Projecting a Paul Skenes Extension

Michael Ginnitti
Michael Ginnitti, Managing Editor & NFL/MLB ExpertJuly 12, 2024
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To say that Paul Skenes has hit the ground running to begin his MLB career would be the understatement of the season. The numbers are already flying off of the page:

Thru 11 Starts…
IP: 66.1
SO: 89
K/9: 12.1
BB/9: 1.8
ERA: 1.90
ERA+: 215
WHIP: .920
FIP: 2.58
WAR: 3.1

Starting Pitchers in MLB are currently averaging a .708 OPS against. Skenes is operating at a .570 rate. On average, pitchers are striking out batters at a 22.3% clip. Skenes is posting one 35% of the time.

Early Extension Thoughts

The notion of Pittsburgh locking in Skenes might seem sensical to the average eye, but it’s MUCH easier said than done.

For starters, and it’s been heavily discussed, Skenes hasn’t yet gone through an elbow issue, and for a pitcher who averages 99.9 on a fastball he throws 47% of the time, unfortunately, it’s a matter of when not if.

Next, the Pirates have to be willing to admit that they’re in a major spending window. Signing Skenes without the understanding that the next few offseasons will need to come with aggressive free agent & internal signings seems an irrelevant process to follow.

Furthermore, the Pirates have to believe that having Skenes under contract for the foreseeable future is more valuable to them then having Skenes under team control as a tradable asset. In most past cases - Pittsburgh has been grooming players for the trade market. Why would this be any different? (Because it is)

Finally, the contract offer here has hit all of the notes to get Skenes (and his ISE Baseball team) to even open up the PDF file. We’ll discuss what these numbers should look like below.

The Team Control Payout

If we assume that no further action is taken, and the Pirates go year-to-year with Paul Skenes over the next 5 seasons, we can project the following pay structure based on past data. Of course, all of these projections assume that Skenes remains healthy through 2029. It should also be noted that we’re projecting a traditional arbitration path (3 years) here, not a Super 2 (4 years) breakout.

2025 (Pre-Arb 2): $775k ($15k over minimum)
2026 (Pre-Arb 3): $800k ($20k over minimum)
2027 (Arbitration 1): $7M
2028 (Arbitration 2): $11M
2029 (Arbitration 3): $17M
Total: $36.5M

This breakdown represents a $35M payout across Skene’s arbitration-eligible seasons. For reference:
Corbin Burnes: $32.1M (2022-24)
Jake Arrieta: $29.9M (2015-17)
Dallas Keuchel: $29.6M (2016-18)
Shane Bieber: $29.1M (2022-24)
Jacob deGrom: $28.5M (2017-19)
Max Scherzer: $26M (2012-14)
Gerrit Cole: $24M (2017-19)

In other words, Skenes is on pace to obliterate the current team-control pay ceiling based on his production & the continually rising league tax thresholds. No surprise here.

Comparable Extensions

Not really. While early extensions are picking up steam across the league, pitchers have been extremely reluctant to jump into that pool as of yet. There are a few deals to work from here, but no picture perfect comparison for a Paul Skenes extension exists to date.

Hunter Greene (SP, Cincinnati)

The Reds selected Greene #2 overall back in 2017 ($7.2M slot bonus). He went under the Tommy John knife about 14 months later, missing all of 2019, and putting him on a redevelopment plan through most of 2020. He would join the big club in 2022, making 24 starts in his inaugural season (4.44 ERA, 1.21 WHIP, 2.0 WAR).

Cincy rewarded this effort with a 6 year, $53M extension, buying out 2 more pre-arbitration seasons, all 3 arbitration-eligible seasons, and at least 1 free agent season (with a club option to take on 1 more).

2 Pre-Arb Years: $6M ($2M signing bonus)
3 Arb Years: $29M
2 Free Agent Years: $37M
Incentives: $18.2M

Spencer Strider (SP, Atlanta)

Strider punched his Tommy John ticket early, going under the knife in 2018-19 during his college career at Clemson. He was drafted by the Braves upon return from injury as a 4th round pick in 2020, spending the better part of the next two seasons rising through the minor league system.

He was promoted to the big club to finish the 2021 season as a bullpen arm, and would remain a reliever for Atlanta until May 30, 2022 when he was given a chance to start. His quick rise to stardom led to a 6 year, $75M contract extension amidst the Braves’ postseason run. The deal would buyout 2 years of pre-arbitration, 3 years of arbitration, and at least 1 free agent season (with a club option to take on 1 more).

2 Pre-Arb Years: $2M
3 Arb Years: $46M
2 Free Agent Years: $44M

Blake Snell (SP, Tampa Bay)

Snell became the poster child for Rays pitching through the twenty-teens, forcing them to offer a rare multi-year extension prior to the 2019 season. The 5 year, $50 million contract bought-out 1 year of pre-arbitration, 3 years of arbitration, and 1 free agency season.

1 Pre-Arb Year: $4M ($3M signing bonus)
3 Arb Years: $30M
1 Free Agent Year: $16M
Incentives: $3.5M

The Paul Skenes Projection

With all of this in mind (and fully understanding that an 11-game sample size isn’t a worthy dataset to work from), we can look at the following extension numbers for Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates this coming Fall/Winter.

Spotrac is projecting a 7 year, $113.75M extension for Skenes, including a $5M signing bonus, $6.25M in 2025, & a $16.25M tax salary. 

Under these terms, Skenes will see a near $5.5M raise for the 2025 season, including a $5M signing bonus. The cashflow drops back down to earth a bit in 2026, but at $2.5M, still represents a sizable raise over a projected $800,000 pre-arb salary.

From there, we’ve built out a truly historic pay structure for Skenes’ arbitration-eligible seasons, offering up $48M across those three years ($10M-$12M more than the projected year-to-year payout).

For his first two free agency seasons (2030-2031), Skenes would earn flat salaries of $28.5M, which represents around $4M of annual value for Pittsburgh based on our current $33.3M market valuation.

Why this Works

If we compare our year-to-year projections for the next 5 seasons ($36.5M) to the 5-year cash flow of this extension projection ($56.75M), the Pirates are basically handing Skenes a $20M payment for the right to keep him 2 additional seasons.

In turn, they would gain back some of that upfront money with free agent value, assuming Skenes is still one of the top pitchers in the game of course.

Skenes puts cash in hand, garners considerable injury protection, and still has the opportunity to negotiate his next contract before turning 30-years-old. All big wins for a young player.

Why this Fails

The list of multi-year contracts handed out to starting pitchers by the Pittsburgh Pirates since 2000 can be counted on 2 hands. (Note: these aren’t just contract extensions - this includes free agency)

Mitch Keller: 5 years, $77M (2024)
Francisco Liriano: 3 years, $39M (2015)
Ivan Nova: 3 years, $26M (2016)
Charlie Morton: 3 years, $21M (2014)
Paul Maholm: 3 years, $14.5M (2009)
Kris Benson: 4 years, $13.8M (2001)
Kevin Correia: 2 years, $8M (2011)
Francisco Liriano: 2 years, $7M (2013)

Recent deals for Keller, 3B Ke’Bryan Hayes (8 years, $70M), & OF Bryan Reynolds (8 years, $106M) are signs of life for a Pittsburgh front office that has long been stuck in neutral, but is it enough to believe they’re ready to go above and beyond with a Skenes offer?

Furthermore - even if the Pirates organization believes they now have a core they can aggressively build around over the next few offseasons, the unfortunate “certainty” of Skenes’ eventual elbow injury makes for an uncomfortable setting.

The Braves, who had already sunk hundreds of millions into their core of Acuna, Albies, Olson, Riley, Murphy, etc. before extended Spencer Strider, must have felt that the injury luck would be on their side with their ace having already gone through Tommy John some 3 seasons prior. That backfired almost immediately with Strider missing all of 2024 for another injury go-around.

It’s become a bit of a guessing game, which has not only suppressed the overall pitching market financially, but it’s changed the way teams think in constructing their rotations as a whole.

The Pirates are also trying to develop 22-year-old phenom Jared Jones alongside Skenes, which would give Pittsburgh one of the best young 1-2 punches in all of baseball. But Jones is now dealing with a lat injury that has grinded his 2024 to a screeching halt.

While common these are the ebbs and flows attached to starting pitching in the modern game that continually keep front offices second guessing themselves - even with a player as elite as Paul Skenes.

Concluding Thoughts

At the time of this post (2024 All-Star Break), the Pirates reside as a near .500 team, stuck in the middle of the NL Central, but showing plenty of signs of development and improvement across the board. They’re a prototypical candidate to become big time players this upcoming winter in an effort to contend both divisionally and for a National League Wild Card berth.

Unfortunately, based on a lack of past aggression financially speaking, Pittsburgh won’t exactly be a Top 3 destination for players set to hit the open market.

Paul Skenes can change that, and he may have already begun to do so in some player’s eyes. A worthy Paul Skenes extension can further change that, as it would act as a flag in the ground moment to the rest of the league (and agents) that the Pirates are open for business, and actively trying to win the National League for the foreseeable future.

Will our projected 7 year, $113.75M contract be enough to woo Skenes? It’s an extremely fair starting point from the player’s perspective, and solid security if and when that arm injury does rear its ugly head.

With that said, we’re probably a year away from being a year away on this one. The Pirates can argue that Skenes’ $8M draft bonus plus looming pre-arbitration bonus pool payments are more than enough to carry him through his next two seasons of team control, after which a Mitch Keller-type extension can be discussed at length.

Skenes declines that offer, plays out 2027, and is traded for a haul the following winter. It’s been the Pirates-Way for a lot of years. Why expect anything different this time around?


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