Pirates predicted to win major 2026 award (but not the one you think)

Paul Skenes winning the 2025 NL Cy Young Award — joining Vern Law (1960) and Doug Drabek (1990) as the only Pittsburgh Pirates in history to take home that hardware — was a predictable outcome, and it should be no surprise that he is again the favorite in 2026.

The 23-year-old is already the best pitcher in the sport, running a 1.96 ERA and 10.8 fWAR over the first two seasons of his career. He's durable, unflappable in the face of pressure, and strikes out nearly one-third of the opposing hitters he faces. A contract extension is about the only thing missing from his profile.

And yet, according to MLB.com's Anthony Castrovince, Skenes isn't the Pirate who will walk away with a major award in 2026. Instead, it's manager Don Kelly.

Don Kelly predicted to lead Pirates to playoffs, win NL Manager of the Year Award in 2026

In fairness to Skenes, Castrovince refused to pick repeat champions for any of the major awards (Cy Young, MVP, Rookie of the Year, and Manager of the Year). The longtime MLB reporter even acknowledged in his piece that "There’s probably no stopping Skenes, whose 1.96 ERA from 2024-25 was the best in MLB … by 34 points!"

Still, it's Kelly who got some award hype in the column, and it's not that outrageous of a concept when you dig into the numbers.

The Pirates were 12-26 when Derek Shelton was fired in early May, which proved to be a hole too deep for the team to climb out from. And yet, with Kelly leading the charge, Pittsburgh went 59-65, playing its most competitive brand of baseball in years.

In a division where the Cardinals are rebuilding, the Cubs refuse to sign anyone of note, the Brewers are mulling over a trade of ace Freddy Peralta, and the Reds' biggest offseason addition has been JJ Bleday, there's more than enough room for the Pirates to force their way into the conversation.

The most recent major award winners in Pirates history are Skenes (2024 NL Rookie of the Year and 2025 NL Cy Young), Andrew McCutchen (2013 NL MVP), and Clint Hurdle (2013 NL Manager of the Year). The Pirates' history of incompetency has precluded them from factoring into the awards discourse in most years, though with Skenes and Kelly both present, they might be about to change the narrative.

There's still a long road between the Pirates and legitimate World Series contention, but if Kelly can guide the Bucs' ship to the playoffs for the first time since 2015, he'd have as good of a case as anyone for the National League's Manager of the Year award.