Every offseason there are at least a handful of high-profile players other clubs and their fans dream upon as the trade market begins to ramp up. Pirates ace and likely NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes may be coveted by every other team and fan base in the league, but general manager Ben Cherington was quick to stomp out any trade chatter before it even picked up. Speaking with FanSided’s Robert Murray, Cherington plainly stated that he will not trade his ace this offseason. Skenes “is going to be a Pirate in 2026,” Cherington said.
There’s little reason to think the Pirates would move Skenes at this juncture anyhow, save for owner Bob Nutting’s typically frugal habits. Skenes, the No. 1 overall pick from the 2023 draft, burst onto the scene early in the 2024 season, started the All-Star Game just a couple months later, won ’24 NL Rookie of the Year honors and is now poised to win the first of what could very well be multiple Cy Young Awards in his career.
Since taking a major league mound for the first time, Skenes has started 55 games and posted a comical 1.96 earned run average (1.96 ERA in 2024, 1.97 in 2025). He’s punched out 31% of his opponents against just a 5.9% walk rate and has only allowed 21 home runs in 320 2/3 innings (0.59 HR/9). Forty-seven percent of his batted balls have been grounders, and opponents have averaged a paltry 87.7 mph off the bat against him. He’s already staked a defensible claim to being the best pitcher in the National League, and were it not for the fact that Tigers ace Tarik Skubal is poised to win his second straight Cy Young Award in the AL, Skenes might well be the consensus top pitcher in the sport.
Trading Skenes somewhere down the road feels almost inevitable. If he continues this trajectory, he’ll have the opportunity to shatter contract precedents for starting pitchers. He already has two full years of big league service and won’t turn 24 until next May. He’ll reach free agency heading into his age-28 season. The thrifty Pirates almost certainly aren’t going to put forth a record-breaking extension offer, which is presumably already what it’d take to extend Skenes.
That said, Skenes is still under club control for four more seasons, and he won’t even reach arbitration until after the 2026 season. At least the first of his arb years will be affordable even by Pirates standards, and for a pitcher of this caliber it wouldn’t be surprising to see them hold Skenes later than some of the prior pitchers they’ve traded away with two years of club control remaining (e.g. Gerrit Cole, Joe Musgrove).
There was never really any expectation that Skenes would be traded this offseason — we didn’t include him on our list of the offseason’s top 40 trade candidates — but it’s nevertheless notable to hear the team’s baseball operations leader so definitively say a trade won’t happen. Most front office leaders tend to avoid speaking in absolutes of this nature, after all.
Beyond that, Cherington’s comment comes at a time when the Pirates are widely expected to make a bit more of a push for a return to contention. The 2026 season will be year six of Cherington’s GM tenure, and the team hasn’t topped 76 wins during his time running the club. Pittsburgh already dismissed manager Derek Shelton back in May — he’s since been hired as the Twins’ new skipper — and the baseball ops leader tends to be next on the chopping block after a manager is shown the door.
The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal said earlier today in an appearance on Fair Territory that agents he’s spoken to have already received signals from the Pirates that they’re planning to be more active on the open market this winter (video link). That doesn’t mean the Bucs are going to play at the top of the market, of course, but the 2025-26 offseason could see them step out of the bottom tiers of free agency where they tend to reside. Cherington himself told Murray that he has “more flexibility than we’ve had in [any] other offseasons I’ve been in Pittsburgh.”
As MLBTR’s Contract Tracker shows, it’s been nearly a decade since the Pirates have signed a free agent to a multi-year contract. That’s not an indication that they haven’t made any multi-year offers, but the Pirates certainly haven’t been aggressive during Nutting’s ownership, whether under Cherington or predecessor Neal Huntington.
In an appearance on the MLB Trade Rumors podcast late in the season, Cherington acknowledged that he’s made multi-year offers to free agents — specifically free agent position players. Obviously, those offers have been rebuffed. Still, the sixth-year Pittsburgh GM made clear that he plans to continue those efforts, and there are now multiple indicators that he might have the financial latitude to be a bit more aggressive as he looks to line up on such a deal to add some offense to the lineup.
The Bucs could still trade some pitching to add a big league bat(s), but veteran Mitch Keller or 26-year-old Mike Burrows seem like more plausible candidates than Skenes, Bubba Chandler, Braxton Ashcraft or Jared Jones (on whom they’d be selling low as he finishes off his rehab from UCL surgery).
‘Skenes a Pirate in ’26’… yea no kidding. If you trade him for say four high-ceiling players, Nutting would have to pay those four players. Best to hold onto Skenes until his arb salary will be greater than the salaries of the haul Skenes is going to fetch
I’m shocked Paul is this loyal to the pirates and doesn’t want to be traded
He is the best pitcher in the world but is on a team that isnt trying to win and that plays for profit
If they’re playing for profit they are doing it wrong and they reported a loss last year. lol
He’s in no position to be making trade demands yet.
What good does it to do the sport or even the Pirates to hoard him?
What good does it do the sport to have all the star players in the league hoarded onto the same 12 big market teams while everyone else is “rebuilding” as if those 12 big market teams won’t still have an advantage in 3-5 more years?
So? They’ll still suck.
Great but he didn’t say Skenes was going to be a Pirate for years to come let alone 2027.
Nutting is a silver spoon dunce whose understanding of business is limited entirely to waiting for his father to die.
Skenes is going to be under a super cheap salary for 2026, so yeah you keep him. Legit trade rumors probably won’t start until next offseason or around the trade deadline in 2027.
Obviously he’s gonna be a Pirates for 2026 and 2927. He’ll likely be traded winter meetings 2027. Giving the acquiring team 2 year to extend him.
Trade him for the right price. Dodgers could get the deal done, not many other team have the prospect capital to entertain the Pirates for them to consider trading Skenes.
What a total disaster of a franchise the Pirates are. Best pitcher in the league and they’re surely going to waste his time there and miss the playoffs every season. And, Nutting will profit every one of those dud seasons.
Always a bummer to see great talent wasted. Reminds me of Felix Rodriguez…and Mike Trout I guess.
Would you be happier if he lost money? Why do people take offense when owners make money? If owners didn’t make money, there would be no Major League Baseball at all. And Skenes would have to settle for a much less attractive girlfriend and probably a job selling cars.
He’s a Pirate, for as long as he’s under arbitration even then, he’s probably going to be traded in his last year.
So expect a trade after 2026/01/01. Got it.
That’s great, so can we get some bats so he doesn’t go 10-10 with a 210+ ERA+ again?
“in 2026” is not the same as “for all of 2026.”
Writer: ‘Sir I didn’t ask if you were planning to move Skenes………..’
Is there any way Cherington convinces ownership to extend Skenes at market value and raise the overall budget of the team to compliment that contract? (I said compliment, not match)
10 years/$400M, back loaded?
Bob Nutting is uber cheap, 10/400m is insanity for that man.
It sure would be nice if Pittsburgh had an owner who cared.