MLB's Strange But True Player of the Year? Paul Skenes for the win!
SOURCE:The Athletic|BY:Jayson Stark
When the unhittable ace of the Pirates takes the mound, amazing things happen. It would be cool if winning was one of those things.
I have a quick confession to make. There’s actually nothing strange at all about 2025’s Strange But True Player of the Year — the great Paul Skenes, unhittable ace of the Pittsburgh Pirates.
But does Strange But True stuff keep happening when this man takes the mound? Of course it does. He’s a Pirate. And you can always count on those Pirates to stay true to their brand.
So how did the very best pitcher in the National League wind up in this portion of the Strange But True Feats of the Year collection? Read on. It’ll all make sense shortly.
How did he not go 30-2?
Paul Skenes was the unanimous pick for the NL Cy Young Award despite almost finishing with a losing record. (Justin Berl / Getty Images)
When the Greatest Pirates Pitching Phenom Ever takes the mound, amazing things happen. It would be cool if winning was one of those things. But if it did, he wouldn’t have any shot to win the rarified Cy Young Award/Strange But True Player of the Year daily double. And frankly, that would be a shame.
So as you read this, be grateful for all the creative ways the Pirates find to sabotage the brilliance of their best pitcher. It isn’t easy to avoid winning these Paul Skenes masterpieces. But hey, they’re the Pirates. They have a knack for that.
Let’s start this conversation, then, by asking you to use your imagination. Suppose a baseball team — let’s call them Not the Pirates — had a pitcher who …
• Made every start — all 32 of them — and averaged just under six innings a start.
• Had an ERA below 2.00 — as in 1.97.
• Allowed fewer than one batter per inning to reach base against him — as his league-leading 0.95 WHIP so vividly documents.
• Piled up 216 strikeouts, and if he’d given up just 28 fewer hits, would have had a season with twice as many strikeouts as hits allowed.
• And led all of MLB in a theoretically revealing metric, via Baseball Reference, known as Win Probability Added.
What would you imagine the won-lost record of that imaginary pitcher would be, for his totally normal team, the Not the Pirates? Ha. Maybe the Actual Pirates wouldn’t want to know, but I got curious. So here’s what I found.
Since 1969, the year MLB lowered the mound to its current height, Skenes is the 18th pitcher to finish a season with a sub-2.00 ERA, a sub-1.00 WHIP and at least 180 innings pitched.
The average record of those other 17 was 19-7.
The record of 2025 Paul Skenes looked slightly different, as in 10-10. Does that seem close to impossible? You have no idea how close to impossible.
It’s actually a miracle that Skenes didn’t have a losing record. As late as mid-July, he was still just 4-8. And yes, you read that right. That dude who was about to start the All-Star Game again actually had a record of 4 and 8.
After that, the Pirates’ offense picked up the pace (very slightly), and managed to scrape together two games (out of 12 starts) in which it scored more than four runs for him. That was good enough for this guy. So he willed himself all the way to the top of Mount .500, at 10-10, even though he didn’t get the win in a single game all season in which he allowed more than one earned run.
But was I nearly talking myself into thinking that 10-10 was somehow a good thing, a sensible thing? I was — for a minute there. Then I decided to ask the fateful question: Has anybody else with an ERA as glittering as Skenes’ ever made it through a whole season without having a record above .500?
And the answer was … C’mon. Seriously?
I looked at all 33 starters in the live-ball era (since 1920) who made at least 30 starts in a season and had an ERA south of 2.00. The only two who were even close were Jacob deGrom in 2018 (10-9, 1.70) and Sam McDowell in 1968 (15-14, 1.81).
Other than them, the heck with being .500. Everybody else had a winning percentage of at least .600. In fact, 19 of the other 32 were at least at .700. Then again, you know what else those other 32 pitchers had in common. None of them were Pirates.
Is it illegal to assemble an actual lineup in Pittsburgh?
Paul Skenes has a sparkling 1.96 ERA over 55 career starts with the Pirates. Get this guy some run support! (Justin Berl / Getty Images)
That’s another question we have every right to ask, because it’s not as if this trend just started in 2025.
Counting the 23 starts in his rookie year, Skenes is now up to 55 career starts in the big leagues. I don’t want to jump to any conclusions, but I’m starting to think he’s pretty good. Take a look.
LOWEST ERA, FIRST 55 STARTS(LIVE-BALL ERA)
Paul Skenes
1.96
Howie Pollet
2.03
Vida Blue
2.04
Orel Hershiser
2.09
Dwight Gooden
2.12
(Source: Elias Sports Bureau)
Got that? The complete list of starting pitchers, over the last century, who had an ERA lower than 2.00 at this stage of their career, consists of just one name. Guess who?
So let’s pose another fun little hypothetical question, just because who doesn’t love some good hypothesizing. What might have happened in an alternate universe in which this man didn’t pitch for the team with the lowest-scoring offense in the major leagues? What might his record have looked like if he simply pitched for a team with even an average lineup?
Fun question, right? Luckily, loyal reader Ryan (The Ace of) Spaeder did this math so we didn’t have to. He examined this question: What would Skenes’ career record be if the Pirates had merely provided average run support in each of his 55 career starts? Would you believe that answer is …
(Ready? Take a deep breath now.) 41-3!
Do you believe it? Of course you believe it. You’ve seen this movie. We’ve all seen this movie. It’s the horror film nobody asked for.
In the grand Skenes of things
I don’t know about you, but I think I’ve stumbled upon a trend here. I’ve written this before, but since it’s as true as ever, let’s repeat it here. Here’s how that trend works:
It doesn’t matter how well Skenes pitches.
It doesn’t matter how long Skenes pitches.
It doesn’t matter if he’s facing the Dodgers or the Nationals.
It always ends the same. By which I mean you won’t be reading many box scores that say:
WP — Skenes
How about this: In his two seasons in Pittsburgh, Skenes is up to 34 career starts in which he hasn’t gotten a win. Somehow, it doesn’t feel like that’s his fault. His numbers in those non-wins:
A 2.66 ERA … and 0.94 WHIP … and 10.3 strikeouts per nine innings!
Let’s frame that. That means that just in games he hasn’t won, he has basically been 2004 Johan (AL Cy Young) Santana ( 2.61 ERA, 0.92 WHIP, 10.5 K/9 IP) with one tiny difference.
Santana’s record with those stats: 20-6.
Skenes’ record with those stats: 0-13.
Those two things don’t seem the same.
So let’s look at this through the prism of history. It won’t make the Pirates look any better, but the prism of history hasn’t been a Pirates fan for a while, for some reason.
Here’s every pitcher in history with that many starts and a career ERA below 3.00 in their non-wins. (This is since earned runs became an official stat in 1913; we booted all the openers off the list.)
Paul Skenes — 2.66 So much for that list.
(Source: Baseball Reference)
But wait. This gets even more incredible. I eliminated the swingmen and just looked at pitchers who were starters in more than half their career appearances. Once I did that, I found only one of them whose ERA was even under 3.80 in his non-wins. That’s deGrom, because of course it is, at 3.62. And if you do some quick subtracting, you’ll notice even deGrom’s ERA in those games is nearly a whole run higher than Skenes’.
So have we established yet that the Pirates have taken not winning to unprecedented heights when Skenes is working his magic? I think we have. So naturally, why would we stop here?
Spring in Pittsburgh isn’t as pretty as it looks
When spring arrives in Pittsburgh, the flowers bloom. The rivers glisten in the sunshine. The fries on those Primanti Brothers sandwiches taste more crispy and delicious than ever. If only the Pirates weren’t starting another season by getting themselves 18 games out of first place faster than you could say: Did Alexander Canario really hit cleanup last night?
So imagine being the fantastic No. 1 starter for a team like that. Here’s how that goes.
Between April 19 and Sept. 11, Skenes made 16 starts. His ERA in those starts was 1.77. He averaged six innings per start. The league batted .194 against him. It was all great, except for a few pesky details:
• He won only two of those 16 starts.
• His record was 2-7 in those 16 starts.
• His team’s record, when he made the mistake of allowing even one run, was 3-8.
• His team’s record, when he made the mistake of allowing an earned run, was 2-8.
• His team still had a losing record (7-9) no matter how many runs it scored or how many (or few) he allowed.
Can a pitcher sue for non-support? What court in Western Pennsylvania would have ruled against this guy if he’d done that?
Crazy eights
Pirates fans give Paul Skenes a standing ovation after a start in which he pitched into the ninth inning. He ended up taking the loss. (Joe Sargent / Getty Images)
The Pirates tend to watch Skenes’ innings, but twice this year, they did let him pitch eight innings. His record in those starts? Right. It was 0-2.
He also had a start in 2024 of 8 1/3 innings, so that makes it three starts in his career of eight innings or longer. His ERA in those starts is 1.48. His record in those starts is … what else? … 0-3.
You know what the record is of all other starters in baseball over the last two seasons, when they pitch eight innings or longer? How about 141-22!
And that, my friends, is what it’s like to be the one, the only Paul D. Skenes. When he holds the baseball in his hands, it’s Must See TV. It’s pure pitching genius. It’s historic. And it’s special. Then you remember to ask: Hey, how’d the Pirates do last night? Any chance they won?
Sadly, you know the answer. We’ve just laid out exactly how that goes. And that’s how a pitcher this great wound up in this portion of our review of the Strangest But Truest stuff that happened in MLB in 2025.
To everyone in Pittsburgh who has had to suffer through this torture, we can only say: We’re sorry. And also … big Steelers game coming up this weekend.
