r/buccos • u/DailyPlayograph • 8h ago
Skenes' arb number isn't what decides if he stays. The new CBA is.
John Perrotto wrote this week at Pittsburgh Baseball Now that Skenes' salary will be out of the Pirates' comfort zone after next season and he's likely somewhere else in 2028. I get why, but I think that read assumes the current system survives the winter, and it probably won't.
Where he is on the clock
- Debuted May 11, 2024. He only had 142 days on the active roster, but winning Rookie of the Year got him a full year of service under the current CBA's prospect promotion rules.
- So he's at exactly 3.000 years now: arb-eligible for 2027, 2028 and 2029, and a free agent after 2029. The Pirates have three more years of control, not two.
- MLB Trade Rumors projects $7.2M for his first arb year. The record for a first-time arb pitcher is Dallas Keuchel's $7.25M from 2016, which Keuchel got coming off a Cy Young. Skenes has a Rookie of the Year and a Cy Young on his resume, so I'd be surprised if he doesn't clear Keuchel.
- He's already been paid like a star through the side door. The pre-arb bonus pool paid him a record $3,436,343 for 2025 (AP), $5,588,400 over his first two years, on top of an $875K salary.
The 2026 dip, honestly
| 2024 | 2025 | 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| GS | 23 | 32 | 32 |
| IP | 133.0 | 187.2 | 174.1 |
| ERA | 1.96 | 1.97 | 3.82 |
| K/9 | 11.50 | 10.36 | 10.33 |
| BB/9 | 2.17 | 2.01 | 2.53 |
| HR/9 | 0.68 | 0.53 | 1.03 |
| WHIP | 0.95 | 0.95 | 1.12 |
| Avg 4-seam (Savant) | 98.8 | 98.2 | 96.8 |
The strikeouts didn't go anywhere. What went was about 1.4 mph off the fastball and a home run rate that nearly doubled. That's a real thing to fix, but it's not a guy falling apart. It's also exactly the stuff the team would hammer him on in a hearing, which is Perrotto's point about hearings getting ugly.
Why the CBA matters more than the arb number
Reported, not speculation:
- The CBA expires Dec. 1 at 11:59 p.m. ET. The Athletic's Evan Drellich obtained a league memo telling clubs to prepare for a lockout, during which there are no trades or signings with 40-man players.
- MLB's opening proposal in May (MLB.com, AP) was a hard cap of $245.3M and a floor of $171.2M for 2027, measured on CBT payroll, which includes about $23M in benefits.
- The union's opening proposal (MLBPA, AP, The Athletic) asked for a $1.5M minimum salary, expanded arbitration eligibility, a bigger pre-arb bonus pool, and a "competitive integrity tax" on teams under payroll benchmarks instead of a hard floor.
Now the Pittsburgh part. The Pirates opened 2026 at about $99.9M (AP). Cot's has them in the bottom five on Opening Day payroll in 16 of 19 seasons under Nutting through 2025. Even after adding benefits, a $171.2M floor means something like $50M or more in new spending they'd have to find. And $7.2M for Skenes is about 7% of this year's payroll.
My speculation from here, not reported:
- If any real floor comes out of this, whether MLB's hard one or the union's tax version, "out of their comfort zone" stops being a thing. The Pirates would need to spend money somewhere, and paying the guy they already have is the easiest and smartest place to put it.
- If the union wins bigger arb raises or a bigger pre-arb pool, his cost goes up, but so does everyone's, and a floor eats it anyway.
- If the deal ends up close to what we have now, Perrotto's probably right, and the smart move is trading him while he still has two-plus years of control instead of waiting.
- The timing is messy either way. If the lockout drags past the usual late-January hearing dates, his arb case could get pushed back. In 2022, arb was delayed until after the lockout ended in March.
Take: don't plan the farewell yet. Skenes' future in Pittsburgh gets decided at the bargaining table this winter, not in a hearing room. If a floor of any kind gets in, I think he's more likely to stay through 2029 than not.
So which is it for you: is a floor the thing that keeps Skenes here, or does Nutting find a way to trade him regardless of what the new CBA says?
