Could Paul Skenes be another two-way star in MLB?
With the MLB draft just around the corner, the Pittsburgh Pirates could be looking at taking Paul Skenes first overall, and why that matters.
The LSU Tigers lineup in 2023 was prodigious, there is no doubt about it. With the top two prospects in the draft are widely expected to be Dylan Crews and Paul Skenes.
So far, the talk has been that Crews will go first overall to the Pittsburgh Pirates and Skenes will go second to the Washington Nationals. Much of this supposition rests on two foundations. Firstly, that the Pirates like hitting over pitching. And secondly that pitchers historically don’t do well when they go first overall.
But recent reports are that the Pirates are taking a hard look at Skenes. And this could have significant meaning.
Not in the draft, so much, where the Nationals will certainly jump on Crews with the second overall pick, but more in the grand scheme of things.
It could simply mean that the conventional wisdom about what the Pirates needs are is simply off, or that the superstition over pitchers going first is something that the Pirates have no truck with. But there is a third option.
You see, before transferring to LSU, Paul Skenes played his freshman and sophomore years with the Air Force Academy, where he was a two-way star. Both years he was named first-team All-American and he won the 2022 John Olerud Award as the best two-way player in college baseball and hit .314 with 10 doubles, 13 homers and 38 RBI. His freshman year saw him bat an astounding .410.
It was the LSU Tigers coaching staff who decided to focus Skenes fully on pitching only, despite the fact that the reason that they wanted him so badly was his two-way prowess.
There is a possibility that the Pirates are looking at this ability as a potential MLB bonus. Skenes’ pitching makes him a potential superstar on the mound, but it would be churlish of the Pirates to not at least consider the hitting ability of Skenes.
If the Pirates are indeed after hitting rather than pitching, then Crews is the better offensive weapon. But if they could use both, and let’s face it, who couldn’t, then Skenes suddenly presents an interesting option for them.
In light of the runaway success of the Angels taking a chance on Shohei Ohtani, allowing the two-way star to shine on both disciplines, teams all around the MLB are keeping their options open in a way that they haven’t in over a century. In Paul Skenes, there is at least the faintest glimmer of hope that they might have something here.