Paul Skenes wrapped up the season as the league leader in ERA, dominating across 32 starts.
Even with his brilliance, the Pirates fell short of the postseason for the seventh consecutive year.
According to BetMGM, Skenes remains the clear favorite for the NL Cy Young Award, and on Friday, Oct. 3, he added to his growing list of accolades by earning one of baseball’s top honors.
It wasn’t the year Pittsburgh hoped for, finishing last in the NL Central at 71-91 — but there’s still plenty of reason for optimism. The team boasts one of the game’s elite arms in Skenes, who followed up a third-place Cy Young finish as a rookie with an even better sophomore campaign.
While the Pirates’ offense didn’t always back him up, leading to a 10-10 record, Skenes still posted a dominant 1.97 ERA, 7.6 WAR, and 0.948 WHIP through 32 starts, closing the year after facing the Cincinnati Reds last week.
To cap off his standout season, the Pirates announced Friday that Skenes has been named Baseball Digest’s MLB Pitcher of the Year.
“Congratulations to our very own Paul Skenes on being named Baseball Digest’s MLB Pitcher of the Year!” the team posted.
Fans flooded social media to congratulate Skenes on the honor, though many also voiced frustration with the Pirates’ inability to build a consistent winner around their ace since drafting him out of LSU.
“Congratulations to Paul. Build a contender or sell the team,” one fan wrote.
Another echoed the sentiment: “Congratulations! Ownership still sucks.”
A third added bluntly, “Congrats Paul. Sell the team, Bob.”
Amid both praise and criticism, Skenes struck a reflective tone after his final start, acknowledging that the organization understands what needs to improve moving forward.
“This is a wasted year if we don’t learn what we need to do and we don’t know why we didn’t go out there and do what we wanted to do,” Skenes said. “If those things happen, then it’s a wasted year, in my opinion. I don’t think that’s happening. I think, individually, as a team and as an organization, we know the adjustments we need to make. Now we’ve just got to do them.”
Source: Yahoo!Sports
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