Paul Skenes can’t really ever be underrated, because he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 Draft, and then barely more than a year later was named the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year. He started the All-Star Game for the NL in both of his first two seasons – no pitcher had ever done that before – and he was on the cover of the most recent edition of MLB The Show, too. Just a few days ago, he was named July’s NL Pitcher of the Month, which is what happens when you make five starts and allow exactly two runs.
Throw in his relationship with the probably-more-famous-than-he-is Livvy Dunne, and there’s not exactly a shortage of Skenes attention going around. He’s a star pitcher, getting the kind of accolades a star pitcher gets, which makes him … properly rated? Let’s go with that. He’s great, and everyone knows that he’s great.
We should all be able to agree with that. But also: Fine, he might be a little underrated.
It’s one thing for a top overall pick to live up to the hype, Bryce Harper style, and it might be another thing to point out exactly what Skenes has done on the mound since his arrival. He’ll make his 47th career start on Thursday against the Reds, and in the previous 46, he’s allowed exactly 60 earned runs – which is to say, “barely more than one per start.”
That comes out to a 1.99 ERA. If you’re wondering if that’s a notable mark over the last century-plus of baseball, it’s merely the best anyone’s done in their first 46 starts since the start of the Live Ball Era in 1920. He’s the only starter in the last 105 years to kick off a career like this with an ERA under 2.00.
Lowest ERA, first 46 starts, since 1920
- 1.99 // Skenes
- 2.03 // Vida Blue
- 2.23 // Jerry Koosman
- 2.27 // Dwight Gooden
- 2.28 // Bill Singer
- 2.28 // Howie Pollet
- 2.31 // Orel Hershiser
- 2.33 // Gary Peters
- 2.34 // Lon Warneke
- 2.39 // José Fernández
ERA is a pretty basic and well-understood stat, which is why we’re going with it here, but you can go a little fancier and get the same thing. Try Run Expectancy, known as RE/24, which takes into account the likelihood of a run scoring per plate appearance based on runners on base and outs and adds up all those bits of value. Look at that, and you’ll see that Skenes is No. 2 since 1920 and No. 1 – by a lot – since the end of World War II in 1945.
Or take Win Probability Added, which does the same thing but adds further game context via score and inning. You’ll find a similar outcome: Skenes is No. 3 since 1920 and second only to Dwight Gooden in the post-war era, despite the fact that his comparatively fewer innings thrown puts him at a deficit given that unlike ERA, which is a rate stat, WPA is a counting stat.
Regardless of how you want to slice it, Skenes is having either “one of the greatest” or “literally the greatest” start to a career by any starter in the last century.* Consider that hype, lived up to. Maybe exceeded.
*(Fine, he’s merely 6-8 this year, if that still matters to you. As of now, it'd be the third-lowest winning percentage of any starter in the Live Ball Era with at least 125 innings and an ERA under 2.50. It should go without saying this is entirely due to Pittsburgh’s weakest-in-baseball offense and not due to any issue with Skenes’ performance. He may yet become the first starter to win a Cy Young Award with a losing record. As fans of chaos, we can only hope.)
Which is maybe why this all seems so – for lack of a better word – routine. Skenes was expected to be excellent, and he’s been exactly that, from day one. There’s no “top prospect struggles to harness elite talent” dynamic, as we’ve seen numerous other times, and there’s no “out-of-nowhere fringe prospect explodes into prominence” storyline, either. If it all seems a bit normal, it’s because “elite prospect pitches in elite way every time out” is a hard hook to get to – to say nothing of it happening for a last-place team.
But it’s not normal, is the point, and it’s not even really about a single skill. Since his debut on May 11, 2024, Skenes is third in the Majors in strikeout rate, has the lowest opponent batting average, is tied for the seventh-highest ground ball rate, and has the lowest barrel rate allowed. He’s added the most Win Probability; he’s even one of the best pitchers in the game at holding runners on and preventing stolen bases.
Skenes is so consistent that he has, to this point, shown almost no meaningful splits. Consider that across his year-plus in the Majors …
- His first-half ERA is 1.97 ... and his second-half ERA is 2.04.
- He’s allowed a .541 OPS to righties … and a .549 OPS to lefties.
- In his rookie year, he had a 1.96 ERA with a 2.53 xERA. This year … it’s a 2.02 ERA with a 2.53 xERA.
While he’s made some changes under the hood this year – he’s throwing his four-seamer a little more and his splinker a little less; his strikeout rate is a little lower, but so is the quality of contact allowed – it all comes out to exactly the same result.
But there might not be anything more telling than this, going back to, of all things, the 6-8 record. It goes without saying that doesn’t mean much, for all the reasons that pitcher wins and losses have gone out of style over the last two decades – and now more than ever given that pitchers don’t go as deep into games and don’t even get a chance to hit. Look no further than the 1-0 complete game loss he had to wear against the Phillies on May 18, or the one he took while throwing eight one-run innings on June 3 against Houston.
Skenes, like almost every other ballplayer who ever lived, has better numbers in wins than losses, simply because it’s not an independent outcome; when a player does better in a game, his team is more likely to win. In his 17 career wins, he’s allowed 12 runs and a miniscule .157/.215/.243 line against. That’s all as expected. So is the fact that in his 11 career losses, he’s been moderately less effective, with a .574 OPS against that’s 116 points higher than in wins.
There’s nothing noteworthy there, except for this: Even when Skenes takes the L, he’s incredibly good, to the point that the .194/.242/.332 line he allows in games he loses is … the best any pitcher has ever done in losses. For real. By a lot.
Lowest OPS allowed in losses (min 10 L’s), since 1920
- .574 // Skenes (2024-25)
- .622 // Ray Fisher (1920)
- .673 // Charles Wensloff (1943-48)
- .689 // Justin Duchscherer (2001-10)
- .689 // Elmer Ponder (1920-21)
That you don’t know any of those names (aside from maybe the more modern Duchscherer) is exactly the point. What Skenes is doing just isn’t done. He's better in his losses than plenty of pitchers are in their wins.
All of which raises a more interesting long-term question: This guarantees future success, right? After all, go back to that list of “lowest ERA in first 46 starts,” and there are some pretty impressive names there, like Vida Blue, Dwight Gooden, and Orel Hershiser.
But there’s also a handful of names you don’t remember, either – sorry, Howie Pollet. If you look at the next 46 starts from the top half of the list, then four of them continued to be very good, just not quite as good. Blue had a 3.17 ERA, while Koosman and Singer each posted 2.77, and Hershiser 3.20. Again: still really good. Just not quite as good as their start, which reminds you just how incredibly difficult it is not only to start your career like that, but to maintain that level.
The exception? Gooden, who posted that 2.27 in his first 46 … and then an identical 2.27 in his next 46. That’s the sustained success that Skenes is shooting for, and while Gooden’s career didn’t result in the Hall of Fame plaque that fans in 1985 might have expected was inevitable, that was largely a result of off-the-field issues.
For Skenes, every additional start that keeps him with the “best ERA in first X career starts” continues to push the story forward. If he’s underrated, it’s only because it’s really, really hard to wrap your head around pitching like this – even, yes, with that losing record.