Paul Skenes: Finding Silence in a Noisy World
In a world that moves at high speed and demands constant attention, the star pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates, Paul Skenes, desperately seeks silence. He enjoys those moments of tranquility where chaos fades away, and only he and the void remain. These increasingly scarce moments contrast with a decade dedicated to reaching the top of baseball, where he is currently considered one of the best pitchers in the world, and perhaps the most famous on social media.
“You can’t master the noise until you master the silence,” Skenes says.
Paul Skenes
This advice, received during the preseason, resonated deeply with Skenes, whose outstanding first season in the Major Leagues, and a two-month period that catapulted him from prospect to starter in the All-Star Game, only increased the daily cacophony surrounding him. Skenes finds refuge in silent workouts, a marked difference from the bustling Pittsburgh weight rooms, filled with noise and testosterone.
The speed of his pitches, which last summer exceeded by an average of one mile per hour any starting pitcher in baseball history, contrasts with his way of thinking, slow and methodical. His goals are clear and substantial, and he seeks silence as a source of clarity, both to perfect his golden arm and to understand himself and his aspirations.
“The moments when I really figure things out are when I just sit and do nothing,” Skenes explains. “I understand things on the mound or talking to people, but there are times when I’m just sitting or lying in bed. Silence. And there’s nothing else to think about. Newton discovered gravity because he was sitting under a tree and an apple fell. You discover things because you’re in silence. Compartmentalizing, thinking about the game, doing an analysis of myself. That’s how I get the pitching grips. Just sitting and imagining the feel of the ball and thinking, oh, I’m going to try that. It works or it doesn’t. If you do that enough, you’re going to figure things out.”
Paul Skenes
The irony is that the more success Skenes has on the mound, the louder his world becomes. In his first full season in MLB, he learns to deal with the commercialization of an athlete, including requests for time, autographs, and photographs from fans and photographers. His teammates sometimes wonder if it’s too much, too soon.
Skenes, 22, is much more than the player Pittsburgh hopes will rescue them. He is a generational pitcher for a different generation, and also a young man trying to navigate a universe that wasn’t built for him. He prefers the tranquility of a trip to the suburbs to the convenience of an apartment near the stadium, to reflect on the questions that really matter to him: Who is he really in this life so different from the one he imagined?
“It’s curious,” Skenes says. “When you start thinking about things like this, you find that you don’t know much more than you thought, but you also learn about yourself. I know myself much better, and, in a way, much less.”
Paul Skenes
In January 2023, six months after leaving the only place he ever wanted to be, and seven months before starting a career he never imagined, Skenes was talking with LSU baseball coach Wes Johnson about the upcoming year. The previous summer, he had transferred to the SEC university from the Air Force Academy, where he played as a catcher and pitcher. Johnson, former pitching coach for the Minnesota Twins, understood the implications of Skenes’ move before most.
“During the next two or three years, you will have a new normal every day,” Johnson told him.
Wes Johnson
In his childhood, at Skenes’ house, there was no talk of the pressure of being a Major League star. His father, Craig, studied biochemistry and works in the eye medication industry and only made it to JV baseball. His mother, Karen, teaches advanced chemistry and played in the marching band. Skenes was not allowed to play a baseball after school until he finished his homework.
“It was never really the big leagues,” Skenes says. “It was ‘be a good person, do your homework, go to church’ and all that. There’s nothing in my family that says, yes, this guy was born to be a big leaguer.”
Paul Skenes
His parents told him to find what he loved and work hard, which led him to the Air Force. Skenes found solace in the structure and rigor of the academy, which embodied his values of discipline, routine, and responsibility. He wanted to pilot fighter jets and was proud to be an aviator. That’s why he cried when he decided, at the urging of his coaches, to go to LSU after his sophomore year: He had found what he loved and had worked hard to achieve it, only for something else to find him and convince him to leave.
A big SEC school didn’t seem to be Skenes’ style, not the random public approaches, not the fanfare, not the Geaux Tigers, but he understood why he needed to be there. He’s a nerd who stood 6-foot-6, weighed 260 pounds, and threw a baseball with more skill than anyone in the country, and running from that would be a waste. The years in the Air Force had prepared him for the transition, and he won over the people of Baton Rouge with a dry sense of humor. Skenes used to walk through the clubhouse, stop at each teammate’s locker, and joke, “I worked harder than you today.” It was a joke, but it was also the truth, and when teammate Cade Beloso recounted the practice to the ESPN broadcast team during LSU’s run to the 2023 College World Series title, Skenes recalls, “I’m thinking, man, now everyone thinks I’m an idiot. So there’s still some of that. I’m still like that, but not with everyone.”
He struggled with his identity at LSU, a California kid who arrived in the Bayou area and was forced to find his way. Meeting Livvy Dunne only exacerbated his need to adapt. Dunne, an LSU gymnast with an innate talent for creating social media content that captivated Generation Z, was introduced to Skenes by mutual friends and was immediately smitten. If LSU put a magnifying glass on Skenes’ life and career, Dunne brought the Hubble telescope.
“I’m not perfect by any means, but I think you can get in trouble really fast now because if you do something, someone’s filming it,” Skenes says. “It takes a lot more energy to go out anywhere and pretend to be someone else than to go out and be yourself. If being yourself doesn’t get you in trouble, then great. That’s the life I think I was prepared to live, based on everything down the road.”
Paul Skenes
“I don’t think anything has really changed. When I look at famous people or celebrities, I see a lot of times people doing what they can because they think they can do what they can. Why is that? We’re all people. What has gotten you there? What has gotten you to be famous, to be a movie star? Whatever it is, you’re really good at what you do. So why change? I respect people who don’t change much more than the other people who say, ‘Hey, I’m a celebrity.’”
Paul Skenes
Being the first overall pick tested his willingness to stay true to that philosophy. Every pitch he threw drew more eyes, his rapid ascent to Pittsburgh was inevitable. The Pirates are a proud franchise, hampered by an owner, Bob Nutting, fundamentally opposed to using his wealth to reduce the inequality inherent in the game. Skenes was their golden ticket, the best pitching prospect in over a decade, and the excitement for his arrival at LSU paled in comparison to what greeted him on May 11, when the Pirates called him up to the Major Leagues. He was from Pittsburgh, yes, but everyone in the baseball ecosystem wanted a piece of Skenes.
In the following two months and 11 openings, he dominated hitters so much that he earned a spot in the National League All-Star Game. His only inning included matchups with Juan Soto (a seven-pitch walk that ended with a 100 mph fastball painted on the inside corner, but not called a strike) and Aaron Judge (an out on the first pitch with a 99 mph fastball). He hurried home to spend the rest of the break with Dunne and return to a life he was learning to enjoy.
Skenes’ first season couldn’t have gone much better. He pitched 133 innings, struck out more than five batters for every one he walked, and posted a 1.96 ERA. The last rookie to start at least 20 games with an ERA under 2.00 was Scott Perry in 1918, at the tail end of the dead-ball era. When Hall of Famer Cal Ripken Jr. announced Skenes as the National League Rookie of the Year award winner, Dunne grinned widely and rejoiced while Skenes sat impassively before cracking a toothless smile. The memelords pounced instantly and Skenes was immortalized as the picture of total indifference.
Which is fine by him. He was proud, but pride can manifest in multiple ways, and if LSU and his first season in the Major Leagues taught Skenes anything, it’s that he is not subject to external whims and expectations. He’s going to figure out who he is in his own way. And that starts with seeking out the people whose opinions do matter to him.
In the first inning of a July game against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Skenes emerged from the Pirates’ dugout and headed into the bowels of Chase Field. Randy Johnson had just been inducted as an inaugural member of the Diamondbacks Hall of Fame, and Skenes wasn’t going to miss the opportunity to shake his hand and ask for advice.
For someone as polished and efficient as Skenes, he remains fundamentally curious. As exceptional as his aptitude for pitching is, he’s still green enough to have plenty to absorb, and he’s humble enough to know what he doesn’t know. Skenes isn’t shy about trying to learn, and over the past year he’s sought advice from a wide range of players whose careers he’d love to emulate.
Johnson’s would have ended 20 years before his retirement in 2009 if he hadn’t done the same. Like Skenes, he had otherworldly talent. Unlike Skenes, it took him nearly a decade to master it. Johnson didn’t find success until Hall of Famers Nolan Ryan and Steve Carlton, as well as pitching guru Tom House, mentored him. So he was happy to speak with Skenes and try to offer a sliver of the help he had received. First, though, he had a question.
“Everything depends on what you’re looking for,” Johnson said. “Are you looking for a good game, a good season, or a good career?”
Randy Johnson
Skenes’ answer was obvious: a good career. The lack of selling of his Rookie of the Year victory is a perfect example. It’s an award. It’s nice. It’s also the reflection of a single great season among many more he anticipates having. For Skenes, the goal is excellence and longevity of play in play, the hallmarks of true greatness. Johnson fears that the modern use of starters inhibits the ability of players to combine both.
In the last 25 years, the number of games with 100+ pitches in MLB has decreased from 2,391 to 635 last season. There were 1,297 starts of 110 or more pitches in 2000 and 33 last year. Skenes, and Johnson, believe that some of today’s starting pitchers are capable of more. For a pitcher like Skenes, being limited by restrictions based more on fear of injury than on data supporting their implementation corrodes Johnson, who regularly accumulated high pitch counts before retiring at age 46.
The moment a career begins, Johnson told Skenes, it is marching toward its end, and truly special players use the intervening time to challenge expectations and limitations. If Skenes is as good as everyone believes, “He’s where I was six or seven years after finding my mechanics,” Johnson says, then he will convince the Pirates to remove the governor or eventually find a team that will. For that reason, Johnson’s final piece of advice to him was simple: “This is your career.”
“It will be a mental mission for him,” Johnson says. “I understood throughout my career that if I can talk to myself during a game, I will realize my mission. I trained myself to put myself in those positions for success, to overcome it. I know pitchers can do these things I’m talking about, but they are not allowed. And that, to me, is mind-blowing. It makes no sense to me. You’re not going to see a pitcher grow mentally or physically if you take him out of situations.”
Randy Johnson
Longevity was on the mind of another subject whom Skenes sought advice from. When the Pirates went to New York last year, Skenes met with Gerrit Cole in the Yankee Stadium outfield. Cole is perhaps the best modern analogy for Skenes: born and raised in Southern California, a pitcher with a large, sturdy frame. Both went to college and were then selected No. 1 overall by the Pirates; both are thoughtful, diligent, and dedicated. Amid the emphasis on early pitching, Cole flourished and became the exception, a rotation mainstay who is on a Hall of Fame track and made at least 30 starts in seven seasons before undergoing season-ending elbow surgery this spring.
Unlike Johnson, who is now 61, Cole speaks the language of a modern pitcher. He masters Trackman data, the benefit of good sleep habits, and the influence that diet can have on success.
“In the true pursuit of maximum human performance, these tools are providing a pathway for people to achieve it faster,” Cole said earlier this month. “With the pathway to reach those maximum potentials faster, the industry demands, the teams demand, almost a higher level of performance and, to some extent, an unsustainable level of performance. We have used technology to maximize human performance. We have not used technology well enough to maximize human sustainability.”
Gerrit Cole
Cole is very aware of this. After more than 2,000 innings and 339 starts in his career, his right elbow exploded during spring training and will sideline him for the rest of 2025. The correlation between fastball velocity and an increased risk of arm injuries is established to the point that most in the industry consider it causal. Johnson was the exception, not the rule, and Skenes knows enough math to know how futile it is to bet on outlier outcomes.
“My focus is on volume and durability,” Cole continued. “To give myself a chance to pitch for a long time, to pitch for teams that are competing for the championship, I have to be healthy. There are many incentives, as a competitor, financial, for durability and sustainability to be the main goal.”
Gerrit Cole
Skenes has the foundation to match that, and even surpass it. He has more power than me. He’s asking better questions early, questions about diet and sleep. He’s asking questions about mechanics. He’s tracking his pitches. He has his own process with people around him who are not just looking after his performance right now, but his long-term performance. It’s important for guys to have advocates in their corner, who aren’t just looking for this year. It’s really hard to find the right people.
With Justin Verlander, Clayton Kershaw, and Max Scherzer nearing retirement, and Cole and Zack Wheeler in their 30s, the passing of the torch is underway. Because Skenes is best positioned to take it, Cole says, his advice runs the gamut. They talked about pitching game theory, and Cole noted that Verlander’s approach, whom he was teammates with in Houston, runs counter to the max-effort philosophies espoused by starters who know that, regardless of their ability to go deep into games, they aren’t throwing much more than 100 pitches anyway.
Little by little, Skenes learns from those who have been what he aims to be. Pitchers, old and young, fill in some blanks, but he also looks beyond the players who share his craft. He plans to spend more time talking to Corbin Carroll, the Diamondbacks’ star outfielder whom he met on a Zoom call for a rookie immersion program, and ask him: “What do you have that I need?” He reads books like “Relentless” and “Winning” by Michael Jordan’s long-time trainer, Tim Grover, and “Talent Is Overrated,” which has a particular appeal for someone whose talent failed to attract the interest of any draft team after high school, despite playing in the most talent-rich area in the United States.
“I don’t know if I’m going to get anything out of talking to anyone,” Skenes says, but at the same time he sees no harm in asking. Considering how much the game asks him to give, a rebalancing is owed to him.
Paul Skenes
The first time Chris Bassitt, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher, met Skenes, he introduced himself with a proposal: “I’m going to nominate you for the union board.”
The executive subcommittee of the Major League Baseball Players Association is made up of eight players who help guide the union, particularly during collective bargaining. And since the current basic agreement expires after the 2026 season, labor discord has left people across the sport fearful of a prolonged work stoppage. The board is expected to wield even more power in the next round of negotiations, so the eight members are critical in helping shape the future of the game.
Bassitt knew Skenes by reputation: that he was thoughtful, level-headed, judicious, the type of person whose poker face on the mound would translate to a boardroom. He also knows the history of the union, that it is strongest when the game’s most influential players serve as voices during the negotiation process. With encouragement from veteran starter Nick Pivetta and former executive board head Andrew Miller, Skenes accepted his nomination and became the youngest player to be selected to the executive subcommittee.
“If we are thinking about the future of the game,” Skenes says, “I think it would be stupid not to have someone at least my age there.”
Paul Skenes
The labor work is exhausting. The best players in today’s game often avoid the hassle. It didn’t have to be Skenes. But he remembered his years at the Air Force Academy, in which cadets are taught the PITO model of leadership: personal, interpersonal, team, and organizational. In their first year, they focus on personal responsibility. The second year requires them to take responsibility for another cadet. Skenes left before experiencing team and organizational leadership at the academy, but the principles he learned apply enough that he felt a duty to serve as a voice for more than 1,200 major leaguers, even if his time of service pales in comparison to that of many of them.
The union and its bases are far from the only ones in the baseball world leaning on Skenes. MLB has struggled for years to create stars, and Skenes entered the Major Leagues with a Q score higher than 99% of players. Dunne’s mere presence invites a younger generation, raised with the idea that baseball is boring, to reconsider it. In the future, it is almost certain that every marketing campaign launched by MLB will include four players. One plays in Los Angeles (Ohtani). Two are in New York (Judge and Soto). The fourth resides in Pittsburgh.
More than anyone, the Pirates and their afflicted fanbase consider Skenes as the axis of their rebirth. They last won a division championship in 1992, when Barry Bonds still wore black and yellow. Their most recent appearance in the playoffs was in 2015, the last of three consecutive seasons with a wild card spot (and losing the only game) when Cole was pitching for the franchise. Since then, they have finished fourth or fifth in the National League Central Division for the last eight years and currently occupy the basement.
Nutting’s frugality perpetually cripples the Pirates. They have never had a nine-figure payroll. (This year’s on Opening Day: $91.3 million). Since he bought the team in 2007, they have been in the bottom five in 14 of 18 seasons. The Pirates’ revenue, according to Forbes, is almost identical to that of the Arizona Diamondbacks (2025 Opening Day payroll: $188.5 million), the Minnesota Twins ($147.4 million), the Kansas City Royals ($131.6 million), the Washington Nationals ($115.6 million), and the Cincinnati Reds ($114.5 million). Other owners privately rate Nutting as one of the worst in the game.
This only reinforces the fear among Pirates fans that Skenes is destined to follow Cole out the door via a trade within a few years of his debut, so that the team doesn’t lose him after the 2030 season due to free agency. Rooting for the Pirates is one of the cruelest fates in sports, with the combination of an unserious owner and income disparities leaving general manager Ben Cherington to run a player development machine in the hopes of competing. Their free agent signings this winter were former Pirate Andrew McCutchen, left-hander Andrew Heaney, outfielder Tommy Pham, second baseman Adam Frazier, and left-handed relievers Caleb Ferguson and Tim Mayza, all on one-year contracts totaling $19.95 million. The last multi-year free agent contract Nutting handed out was to Ivan Nova in 2016.
“We’re going to create it from within the locker room, and it’s not going to be something from ownership,” Skenes says. “Having a group of fans who are putting pressure on ownership and Ben and all that, it’s not a bad thing, but we have to go out there and do it. I feel like we owe it to the city.”
Paul Skenes
Skenes had never been to Pittsburgh before being drafted. “I love it,” he said, and those who know him confirm Skenes’ sincerity. He wants nothing more at this point in his career than for his roommate and close friend Jared Jones, who is on the injured list with elbow problems, to recover, and for Bubba Chandler, the Triple-A right-handed pitcher who is reaching 102 mph, to arrive, and for the Pirates’ farm system to produce position players as regularly as pitchers. A couple more bats, some relief arms, a free agent signing that is more than a short-term plug and you can squint and see a contender.
However, there’s a lot outside of Skenes’ control. All he can do is be the best version of himself. And little by little, he’s figuring out what that looks like.
Skenes is always looking for new ways to occupy himself when he’s off the mound. In the back of his truck there’s a compound bow. He shot it four times before abandoning it. In his bedroom there’s a guitar gathering dust, 200 dollars thrown in the trash. Lately he’s getting into golf, but he’s not sure it’s going to last.
“I get bored easily,” Skenes says. “A coach told me that, and I said, ‘I don’t think so. I think you’re wrong.’ And lately I’ve been thinking about it, and I think he’s right, because I’ve tried a lot of different hobbies and none of them have stuck.”
Paul Skenes
Similarly, Skenes wonders if the places his mind goes during his periods of silence are a function of boredom with baseball. “Not in a bad way,” he clarifies, but in the way that corresponds to a player: that “there’s always something to improve on.”
In his most recent outing on Monday, a typical Skenes outing in which he allowed one earned run, struck out six and walked none in six innings, he threw six pitches: four-seam fastball, splinker, slider, sweeper, changeup and curveball and splinker, the sinker-splitter hybrid he throws in the mid-90s with devastating effect. He toyed with a cutter and a two-seam fastball during spring training and could pull them out at any time. He waited until the fourth or fifth week of his LSU season to unveil his curveball.
“I absolutely don’t believe that just because it’s the season, it’s okay, this is what you have,” he says. “There’s no difference between spring training and the regular season in terms of getting better every day.”
Paul Skenes
This is his career, Skenes says, echoing Johnson, and he is learning that he must take control of it. He needs to chat with others who are what he wants to be, and he needs to find silence to find himself, and he needs to set stratospheric expectations. Of all the aphorisms that Skenes repeats, his favorite might be one he read in a book: “How you do anything is how you do everything.”
