ALTOONA, Pa. -- Leading up to the draft, the Pirates sent Dewey Robinson down to Louisiana State University so he could meet with Paul Skenes. Robinson has four decades of pro baseball experience to fall back on, and after a long run as the Rays' pitching guru, he joined the Pirates ahead of the 2022 season for meetings like this. He's here to help oversee the team's pitching.
And if the Pirates took this fireballer who had become a social media sensation, well, the most eyes are going to be on him.
The general rule of thumb is if you have a choice between a pitcher and a hitter with a top pick, you tend to go with the hitter because there's generally less injury risk. But Skenes is the type of pitcher that is worth bucking that rule for, which is why he was the team's first overall pick in July's amateur draft.
"To say the least, he's very impressive," Robinson said. "I haven't been out scouting him a long time, but seeing him in that environment, it's probably once in every 10 years you get a guy like this."
When Robinson met, he brought with him a major-league baseball. He wanted Skenes to get a feel for how it's different than the college ball. It's probably wise to get used to those intricacies. After all, Skenes is quite possibly less than a year away from a major-league debut. When you see him pump triple-digit fastballs and high spin breaking balls, it's easy to see why he'll most likely be in Pittsburgh at some point in 2024.
“I think in terms of my stuff, I think I'm very close," Skenes said during his introductory press conference last month. "It's a different game, and I've never obviously been on a big-league field. I'm going to do everything I can to get there as soon as possible and whatever that takes physically, mentally, whatever it is, I'm gonna do whatever it takes to get there as soon as possible."
He had that major-league buzz Saturday night. After a couple outings in Bradenton to start his pro career, Skenes made his Class AA debut Saturday with the Altoona Curve. It was the largest crowd in the franchise's history, almost all of whom were there to see the Pirates' next great pitching hope.
"It's exciting," Robinson said. "I mean, drawing crowds, he's putting us on the map. It's like, last year with Oneil [Cruz] coming up and playing. It puts you on the map, a lot of national attention, not just Pittsburgh attention... With all that being said, you still have to get past that and he's got to get outs. He was signed to get outs here at the major league level--how's he gonna go about doing it? That's gonna be the work that he has to be doing, we have to do to get him to be able to do that."
Skenes' first start at that higher level was a bit underwhelming in terms of results -- he could not complete the first inning and allowed four runs -- so there is still development to be done. He'll do that in a limited amount of innings this year, with general manager Ben Cheringotn stating that he will not throw more than 20 innings as a pro this year. That's mostly because Skenes already has had a huge innings spike. After throwing just 26 2/3 innings as a freshman for the Air Force Academy, that workload jumped to 85 2/3 innings as a sophomore. This year with LSU, he threw 122 2/3 innings. The Pirates would prefer to not go much higher than that.
While it's not an exact science and can vary from pitcher to pitcher, pitching development coordinator Josh Hopper says an increase in workloads would ideally go from about 100 innings one year to 125 the next to 150. Once they hit 150, the workload concern is not as pressing and there's some leeway.
In Skenes' case, that should mean that all systems are go for 2024.
“From a volume standpoint, you’ve got to be smart," Hopper was telling me. "We want to give him professional innings, calendar wise, so he can have a true pro offseason. Also, he hadn’t really done a five and six day rotation. He actually specifically asked for that. That’s a testament to his preparation, that he specifically asked, ‘can I try five, can I try six?’ Obviously we’re controlling volume, but we’re setting up those things so he can learn his routines.”
“What we’re trying to do is give him those looks in a safe environment so he can get off on the right foot next year," Hopper added.
The Pirates are trying to be a little more hands off with him for a lot of those learning processes. His body adjusting to that five-day rotation is going to tell him and the team plenty, even if the outings will be only a few innings. Skenes already has had access to major-league level instruction and facilities at LSU, so the onboarding can be sped up.
"We have to be smart enough to say 'okay, we'll leave this alone and let him go pitch or what are we going to tweak or help him with?' " Robinson said.
“With him, the physicality, the stuff, the maturity, a lot of things are already ahead of the curve," Hopper said. "And so it’s how do we get him caught up a bit on the routine side of it? It’s just him learning, ‘hey, I’m a second day soreness kind of a guy, so I need my bullpen to be this day.’ ”
It's all stuff that comes with time. If the Pirates were competing for a playoff spot this year, perhaps he could have been pushed and figured out more about a routine and the ball on the fly, but given where the major-league team is, that developing will happen exclusively in the minors.
There's still plenty to learn there, even from a less than stellar outing.
"You look at the pitch design, the ability to throw strikes, how's he going to handle the crowds, all that kind of stuff," Robinson said. "He's done all that, but not in a major league level. It's going to be how does he get major league hitters out? What works and what doesn’t work? What works in college isn't working now. The strike zone is gonna shrink on him, big time from college to pro ball. So how he adjusts to that, he just has to go through it basically.”
The prospect of a bona fide ace waiting on the other side of that development is more than enough reason to remain patient for now.
Hopper admits that pure stuff wise, he has seen comparable pitchers, but that doesn't necessarily come with his competitive drive, willingness to learn and humility, the last of which is the trait that stood out to him when he first met Skenes.
"The whole package?" Hopper asked. "It’s tough to beat the whole package.”
