In-Depth: Skenes’ rise rooted in military-trained drive, manic work ethic

Over the past two years, Paul Skenes had been the model cadet, both on the baseball field and off. He was the one who carried the American flag to all sporting events at the Air Force Academy. He was the one who held his fellow cadets accountable in all walks of life. He had risen to being the team captain in his sophomore year and held just about every role in two years there. Friday Night starter. Closer. Catcher. Leadoff hitter.

And yet, one day, in the starkest of contrasts, he was crying in his coach's office.

He was torn. He wanted to serve in the military. He also had a real opportunity to become a major-leaguer, a first-round pick in next year's draft and perhaps even more. The two dreams directly conflicted with one another. If he was to return for his junior year, he would have been committed to the Air Force until at least graduation and needed to fulfill his service contract. There's a policy in place that would have allowed him to defer his service, but to summarize the decision, he had to choose between the two lives.

Ever since he was a freshman in high school, Skenes knew he was going to a service academy. Even though he was an incredibly gifted catcher, hitter and pitcher, other schools did not bother to recruit him earnestly because they knew he had already made up his mind.

"Immediately when I went there, I was just sold on going to the Air Force Academy," Skenes recalled during his introductory Zoom call July 9, the night the Pirates made him the No. 1 overall pick in the MLB Draft. "I didn’t want to do anything else. I got recruited by some other schools but Air Force was the one place I wanted to go. So it was the easiest decision of my life to go there, hardest decision of my life to leave.”

Skenes had always been a one-sport kid growing up. The fact that it was his sole (maybe soul) sport fueled his family's desire to see him make the decision to do what is best for himself.

"I don't think he's done thinking about the service element when the professional baseball ends," Craig Skenes, his father, told me. "I think for all of us, it was a difficult time for him to make that transition. Obviously we're very happy he did, but he left a lot of good friends and great coaches at that time, and they were all really supportive."

It was Air Force head coach Mike Kazlausky who pushed Skenes to go into the transfer portal. He didn't want to lose his best player. He didn't want the academy to lose a top student. He knew there would be some social media trolls who would go after him, wondering why if Skenes thought service was so important, then why wasn't he serving?

But more than any of that, he didn't want Skenes to miss out on this opportunity to become a professional, to make sure he and his family were set for life with a signing bonus alone.

“He may not be wearing our nation’s uniform, but he will still be presenting the right message,” Kazlausky told me over the phone.

Skenes listened to his coach and entered the transfer portal in the beginning of June 2022 and committed to Louisiana State on July 28. Less than one year later, Skenes was the first overall pick in the amateur draft, as the Pirates couldn't pass on one of the best pitching prospects in the draft's history. 

“If the Pirates would have passed, you guys would have been the biggest dumbasses in the world," Kazlausky said. "How the hell could you pass on Paul Skenes? He’s not just one person. He’s going to affect the whole organization.”

On Tuesday, the team and the player made it official, as Skenes inked a record $9.2 million signing bonus to officially join the organization and start that long-dreamed professional career.

"I'm excited for the opportunity to be around these individuals," Skenes said at PNC Park Tuesday. "I'm also excited to have the opportunity to go back up and go to another World Series. That's the goal. That starts tomorrow."

The Pirates cared just as much about the person they were drafting as the talent. It's one of the things that made Kazlausky so sure that Skenes should pursue the professional game.

“I don’t know anything about LSU," Kazlausky would tell reporters after the transfer. "But I do know one thing: Their culture just got a whole heck of a lot better. Because they just brought in their team captain.”

PIRATES

Paul Skenes walks near the home dugout Tuesday at PNC Park.

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Mike Gonzales first got to know Skenes at a 12-and-under baseball event in Compton, Calif. There were plenty of talented young players there -- including fellow first-round pick Pete Crow-Armstrong -- but Gonzales gravitated to Skenes because he knew he was from Lake Forest, Calif., in Orange County. In a few years time, he was going to be on the El Toro High School baseball team, which he coaches.

“He was what he is today," Gonzales told me over the phone. "He was very respectful. He was one of the bigger kids. He was a good communicator. He was very mature for a 12 year old. He was a ‘yes, sir,’ ‘no, sir,’ guy. He was just a joy to be around.”

A few years later, Skenes would join the EL Toro Chargers, but as a catcher. The few times he did pitch showed glimpses of what was to come -- including a shutout in one of his first starts of the junior year, which came in the playoffs -- but the plan was to ramp up his pitching his senior year.

“You could see with his delivery and how tight it was and how it was so compact and so easy out of his hands and his arm slot that he was going to be pretty special,” Gonzales said, adding that he knew back then that he was on a trajectory for triple digits.

COVID-19 changed those senior plans, though, as the pandemic drastically shortened the baseball season. If there was any silver lining for Skenes, it's that he didn't need to showcase himself for a college. His mind had long been made up.

Skenes had two uncles who were already in the military. He wanted to continue the family tradition. He took it a step further. For every strikeout he had this past season, he donated $10 to Folds of Honor, which provides scholarships for military and first responders. He also left tickets for those responders at the gate of every game he pitched.

“Sorry for all the Stanfords and the UCLAs out there," Kazlausky said. "He was not interested.”

Still "gangly," in Kazlausky's words, Skenes came to the academy still as a catcher first, but he quickly became their closer second. With the benefit of hindsight, it may seem puzzling why Skenes didn't just head the Air Force's rotation. Well, it's because he hit .410 and led the team in home runs, RBIs, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, hits and runs.

“If he continued to catch and hit, I think he could have been a first-round pick as a catcher," Kazlausky said.

Both parties knew he was destined for greater things on the mound, so Kazlausky and Skenes sat down after the season to figure out what he wanted to do as a sophomore. Skenes wanted to be the Friday night starter, the ace of a college staff. Kazlausky knew he couldn't deny him that opportunity, so Skenes would start on the mound on Fridays, serve as the designated hitter on Saturdays and then catch Sunday. It was a taxing workload, but one that wouldn't have been offered if Kazlausky didn't think he could handle it.

Preparation and training went beyond bullpens and batting practices. As a cadet, Skenes jumped off a 10-meter platform. Did survival training. Flew in and pulled over 8 Gs in F-15 and F-16 jets. (How does a 6'6 1/2" man fit in a fighter jet? By "hitting my head on the top of the cockpit," Skenes joked.) He took boxing classes and was punched in the face. The last one was important. After all, everyone has a good plan until they get punched in the face. How do you adjust after that?

In Kazlausky's words, they were building “a sheep dog, not a sheep.”

“Everything we do out here is to put stress and pressure and adversity on kids for that mental makeup of a warrior," Kazlausky said. “That was our goal for Paul, to make him into a war fighter, not just a baseball player.”

It all tied into the academy's values that they try to instill: Integrity first, service before self and excellence. 

“That’s what Paul epitomized when he was here, and that’s what he will continue to epitomize," Kazlausky said. "He’s that person.”

“I don’t give a s--- what your political views are," he added. "Whatever it is, it’s nice that there’s a man out there that represents something bigger than baseball.”

The excellence on the field was apparent. In a two-game series against No. 13 ranked Arizona as a freshman, Skenes racked up three hits, scored three runs and touched 100 mph while getting a save. Arizona head coach Jay Johnson was blown away.

“Hey," Johnson said to Kazlausky afterward, "if there’s any time where this kid is thinking about leaving because of the professional track, please keep me in mind.”

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COURTESY OF MIKE KAZLAUSKY

Paul Skenes, right, stands in front of an F-15 fighter jet.

During the College World Series, a broadcaster told a story that Skenes once walked around the clubhouse where he went to every teammate, "I outwork you." The story, according to Johnson -- now coaching LSU -- was fabricated.

But Skenes' work ethic was so well known at LSU that the story was believable enough to make it to broadcast.

“He’s way too humble to do something like that, first of all," Johnson told me. "But with that said, you’re talking about a work ethic with Paul that is unknown to mankind."

“It’s a generational talent, but it’s a generational work ethic as well," he would add shortly after.

The day after Skenes was drafted, he was back at the gym at 7 a.m., according to Kazlausky. Between starts, Skenes would dive into video work, the advanced data from Trackman and Edgertronic cameras and seeing how his pitches performed. He had tools at his disposal that not every college had, and he knew he should use them.

“That’s the peeling back of the curtain that not everybody sees," Johnson said. "They see the 101-mph fastball, but how he gets to his performance between outings is just as impressive, if it’s even imaginable.”

That inquisitive nature was one of the things that drew the Pirates to Skenes. Whether it was nature or nurture, Skenes' family gravitated to activities like museums as group excursions growing up to foster that intellectual spark.

"I think that just transferred over to baseball," Skenes said. "Baseball is an obsession for me to an extent. I want to get better at everything I can, no matter how much time and effort. I’ll go down a rabbit hole; sometimes, it might be wrong, but if it can help me get better I’ll do it."

It's one of the things that drew Skenes to LSU. He was one of the top pitchers in the portal, and a stud on Friday night would elevate just about any program in the running to a contender for the College World Series. But while other programs tried to sell Skenes on winning first, Johnson emphasized development. Pitching coach Wes Johnson was recently the pitching coach for the Twins. They knew how to pattern a program, use the technology, make him into the pitcher that he could be.

“To me, a player of Paul’s caliber, they want to get to [the majors] yesterday," Jay Johnson said. "They want to get to 18 months from now when he’s pitched at PNC Park. We structure our program around development, and specifically development for Major League Baseball. I think that was appealing to him.”

There may not be a better example of the fruits of Skenes' labor and that development than his slider. There were times in high school that Gonzales would not let him throw a breaking ball, so he had to rely primarily on his fastball and changeup. In his first two years of college, it was a traditional gyro slider which got some spin and movement, but was hardly a wipeout pitch.

During that summer after his sophomore year, Skenes worked to try to find the right feel for the pitch. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Skenes started to put on some weight to his 6'6 1/2" frame around the same time, most likely because he was no longer constantly moving like he was at the academy.

“He was able to get that sleep that he was probably deprived of here," Kazlausky joked.

As he filled out, he started to get another couple of ticks on his velocity, going from sitting in the mid-90s as a starter to upper-90s. Hitting 100 mph at over 100 pitches into the game started to become the norm.

"That’s unheard of," Kazlausky said. "A freak of nature to be able to do that.”

As his velocity increased, so did his hand speed. That was the key to get his slider to click, and Skenes started to develop a new, sweeping breaking ball. As a sophomore, the pitch averaged about 2,300 RPM of spin and moved 2.5 inches on his glove side. As a junior, it got about 2,600 RPM and averaged a foot of horizontal movement.

Armed with that new Bugs Bunny breaking ball, Skenes put together a season for the ages, setting a new SEC record with 209 strikeouts over 122 2/3 innings pitched with a 1.69 ERA. He averaged almost 10 and a half strikeouts for every walk surrendered. He was named the Most Outstanding Player in the College World Series. Almost half of his innings over the course of the season were clean 1-2-3 frames.

“It’s the best college pitching performance probably any of us have ever seen," Johnson said.

It was just too much for the Pirates -- or the baseball world -- to ignore. When the Pirates took Skenes, Derek Shelton reached out to Wes Johnson, a fellow Twins coach a few years prior. Johnson gave him a rave review, calling him one of the best young pitchers he's ever coached.

“I think we made the right choice," Shelton said, smiling.

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COURTESY OF MIKE GONZALES

Paul Skenes, right, recreates the Bad News Bears with his El Toro teammates.

Every year, El Toro has a Halloween game where the players dress up for an intrasquad scrimmage. Given a blank check on what to wear, there have been plenty of memorable costumes over the years. Barney the dinosaur, Teletubbies, Forrest Gump, a Hooters server... the limit is their imagination. 

But as far as group costumes go, Skenes was part of the best. He was 'Morris Buttermaker' and four of his teammates were his Bad News Bears (motorcycle included).

“Those are the things I’m going to remember about Paul," Gonzales said. "Everybody’s going to see the stuff in the news and him being an All-Star and him being a big-leaguer and all those other things. But not everybody gets to know what kind of person he is.”

It's a reason why teammates have gravitated to him at every stop of his baseball journey. It's one thing to be another the best player on the team. It's another to get people to follow his pace, like at LSU. He set the example. If they wanted to pitch like him, there was a blueprint to follow. The staff tended to do just that.

That was at Johnson's suggestion,  too. He didn't want Skenes to just wait to assume that role. He knew from Kazlausky he had it in him to lead, so go do that.

“Not only did he put together the best pitching season in college baseball history, he became the unquestioned leader of our team," Johnson said. "Think about that. To do that in only 11 months time in a place tells you how special a person is.”

"It’s a professional manner," Kazlausky said. "His expectations of himself rubs off on others. It’s a natural leadership ability he has that people just go to him.”

The same happened at the academy. Skenes was named the team captain in just his sophomore season. It is a military school. Skenes made sure his fellow cadets accountable. One of his duties was being in charge grading dormitory rooms. It came up once that a friend tried to skirt by with a messy dorm. Skenes wouldn't let him.

“This is a leadership laboratory," Kazlausky said. "All of the kids that came here have great morals, great values, straight-A kids, High ACT, SAT kids. They’ve been raised the right way, and for him to be selected team captain our sophomore year is pretty incredible. We had tremendous juniors and seniors. It wasn’t because of Paul’s All-American status or physical stature. It was because of who he is as a person.”

Now comes the next level, the professional game. More eyes will be on him than ever before. He's already the No. 6 prospect in the game, according to Baseball America. His status as one of the highest-rated prospects and a No. 1 overall pick is going to put him in that leadership position again.

Is it a challenge? Not in his eyes.

"I think it's more of an opportunity than anything, because one of the reasons I'm in this opportunity, I think, is because they trust me to affect people," Skenes said. "I think, more than anything, I need to lean into that and not doubt yourself, because I've done that in the past. That's part of the maturation as a leader and as a man. You have to be self confident and sure of yourself. It's something that I think I've learned to do over the last couple years. As I get the opportunity to affect people, I'm going to do that in a positive way, as best as I can. But it's a really cool opportunity, I think, ahead of me."

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GETTY

Paul Skenes walks onto the field in the College World Series.

The Pirates were incredibly tight-lipped throughout the draft process of who they were going to take with the first pick. The night prior, in Lake Forest, Skenes was finally roughing out a sleepless night, not knowing what his future held.

The day of the draft, Kazlausky, Gonzales and their coaching staffs were invited to the watch party at the Skenes house. The two tried to pry from Skenes if he knew anything. Skenes wouldn't say. In fairness, he didn't know.

“The phone should be getting pretty heavy right about now," Gonzales thought to himself as 8 p.m. Eastern neared.

The reprieve came for Skenes about 20 minutes before Ken Griffey Jr. took to the podium to make the announcement. His agent called. The Pirates were going to take him. He wouldn't spill it to the rest of the watch party, though. 

It was arguably the most exciting pick the team had made since taking Gerrit Cole in 2011. A pick that could play a huge role in changing the fortunes of the organization.

“I am so excited for the city of Pittsburgh," Kazlausky said. "I was not a Pittsburgh fan, but now I am. I think there’s a lot of Americans across the country that are going to jump on the Paul Skenes/Pittsburgh Pirates bandwagon because of who this young man is and what he represents to our nation.”

Back home, El Toro's baseball field has the names of three alumni who have gone on to have long major-league careers: Nolan Arenado, Matt Chapman and Austin Romine. Skenes and his teammates couldn't miss it while getting on the field.  

So should they start making room for a fourth name?

“For sure," Gonzales said. "We’re getting ready.”

ALEX STUMPF / DKPS

Paul Skenes and Ben Cherington pose with his jersey in his introduction Tuesday.