After winning the Cy Young, Paul Skenes rules out leaving Pirates
Paul Skenes won the National League Cy Young Award and denied rumors that he plans to leave the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Paul Skenes added another award to his individual record with the Cy Young Award of the National Leaguebut he took the opportunity to deny rumors that he is looking to abandon the Pittsburgh Pirates.
Skenes remains under contract with the team for the remainder of the decade, but had to deny a report that claimed he had told teammates he was eager to be traded, with particular interest in joining the New York Yankees.
“I don’t know where that came from,” Skenes told reporters Wednesday night. “The goal is to win, and the goal is to win in Pittsburgh.”
Skenes claimed to have seen the report, which quotes an unnamed Pirates player as saying the star right-hander “expects to be traded” before becoming a free agent in 2029, but responded that he “didn’t think much of it.”
“From the image that fans have outside of Pittsburgh, the assumption is that Pittsburgh doesn’t win,” Skenes concluded. “There are 29 fans who expect us to lose. I want to be part of the 26 players who change that.”
Pirates general manager Ben Cherington on Tuesday rejected the idea of Skenes leaving Pittsburgh. Cherington said he receives frequent inquiries from other clubs about Skenes’ availability and the conversations are always brief.
“The question comes up, and it’s always asked respectfully,” Cherington said at MLB general managers’ meetings. “Teams have to ask. I suspect this won’t end. But the answer has been the same.”
The Pirates (71-91) finished last in the NL Central in 2025, 26 games behind the first-place Milwaukee Brewers. Skenes, the first pitcher since Dwight Gooden with the New York Mets in the mid-1980s to win the Rookie of the Year award one season and the Cy Young Award the next, remains optimistic that Pittsburgh is closer to contention than many think and that his goal is to win multiple World Series titles with the Pirates.
Skenes, selected first overall by the Pirates in the 2023 amateur draft, did his part in 2025, leading the major leagues in ERA (1.97) and striking out 216 batters in 187⅓ innings during his first full major league season.
However, even with his brilliance, Skenes needed some help from Pittsburgh’s weak offense late in the season to avoid becoming the first Cy Young-winning starting pitcher to finish with a losing record. Skenes won three of their last four games to finish with a 10-10 record. That discreet record did not prevent the imposing 1.98-meter right-hander from being unanimously chosen for the Cy Young award.
Although he was disappointed to be left out of contention, Skenes said playing the rest of the season was, in some ways, a blessing on a personal level.
“It allowed me to try new things in August and September that I wouldn’t have been able to try if we had been fighting for the playoffs,” he said.
Information from Jorge Castillo of AM850 and The Associated Press was used in this report.
