So, does Paul Skenes want to play for the New York Yankees?
A Wednesday report from NJ.com detailed how a player on the Pittsburgh Pirates – who is, of course, teammates with Skenes – said that the superstar right-hander is “hoping for a trade” and has repeatedly expressed wanting “to play for the Yankees.” The report also stated that Skenes has “no confidence the Pirates ever are going to win.”
“I’m on the Pirates. My goal is to win with the Pirates. I love the city of Pittsburgh. The fans are hungry to have a winner in Pittsburgh, and I want to be a part of the group that did that. I don’t know where that came from,” Skenes said on Wednesday night about the report regarding his interest in playing for the Yankees.
“The goal is to win. I don’t know the reporter that reported it. I don’t know the player who supposedly said that, but the goal is to win, and the goal is to win in Pittsburgh.”
Earlier this week, Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said that Skenes “is going to be a Pirate in 2026.”
Skenes, whom the Pirates selected with the No. 1 pick in the 2023 MLB Draft, is under team control through 2029. The starting pitcher for the National League in each of his first two MLB seasons, Skenes recorded a 1.97 ERA, 0.95 WHIP, 7.7 wins above replacement and 216 strikeouts in 187.2 innings pitched (32 starts) last season, helping him win the 2025 NL Cy Young Award.
The Pirates are coming off a 71-91 campaign. They haven’t had a winning record since 2018, haven’t made the playoffs since 2015 and haven’t won a playoff series since the 2013 NL Wild Card Game. Meanwhile, the Yankees are coming off a 94-68 season and have made the playoffs in eight of the last nine seasons.
Prior to Yoshinobu Yamamoto signing a $325 million deal with the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2023, the Yankees held the record for the largest contract given to a starting pitcher, as they signed Gerrit Cole to a nine-year, $324 million deal in 2019.
Maybe Skenes and the Yankees will someday break that record together.
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