Pittsburgh Pirates pitcher Paul Skenes already breaking gloves
Who is the top pitching prospect in all of Major League Baseball? Well, of course, it is Paul Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates first overall pick in the 2023 Draft. This offseason Skenes was ranked as the Top pitching prospect in Baseball by multiple publications including MLB Pipeline. Meanwhile, Skenes has only thrown 6.2 innings in his professional career. Yet, everyone knows the potential he has including the possibility of him debuting in early 2024.
The most standout reason why Paul Skenes is ranked as the top pitching prospect in Baseball is because of his power stuff. His fastball is topping out in the triple digits already and he is just 21 years of age. This is real too, not just here and there, but a guy who consistently sits in a velocity range of 98-102. He basically has the best fastball of any starting pitching prospect with it receiving 70 grade from FanGraphs.
Skenes displayed this arm talent all throughout his College World Series run and eventual championship with LSU. He then got to show some of the velocity off during his limited professional experience in 2023. However, he now will have a chance to really show it more consistently as the 2024 season starts up.
Skenes is one of the top prospects who received an invite to the Pittsburgh Pirates Spring Training. This is obviously a big deal and will allow people inside the Organization to see him even more and in turn fans will get to see more of him. There have been plenty of videos shared from Pirates Spring Training already, with one of the videos showing Skenes pumping up the velocity:
While throwing yesterday Pirates prospect Paul Skenes actually busted right-handed pitcher Quinn Priester's glove.
First day of Spring Training and fans of the Pirates are already seeing Paul Skenes do abnormal baseball things. Again, Skenes throws hard and everyone knows that so it is good to see that he is ramped up already. Hopefully, he will show that power stuff this Spring and in Pittsburgh sooner rather than later.