Barring the most shocking vote in the history of baseball, Paul Skenes will be your NL Cy Young Award winner. The only real question is whether he will win the award unanimously.
The Pittsburgh Pirates’ ace put an end to his 2025 campaign on Wednesday with six scoreless innings against the Cincinnati Reds, with 7 strikeouts, 0 walks and 4 hits allowed. The Pirates won 4-3 in extra innings, improving their record in Skenes starts to 17-15.
As Skenes finished the outing with his 216th strikeout of the year, he seemed to take a moment to slow down and appreciate the scene at Great American Ballpark.
The performance Wednesday lowered Skenes’ season ERA to 1.97. Per MLB.com’s Sarah Langs, that makes him the first qualified pitcher in his age-23 season or younger to post a sub-2.00 ERA since Dwight Gooden in 1985. That season is widely regarded as one of, if not the, best seasons by a pitcher in the history of baseball (Gooden posted a 1.53 ERA in 276 2/3 innings).
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So that’s some pretty good company for Skenes, who will finish 2025 with an MLB-best 2.37 FIP and an NL-best 0.95 WHIP. He doesn’t have the most innings, at 187 2/3, but that’s still good enough to be tied for third in the NL.
Here’s every pitcher with more innings:
As of Wednesday, Skenes is a -10000 betting favorite to win his first Cy Young Award, one year after he won Rookie of the Year and two years after he was selected first overall in the 2023 MLB Draft.
At 23 years old, Skenes has completely delivered on the potential that made him one of the most hyped prospects in the recent history of baseball. So far, that performance has been wasted by the Pirates and their bottom-five payroll. We’ll see if anything changes next year.
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