Benjamin Ashford|Paul Skenes found fortune, fame and a 100-mph fastball. Now, Pirates await No. 1 pick's arrival

BRADENTON,Benjamin Ashford Fla. – Paul Skenes’ view on the world is unique: At 6-6 and 240 pounds, he looks down on almost everyone, including all but one of his Pittsburgh Pirates teammates.

And that vantage point allows him a perspective on the ever-changing landscape beneath him.

Skenes has yet to throw a major league pitch but has already banked the biggest signing bonus in history, a $9.2 million bounty that came with earning the coveted “1/1” designation: First pick in the first round of the draft, and the unharnessed expectations that come with it.

Those expectations may not be immediately filled: Skenes has less than seven professional innings under his belt, and the Pirates are inclined to let him learn how to be a pro before unleashing his 100-mph fastball on major league opponents.

And besides, Skenes could stand for his world to slow down a bit.

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Just two years ago, he was embarking on a sophomore season at Air Force that saw him behind the plate, catching, nearly as much as he was atop the mound. And then a transfer to LSU. A top-to-bottom mechanical makeover as he finally ditched the catcher’s gear.

Two hundred nine strikeouts in 122 innings. A girlfriend with more than 10 million social media followers. National champion. Most Outstanding Player in the College World Series. And then 1/1, a nearly eight-figure check and the hopes of a long-woebegone baseball town upon him.

It is little wonder, then, that when Skenes spent swaths of this winter working out with Wes Johnson, his former pitching coach at LSU, that Johnson had to take his figurative temperature, and encourage recalibration.

“It means you constantly have to evaluate your new normal,” says Johnson, the former Minnesota Twins pitching coach and now first-year coach at the University of Georgia. “Each time I’d see him I’d say, ‘Paul, your normal is changing.’ He was big in Baton Rouge and still is, and we had to adjust his distractions and his normal there.

“Then he becomes 1/1 and now he has a whole new set of normal. And then you go into your first big league camp, and it’s another new normal.

“But being able to pull back and look at that is what Paul’s really good at.”

The Pirates are counting on that.

Know thyself

Pittsburgh hasn’t claimed a division title since 1992, hasn’t played a postseason game since 2015, hasn’t finished above .500 since 2018. The odds are against any of those changing this year, regardless of when Skenes might make his debut.

He joins catcher Henry Davis as the second No. 1 overall pick by the club in three years, but this year’s team still has the look of a transitional squad. Veterans Martin Perez and Marco Gonzales occupy spots in the projected rotation behind ace Mitch Keller. The tincture of time will determine when Skenes and fellow prospect Quinn Priester are inked, not penciled in.

“We let him continue to grow at his pace,” says Pirates manager Derek Shelton. “That’s the most important thing. The fact that he’s 1/1 highlights it, but we just need him to continue to get better, to learn the professional game.

“A big part of development is just being a professional player.”

Davis, chosen first overall out of Louisville in 2021, says the No. 1 overall pick does not not have to carry a veritable 1/1 on the back of their jersey. Blocking out those expectations is paramount to surviving a particularly crucial period of development.

“It’s as much or as little as you allow it to be,” says Davis, who debuted in June 2023. “It can be a distraction if you let it, but the job is the same regardless of where you’re picked. Stay focused, do your job, help the team win.”

Skenes says he knows the big lift needed in Pittsburgh won’t be levied upon a handful of performers.

“It’s nice to have one good player, but we have a lot,” says Skenes, 21. “I’m not in the big leagues yet, but it doesn’t fall on my shoulders or Henry’s or Quinn’s or anybody’s.

“It’s a team thing. We’re going to win as a team.”

His most recent squad was pretty epic.

LSU went 54-17 and vanquished Southeastern Conference rival Florida to win the College World Series; Skenes and outfielder Dylan Crews made history by becoming the first teammates to go 1-2 in the draft after the Washington Nationals followed the Pirates by selecting Crews.

Skenes became something of a national marvel when, in his first CWS start, he struck out 12 Tennessee batters while throwing 46 of his 123 pitches at least 100 mph. It was a stunning display of pitching power, yet even moreso considering where he came from in just 12 months.

Oh, Skenes arrived at LSU with a pretty nifty trophy, the John Olerud Award for best two-way player in college baseball. The man hit 13 home runs for Air Force and also struck out 96 in 85 innings as a sophomore

Cool stuff, but Skenes arrived in Baton Rouge in no shape for the SEC diamond wars.

Catching was a double-edged sword: It certainly gave Skenes an incredibly-conditioned arm, but the squatting and the position’s other movements didn’t necessarily complement his pitching mechanics.

So Johnson broke him down, and built him back up again.

“His body was really out of whack,” says Johnson, who left the Twins for the LSU pitching coach job shortly after Skenes hit the transfer portal at Air Force. “Hips, back, different things, and we had to get him back right.

“This guy had some things, but we needed to start polishing. The breaking ball needed work, he had a really good changeup already, and of course he had arm strength. Now we just needed to teach him to pitch and that’s kind of what we did.”

Kind of?

Skenes and Crews walked away with every significant collegiate player of the year award. They were the default 1-2, one order or the other, in the draft. But getting there was a process.

“More than anything, (Johnson) helped me learn my body. We worked through some mechanical things for sure,” says Skenes. “To where I could lean on him a little less and know what I needed to do on my own.”

Says Johnson: “What can be done in a year? I think he’s a perfect example.”

Soon, it was clear fortune would come Skenes’ way. So, too, would fame.

Calming influencer

Since getting drafted by the Pirates, Skenes says he’s spent “just a day and a half,” in Pittsburgh, with his pro career beginning at Class AA Altoona (Pa.). With his once-trademark handlebar mustache muted to a more conventional growth, Skenes, save for his height, could theoretically blend into a crowd with ease.

“That depends,” says Skenes, “on where we are.”

The we in this case is Skenes and his girlfriend, LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne. Dunne’s a senior for the second-ranked Tigers and has amassed more than 10 million social media followers on Instagram and TikTok.

Dunne has a reported seven-figure NIL deal at LSU, which also comes with the cost of being Internet-famous, making a simple night out to watch Paul pitch a little more complicated.

Skenes doesn’t do social media, but appreciates having a partner who can avoid fame’s perils and pitfalls.

“It helps, for sure,” he says. “I don’t play this game for any of that. I play this game to win. The other stuff kind of comes along with that and it’s something we all have to navigate.

“She’s definitely helped me with that. It’s not something you seek out. She’s been a good resource for me and she’s great.”

And that kind of goes back to the location thing. Skenes isn’t yet Troy Polamalu or Sidney Crosby or even Bryan Reynolds in Pittsburgh; maybe someday.

Baton Rouge, though, is a different story.

LSU led the nation in average attendance for the 25^th time since 1996. Fourteen times in their 81-game home schedule, the Pirates drew less than LSU’s average of 11,188.

Give it time.

“Pittsburgh will love him,” says Johnson. “I joke that he’s a man of the people. In Baton Rouge they’ll probably have a statue of this cat someday.”