Paul Skenes Trade Call Reportedly Rejected by Pirates Amid 2025 MLB Deadline Rumors

An unnamed MLB team reached out to the Pittsburgh Pirates about trading for superstar starting pitcher Paul Skenes, but that overture was rejected, per Jon Heyman of the New York Post.

The 23-year-old Skenes, who is in his second big-league season, leads all MLB starting pitchers with a 2.01 ERA. He's started 20 games, striking out 131 batters in 121 innings while posting a 0.93 WHIP. Skenes has also started the All-Star Game each of the last two years.

Despite his sensational season, which followed a first-year campaign where he won Rookie of the Year and finished third in the NL Cy Young race, Skenes has just a 4-8 record. The Pirates are ultimately an uncompetitive organization that sits last in the NL Central with a 39-58 record. Pittsburgh routinely doesn't spend up for players and began the season with a bottom-five payroll in MLB ($87.6 million), per USA Today.

Skenes is under team control through the 2029 season, but it's conceivable that he looks for greener pastures because (a) the Pirates are showing no signs of contending and (b) he's likely to get paid more elsewhere anyway if the team's payroll track record, which routinely shows Pittsburgh at or near the bottom of the list, is any indication.

If a long-term contract extension doesn't work out in Pittsburgh, and the Pirates want to avoid losing him for nothing, then obviously a trade to get a haul of players in return would make sense. However, a deal now probably doesn't, especially since Skenes can't be a free agent until 2030.

Of course, that won't stop teams from at least asking Pittsburgh, but the answer appears to be a firm no right now.