Paul Skenes taking charge of Pirates future after WBC experience

Paul Skenes is reunited with the Pittsburgh Pirates at spring training after what must have been a life-altering experience at the World Baseball Classic.

While Skenes acknowledged to the press on Thursday that representing his country and spending time with a collection of baseball superstars was "pretty damn cool," Skenes also summarized the whole ordeal as "not good enough," referring to Team USA falling short of its ultimate goal.

Skenes certainly did his part to help Team USA, pitching 8 1/3 innings across two starts (both wins), allowing just one earned run and scattering seven hits against 34 total batters faced.

Most impressively, Skenes showed that he can take a punch in front of the whole world and still win the fight. After allowing a second-inning solo shot to Junior Caminero in the mega-important semifinal against the Dominican Republic, Skenes made some high-IQ pitching adjustments on the fly and kept the rest of the DR's all-time great lineup in check.

Paul Skenes' 2026 WBC experience will only make him more prepared to help build a winner in Pittsburgh

Following the epic semifinal win, Skenes reportedly picked Clayton Kershaw's brain about the difference between a World Series and the raucous WBC environment that Skenes had just escaped alive from. And it sounds like Skenes wants to carry that WBC excitement — not to mention the wisdom from Kershaw and others — into the 2026 MLB season and beyond while wearing a Pirates uniform.

“It’s definitely something I want to bring to Pittsburgh,” Skenes told MLB.com's Jason Mackey. “It’s just going to be a little different once it gets there.”

Skenes is focused on the future, and he may not even realize how much he just helped the Pirates' brand and visibility with his performance on the WBC stage. As noted by Bucco Territory, Skenes had Derek Jeter and David Ortiz calling him the best pitcher in the world after the DR game. This did nothing but inject the Pirates with more excitement and hype heading into 2026.

In other words, the energy that Skenes wants to bring to Pittsburgh? His WBC performances delivered plenty of it.

So, too, did Skenes' electric first two seasons in the big leagues, the most recent of which saw Skenes collect a National League Cy Young trophy and assert himself as the most dominant right-hander in the sport.

Skenes is spearheading a growing Pirates organization that is beginning to gain momentum, and his experiences at the WBC will further empower Skenes to mentor Pittsburgh's other young studs like Bubba Chandler and Konnor Griffin.

Ultimately, Skenes is unafraid of the big moment, and he's the perfect type of player and personality who can lead the Pirates into a new era of prosperity. He showed that once again this month.