{"id":671948,"date":"2026-04-09T22:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671948\/"},"modified":"2026-04-09T22:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T22:03:17","slug":"paul-skenes-gives-cryptic-response-to-teammates-massive-extension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/671948\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Skenes Gives Cryptic Response To Teammates&#8217; Massive Extension"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/content\/2025-11-25-paul-skenes-rewarded-record-pay-in-pre-arbitration-bonus-pool\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pittsburgh Pirates ace <\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/content\/2025-11-25-paul-skenes-rewarded-record-pay-in-pre-arbitration-bonus-pool\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Paul Skenes<\/a> gave a cryptic response to teammate Konnor Griffin&#8217;s massive extension.<\/p>\n<p>Skenes, 23, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/content\/2025-11-13-paul-skenes-addresses-yankees-report-after-cy-young-win\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2025 National League Cy Young<\/a> and 2024 National League Rookie of the Year award winner, said Griffin was &#8220;gonna be the face of the Pirates for a long time&#8221; after he signed a nine-year, $140 million extension on Wednesday (April 8), leading to speculation that he was already planning a future departure. Griffin, 19, a shortstop selected No. 9 overall in the 2024 MLB Draft, signed the deal, the largest guarantee in Pirates history and most ever given to a player during their rookie season, just one week after making his MLB debut.<\/p>\n<p>Skenes, a former College World Series champion and the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, was rewarded a record $3,436,343 from this season&#8217;s pre-arbitration pool after winning the NL Cy Young award in November, but won&#8217;t be eligible for salary arbitration until after the 2026 season and can become a free agent for the first time after the 2029 season. The former LSU standout has lived up to lofty expectations, having been selected as an All-Star during each of his first two MLB seasons, as well as winning the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year award, being selected to the All-MLB First Team as a rookie and leading the majors in ERA in 2025. <\/p>\n<p>The Pirates, however, have finished last in the National League Central Division standings during each of Skenes&#8217; first two seasons. Skenes currently has a 1-0 record with a 5.25 ERA and nine strikeouts in two starts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh Pirates ace Paul Skenes gave a cryptic response to teammate Konnor Griffin&#8217;s massive extension. Skenes, 23, the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2402],"tags":[5,14647,8054,9545,4,877,10,776,64,4297,54561,63016],"class_list":{"0":"post-671948","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-pirates","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-each","10":"tag-extension","11":"tag-konnor-griffin","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-paul-skenes","14":"tag-pirates","15":"tag-pittsburgh","16":"tag-pittsburgh-pirates","17":"tag-pittsburghpirates","18":"tag-response","19":"tag-teammates"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116377013706796049","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}