. <\/p>\n With the additions of Ryan O\u2019Hearn, Marcell Ozuna and Brandon Lowe, there was an effort to add more power to the team\u2019s batting order. <\/p>\n \u201cI can see why we went after them,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cWe went after the right people this offseason. Obviously, the players are great, but we went after the right people. We\u2019re a week in, so stuff\u2019s going to change. The newness is going to fade, and we\u2019re going to get into kind of the grind of it a little bit here soon, but once that happens, I think it\u2019ll be really telling who we have.\u201d <\/p>\n Toward the end of last season, Skenes was vocal about the team needing to take strides with player acquisition, telling 93.7 The Fan in July they needed to \u201cconsciously and intentionally\u201d make moves to improve the team.<\/p>\n Skenes had at least a small role in how that came together, including calling newcomers after they signed. <\/p>\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t as extensive as people probably think,\u201d he told Channel 11. \u201cI had conversations with (General Manager Ben Cherington) and (Manager Don Kelly) at the end of the season last year and during the off-season. I talked with Donnie pretty regularly, and I talked with Ben a few times in the offseason. They weren\u2019t really asking me for who I thought we needed. They did to an extent, but in terms of specific names, they weren\u2019t really asking, and I wasn\u2019t really going to give it to them just because it\u2019s not my job.\u201d <\/p>\n Still, a genuine effort from the Pirates ace as the publicly perceived window to win with Skenes in the black and gold gets smaller.<\/p>\n It\u2019s outside chatter Skenes already had to navigate during his first full season in Major League Baseball last year. <\/p>\n \u201cYou do your best to block as much outside noise as possible,\u201d Skenes said. \u201cIt\u2019s impossible to block it all, but the moves that we\u2019ve made this off-season and the core that we\u2019ve had from last season and two years ago that\u2019s coming into this year, we have a lot of really good guys that have been here that are getting better. Obviously, we brought in some really good players. So, the ball\u2019s in our court with that. We can win if we want to. We just got to go out there and take it.\u201d<\/p>\n Download the FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook<\/a> and Twitter<\/a>. | Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n \u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n