Paul Skenes Trade Rumors Dismissed by Pirates Insider, 'No Chance, No Way, No How'

Just over one year to the date that Paul Skenes made his MLB debut, the Pittsburgh Pirates already find themselves having to deflect trade talk involving the pitching phenom.

Per Jon Heyman of the New York Post and MLB Network, one Pirates source said in no uncertain terms that Skenes isn't going anywhere at this point.

"No chance, no way, no how," Heyman said of how this trade scenario was described to him.

There wasn't any actual trade rumor involving Skenes, but ESPN's Jeff Passan said last week on The Pat McAfee Show that there is an argument the Pirates might as well move him now because his value is at its highest level, given his age and how many years of team control are left on his deal.

The sad truth is that the Pirates will almost certainly trade Skenes within the next four years. Even if it doesn't happen now, history suggests it will by the time he goes into his final season under team control in 2029. This is how the Pirates operate under owner Bob Nutting.

Nutting knew coming into this year that he had arguably the most valuable asset in all of MLB with Skenes coming off a historic rookie year in 2024. The Pirates responded by spending a total of $19.95 million in free agency, the ninth-lowest total among all MLB teams. Their biggest investment was a one-year, $5.25 million deal for Andrew Heaney.

Bryan Reynolds is the only player in franchise history to sign a contract worth at least $100 million when he received an eight-year, $106.8 million extension in April 2023.

In March, Mark Belko of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette released a report showing the Pirates took in more money over the past three seasons in ticket sales and concessions ($215.6 million in net revenue) than they spent on player payroll ($214 million).

According to USA Today's Bob Nightengale, citing information from the MLBPA and confirmation from multiple team owners, the Pirates are among the most profitable teams in MLB because they pocket "a huge chunk of their revenue sharing monies instead of investing in their team year after year."

This gets into the much larger discussion about payroll disparity and which teams are actually to blame. But for the purposes of the Skenes discussion, it's probably going to end with him playing for a different franchise by the time he's 26 years old.

Pirates fans just went through this eight years ago with Gerrit Cole. He spent his first five years with the organization, but the Priates traded him to the Houston Astros in January 2018 when he still had two years of team control remaining.

Cole was coming off a down 2017 with a 4.26 ERA, which may have aided in the Pirates' decision to trade him two years from free agency.

It's bad business for the Pirates to be in a position where their fans are already hearing about a potential Skenes trade. Even though there's no reason for it to happen right now since he will be making pre-arbitration salaries through 2027, the end is already in sight because of how this franchise has historically operated.

Pirates fans can only hope that they turn things around soon to get a run like they had at the start of Cole's career in 2013, when they made the playoffs in three consecutive years.

It's hard to see it happening in 2025 with the team off to a 16-33 start, ahead of only the Colorado Rockies (8-40) in the NL standings.