Paul Skenes’ 2023 season is over.
The Pirates placed Skenes, the No. 1 overall pick within the 2023 MLB Draft, on the event list Tuesday and announced that he won’t pitch again this season.
“We’re excited and encouraged by the positive things Paul has been capable of accomplish in his short time within the Pirates organization,” an announcement from general manager Ben Cherington read.
“He’s checked all the boxes we aimed for him to ascertain throughout the 2023 season.”
Skenes finished his first minor league season after tossing 6 ⅔ innings with 10 strikeouts across three different levels.
In his final start, the right-hander gave up 4 earned runs in 2/3 of an inning with Double-A Altoona.
The LSU product is coming off a historic college baseball season where he helped lead the Tigers to a College World Series title by posting a 1.69 ERA with 209 strikeouts over 122 ⅔ innings.
At nearly 130 total innings on the yr, the Pirates ultimately decided to shut down the 21-year-old flamethrower.
“Since we signed him, we had talked about working backward from April 2024 and designing this in preparation for that,” Cherington said after the announcement, per the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
“That is just a part of that, putting him in the perfect possible position to get into his offseason training and be ready to have , full 2024 season.
“We’re looking forward to diving into the offseason with him and watching him pitch rather a lot more in the approaching years.”
The Pirates signed Skenes to a record $9.2 million bonus, breaking the previous record held by Tigers first baseman Spencer Torkelson.
Skenes is already the highest pitching prospect in baseball, in line with MLB.com.
Last month, Skenes revealed that he was dating social media sensation and LSU gymnast Olivia Dunne.
“It’s nice, needless to say,” Skenes said in August, per the Post-Gazette. “It could actually be a pain within the butt sometimes, to be honest, when it comes to actually going somewhere. If one in all us went out in Baton Rouge [La.] by ourselves, there’s probably gonna be someone there asking for something — picture, autograph, whatever.
“It’s nice to give you the option to have that conversation. She does get it. I do wish she could come to a baseball game and just enjoy it. It does irk me. I don’t have any control over it. She really doesn’t either. I’m sure it’ll improve as I’m going up levels, but that’s something I would like for her.”
Dunne, who’s currently the NCAA’s highest-earning female athlete and boasts greater than 12 million followers on TikTok and Instagram combined, was spotted at several of Skenes’ minor league games.
