Paul Skenes
"Before the Pirates, Paul Skenes wore a different uniform entirely — and that choice says more about him than any velocity reading."
Skenes began college at the United States Air Force Academy — where cadets are sworn into military service on their first day — and won the John Olerud Award as the nation's best two-way player before most of the country had heard his name.
At 24, Skenes is the face of a Pittsburgh franchise that has been waiting for a homegrown ace for a generation, arriving at the exact moment the sport is searching for its next dominant pitching identity.
The Air Force Academy chapter is routinely treated as a colorful footnote, but it is actually the most unusual element of his biography: a player with his talent and size voluntarily chose a military institution first — with all the obligations that entails — before baseball fully claimed him.
In Japan, a high school talent of Skenes's ability would have been recruited by elite university baseball programs — or selected directly by a professional team — immediately after graduation. Skenes chose something more unusual: the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, where cadets rise before dawn for mandatory formations, are graded on military bearing alongside their coursework, and are legally bound to serve their country from induction day forward. He wore that gray uniform first, and chose baseball second. For a Japanese fan accustomed to players who dedicate themselves to baseball from adolescence onward, this trajectory is quietly extraordinary.
Most American fans know the Air Force Academy chapter as a biographical detail — 'he went to Air Force before LSU' — but the weight of what that actually means tends to get lost in the telling. The Air Force Academy is not a university with an ROTC program attached. Cadets are sworn into military service on the first day of their enrollment. They are subject to military law, operate under a strict honor code, and incur an active-duty service obligation upon graduation. Leaving required a formal institutional process. That Skenes entered that world voluntarily, navigated a transfer out of it, and within a single college season dominated his sport thoroughly enough to be selected first overall is a sequence of events that has no clean template in recent baseball history.
Paul Skenes is a 24-year-old starting pitcher for the Pittsburgh Pirates who arrived in the major leagues by a route with no real modern precedent: a year at the United States Air Force Academy as a two-way player, a transfer to LSU, one dominant season that earned him the sport's top individual honor and a national championship, and then the first overall pick of the 2023 draft. He was named the National League Rookie of the Year in 2024.
| Year | Team | G | W–L | ERA | IP | SO | WHIP |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | PIT | 20 | 8–8 | 3.57 | 108.1 | 130 | 1.02 |
| 2025 | PIT | 32 | 10–10 | 1.97 | 187.2 | 216 | 0.95 |
| 2024 | PIT | 23 | 11–3 | 1.96 | 133.0 | 170 | 0.95 |
| Career | — | 75 | 29–21 | 2.37 | 429.0 | 516 | 0.97 |
Source: MLB Stats API · regular season
The Cadet Who Chose Baseball
On Induction Day at the United States Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, incoming cadets surrender their civilian clothes, receive gray uniforms, and take an oath of service before the day is over. Most arrive intending to become Air Force officers. Paul Skenes arrived in the summer of 2021 intending the same. The Academy — a federally funded institution where congressional nomination is required for admission and the acceptance rate sits well below ten percent — does not recruit athletes the way most universities do. It admits candidates who meet its standards and then shapes them toward military careers. Skenes, born in Fullerton in California's Orange County, met those standards and enrolled. He was also, as it turned out, the best two-way player in college baseball. In 2022, Skenes won the John Olerud Award, given annually to the nation's top player who performs at an elite level both on the mound and in the field — a distinction that marks players of unusual all-around ability. He received that recognition while fulfilling the full obligations of a cadet. He was not yet famous. He was a cadet who also happened to play baseball exceptionally well.
One Season at LSU
Ahead of his junior year, Skenes transferred to Louisiana State University, joining one of college baseball's most storied programs in Baton Rouge. What followed was one of the more complete individual seasons in recent college baseball memory. He won Southeastern Conference pitcher of the year honors and national pitcher of the year recognition, and he received the Dick Howser Trophy — given annually to the nation's best college baseball player, named for the Kansas City Royals manager who died of brain cancer in 1987 at the age of 58. LSU won the College World Series that season, and Skenes was central to that run. The Pittsburgh Pirates, selecting first overall in the 2023 MLB Draft, did not deliberate long.
Unlike universities with ROTC programs, the Air Force Academy is a degree-granting military institution where students are commissioned officer candidates from their first day on campus. Admission requires a congressional nomination — typically from a U.S. senator or representative — in addition to demanding academic and physical qualifications. Graduates are commissioned as second lieutenants in the Air Force and incur a minimum five-year active-duty service obligation. Athletes who transfer out must navigate a formal institutional process; it is not comparable to transferring between civilian universities.
Pittsburgh and the Weight of a First Overall Pick
Skenes made his MLB debut on May 11, 2024, at 21 years old. The debut had been anticipated for months by a Pittsburgh fan base that had experienced a sustained stretch of competitive difficulty, and by a baseball media that had been searching for language adequate to describe what scouts and analysts were reporting about his arsenal — the velocity, the movement, an unusual pitch that did not quite fit existing categories. He was named the National League Rookie of the Year for the 2024 season, a recognition that drew little argument. For the Pirates, a small-market franchise that builds primarily through the draft and player development, Skenes represented something the organization had been working toward for years: a pitcher around whom a competitive future might credibly be constructed.
The Question of What Comes Next
Skenes turned 24 in May 2026 — just days ago, as this is written. He is one of the youngest front-line starters in the National League and one of the most closely observed pitchers in the sport. The Air Force Academy year — the formations, the honor code, the oath, the uniform he wore before he ever wore a Pirates uniform — does not explain his curveball or his fastball. But a player who chose a military institution first, with full knowledge of its obligations, and then chose baseball, carries that sequence into everything that follows. What it produces over the duration of a long major league career remains, for now, an open question. It is a good one.
Awarded annually since 1987 by the College Baseball Foundation, the Dick Howser Trophy is the most prestigious individual honor in college baseball — roughly equivalent to the Heisman Trophy in college football. It is named for Dick Howser, who managed the Kansas City Royals to the 1985 World Series championship and died of brain cancer in 1987 at 58. Winning it after essentially a single season at a major program, as Skenes did, is unusual.
Established in 2000, the John Olerud Award is given to the best two-way player in college baseball — a pitcher who also plays a position in the field at a high level. It is named for John Olerud, the former major league first baseman who was a standout two-way performer at Washington State. The award gained renewed cultural attention in the Shohei Ohtani era, which rekindled broader interest in whether players capable of elite performance on both sides of the ball might be more common than previously assumed.
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