Paul Skenes hasn’t even hit arbitration yet, and he’s already living the full small-market ace experience. Win a Cy Young award, become the face of a franchise starving for October baseball, and almost immediately find your name dragged into fantasy trade machines with the New York Yankees.
For Pittsburgh Pirates fans who still flinch when they hear names like Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow, the idea of their new homegrown superstar angling his way to the Bronx felt like déjà vu cranked to 11. One anonymous report out of New Jersey was all it took for the rumor mill to catch fire.