Historic (and obscure) Paul Skenes stat should expedite contract extension talks

Paul Skenes has already given the Pirates every single conceivable reason to extend him, but he's going to keep breaking or setting records until it really sinks into Bob Nutting and the front office's heads, or he ends up leaving in free agency (and we all know that the latter feels far more likely at this point).

After his 6 2/3 innings start against the Diamondbacks on Wednesday, Skenes passed a benchmark set by the one and only Babe Ruth. His 2.03 career ERA is the second-lowest of any pitcher before their 23rd birthday (Skenes turned 23 on Thursday), which sandwiches him between Ruth's 2.07 ERA and Dutch Leonard's 1.86 before their birthdays.

Of course, Skenes is also throwing pitches that Leonard and Ruth could never have imagined.

It's no secret that the Pirates have a generational player on their hands, which is only emphasized by the fact that he's surpassed Ruth and only ranks second behind a guy who's sort of faded into obscurity. The Pirates don't need any more evidence to point to the logical conclusion — that they need to extend Skenes — but this should hammer that point home even further.

Paul Skenes surpassing Babe Ruth with rare feat should make Pirates even more determined to extend him

Despite a frenzy of trade speculation that has since cooled down, the Pirates have insisted that they remain committed to building around Skenes. If that were true, they probably would've actually tried to do that this past offseason instead of signing Tommy Pham and Adam Frazier, but let's give them the benefit of the doubt here and say that there's still time.

And there is; Skenes isn't a free agent until after the 2029 season, which gives them three more seasons to make significant enough additions who will not only help the Pirates to a few winning seasons, but will actually convince Skenes that the Pirates are building something worth sticking around for, whether that's via an extension or coming back after exploring free agency.

There's been no indication of that yet, of course, and there may never be as long as Nutting owns the team. The Pirates are literally sitting on a cache of money as one of the most profitable teams in baseball, so we can hope against hope that they're just squirreling it away for a rainy day. There are very few players not only on the Pirates, but in all of baseball, who are worth a similar splurge.