Bob Nutting is already quivering after Pirates see Paul Skenes' pre-arbitration price

Paul Skenes is one of the best players in baseball, and he’s already getting paid like it. Thanks to the collective bargaining agreement, which expires at the end of the 2026 season, Skenes will be collecting $3.4 million next year, and that’s all before he hits arbitration. The pay raise may have owner Bob Nutting beginning to worry about how high Skenes’ salary will go before he hits free agency.

The salary bump is due to Skenes’ Cy Young Award and overall performance in 2025, and with those accolades in mind, $3.4 million is still a discount (especially since it comes from the bonus pool rather than Pittsburgh’s pockets directly). But for the frugal Pirates, the incentives raise the bar for Skenes’ arbitration contracts down the line.

Incentive bonuses for Paul Skenes should worry Pirates owner Bob Nutting.

This is only the fourth year of these pre-arbitration bonuses, and the top-paid players from the last two seasons, Julio Rodriguez and Bobby Witt Jr., have signed long-term extensions that avoid arbitration. The first recipient, Dylan Cease, is a good test case for Skenes and the Pirates. Cease earned $2.4 million in bonuses for his performance with the White Sox in 2022; he entered arbitration the next season, where he saw his salary grow to $5.7 million. It hit $8 million and $13.75 million during his tenure with the Padres. Now, of course, he is making bank in a seven-year, $210 million deal with the Blue Jays.

Skenes, unlike Cease, has one more year before arbitration. That’s another year for bonuses (he was awarded $2.15 million in 2024), and another year for his legend and expected salary to grow. Spotrac predicts that Skenes may rake in $50 million over the next four seasons through incentives and arbitration. That dwarfs Cease’s roughly $30 million over the same timeframe. All told, Spotrac puts an extension at $171.5 million for the next seven seasons. That, though, pales in comparison to the $500 million that ESPN’s Jeff Passan predicts Skenes could receive once he reaches free agency.

Who knows how the CBA negotiations will affect player salaries, team payrolls, and the 2027 season as a whole, but with the Spotrac figures in mind, it feels obvious that Skenes will outpace the Pirates’ budget sooner rather than later.