Joe’s Notes: Is Paul Skenes Good or Famous?

Paul Skenes makes his Major League debut this weekend, and in a twist, I’m feeling salty about Skenes being the prospect that gets baseball its attention. A month ago, we—those of us who feel compelled to promote baseball in the blogosphere—gave a lot of attention to Jackson Holliday. He was, as we wrote at the time, among the eight best prospects to debut within the last seven years. He wasn’t a can’t-miss player, but in baseball, no one is. He was as good a prospect as they come.

Jackson Holliday returned to AAA two weeks later, having struck out four and a half times as often as he reached base.

Holliday is still a great prospect. Holliday should still be completely fine. Since returning to the minors, he’s hitting 55% better than the average AAA player, reaching base in nearly half his plate appearances. This is good for anyone, but for a shortstop, it’s especially good. Shortstops are generally worse hitters than anyone but pitchers and catchers, the defensive requirements of the position forcing a smaller sample of players, one in which fewer sluggers can be found. Holliday had two bad weeks in the major leagues. He’ll be back, and he’ll still be a good player when he returns. Jackson Holliday was and is a better prospect than Paul Skenes.

That isn’t to say Skenes isn’t really, really good. This is part of what makes Skenes unique: We know how good he is. We saw it last college baseball season. Jackson Holliday didn’t play college baseball. Neither did Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Shohei Ohtani, Yoán Moncada, Wander Franco, Gavin Lux, or MacKenzie Gore. Of those eight best prospects of the last seven years, only Adley Rutschman played college ball. Like Skenes, Rutschman won a College World Series and won Most Outstanding Player in the process. Unlike Skenes, Rutschman didn’t reach the majors until four years after his time in Omaha. Unlike Skenes, Rutschman wasn’t a phenomenon during his college baseball career.

To understand the phenomenon that is Paul Skenes, you have to momentarily set aside the ballplayer. Skenes is famous because he’s good at baseball, but he’s as famous as he is because of the ecosystem in which he has been this good.

Paul Skenes played his final season of college ball at LSU, arguably the biggest college baseball brand in the country and certainly the biggest of the 2023 season, given they won the sport’s national championship. Paul Skenes played his college baseball in the 2020’s, a decade in which college baseball interest continues to skyrocket. To date, there’s been no college baseball environment better tailored to producing fame than what existed in Baton Rouge last spring. Dylan Crews might have been the better player on the team—Crews won the Golden Spikes Award, college baseball’s Heisman Trophy—but in a version of baseball in which pitchers start every third meaningful game, rather than every fifth or sixth, Skenes was the bigger name. Paul Skenes, the two-way star at Air Force who gave up the bat when he transferred to LSU, was the biggest name on the biggest team in what’s so far been college baseball’s biggest moment. Now, he’s making his debut even sooner post-college than Stephen Strasburg made his? That’s stardom in the baseball world. And we haven’t even talked about Livvy Dunne!

Skenes is the big name here, but Olivia Dunne is the bigger name. Dunne, often referred to by Livvy, is among the most famous athletes in the history of college sports. An LSU gymnast graduating this month, Dunne’s built a combined following of 13 million across TikTok and Instagram, with her Instagram following (the smaller of the two) more than ten times that of Caleb Williams. While most “Name–Image–Likeness” payments in college sports are signing bonuses in nominal disguise, Dunne’s millions in NIL earnings legitimately come from her marketability. She’s modeled for Sports Illustrated. She’s in a line of commercials for Vuori. She’s said she’s earned over $500,000 for a single social media post at least once. Dunne and Skenes publicly announced their relationship in August. The most famous college baseball player in the country started dating the most famous college athlete in the country. Now, Skenes is making his MLB debut.

How good is Paul Skenes? He’s really, really good. He didn’t top any notable preseason prospect rankings, but he was routinely in the top ten, and over the first month-plus of the season he’s only allowed four runs across 27 innings of work. Is he Strasburg? Rutschman? Holliday? Guerrero? Not quite. He’s good enough to be a big deal to Pirates fans. It’s his fame that makes him a big deal for baseball.

We Don’t Know Hockey Well Enough

A theory on why it’s hard for hockey to get attention:

Hockey is hard to understand.

With other mainstream sports, it’s easy to understand enough about the game to form opinions. Quarterbacks either make the big play or they don’t. Baseball is quantified down to the aglet. Basketball is a mixture of the two. In soccer, who turns the ball over? Who blocks shots? Who finishes scoring opportunities? These things happen slowly. There’s time to digest them as we watch, even as casuals.

Hockey happens very quickly. There are weird bounces, and some of them are intentional, but that isn’t true for all of them. Goalies go hot and cold in ways I don’t think even hockey geniuses understand. A lot happens away from the puck, but again, it happens fast. Players constantly shuffle on and off the ice. More than thirty athletes touch the puck in a single game. It’s hard to understand hockey to a degree beyond saying, “Wow, that was amazing,” after the half-dozen amazing plays each game. That makes it hard to engage. We struggle with it here: What is there to say about last night’s Rangers win besides, “Wow, that Artemi Panarin goal was amazing. Did you know they call him the Breadman because his last name sounds like Panera?”

The Rest

College sports:

• Two pieces of realignment news today. First, Grand Canyon and Seattle are joining the WCC. Grand Canyon brings a thriving basketball program in a good market with some sketchy for–profit–college backstory. Seattle brings a middling athletic department in a good market already in the heart of WCC country. My biggest curiosity here is how Gonzaga feels about adding both Seattle and Washington State to its conference, at least temporarily in the case of the latter. The conventional wisdom regarding Washington State and Gonzaga’s cold war has been that Gonzaga doesn’t see anything to gain by playing a basketball game in Pullman. The conventional wisdom regarding Seattle as a WCC candidate has been that Gonzaga wants the Seattle market to itself and would like to keep the Redhawks in their current low-major station. Maybe this is an indication the WCC is preparing for a perceived eventuality in which Gonzaga joins a Big 12 and/or Big East conglomerate. Maybe this is an indication Gonzaga’s thinking has changed. Maybe this just means the conventional wisdom made too much of a small or nonexistent thing.
• In the other news, Missouri State is planning to jump from the FCS to the FBS, leaving the Missouri Valley Football Conference and the Missouri Valley Conference for Conference USA. There’s more to it than this—expenses are high, with transition fees/scholarships/attendance shenanigans all pricey beasts—but a simple way of conceptualizing the difference between the MVFC and CUSA goes like this: It’s easier to win Conference USA (the best teams aren’t as good as South Dakota State) and the payout is bigger (the Fiesta Bowl is attainable, as Liberty just showed).

The NBA:

• Last stand-ish for the Nuggets and Pacers tonight. Key differences: When everyone’s healthy, the Nuggets might be better than the Timberwolves, and that’s not the case with the Pacers vis-à-vis the Knicks. The Pacers, though, are the healthy team in their series, and the Nuggets are not. Jamal Murray’s calf is being called a concern, and I believe it, because I don’t think the Wolves are that good, even if it adds up that they’re the third-best team in the NBA.
• Tomorrow, we find out if the Celtics are actually in any sort of trouble or if they just aren’t really the kill-shot type. It was more believable that the Heat would do something crazy than it is that the Cavs will make this happen. That’s how the Heat work. They do crazy things.
• A moment of appreciation for Thunder/Mavericks being so geographically close. It’s hard for the rivalry to get traction because the Mavs have two other in-state foes, but this series could go a long way, especially if it goes a long way. The meetings in 2011, 2012, and 2016 all only lasted four or five games.

The NHL:

• The pressure isn’t fully on the Oilers yet, and even their biggest believers probably don’t think highly enough of them to expect sweeps, but tonight’s a great opportunity for the Canucks, and it’s not a situation where Edmonton can fully grab control of the series. Hopefully I’ve made clear that I’m not the best technical hockey analyst on the interweb, but “exciting team with well-labeled flaws from a region starved for success” is the sort of team even I can sniff out as bigger in the narrative than in the arena. That translates across sports.
• The Bruins did enough in Game 1 to make us question whether they might be better than the Panthers. Those questions have been put to rest for now, but as it goes with pitching, one good start by a goalie can go a long way.
• Good on the Stars for not blowing a 4–0 lead right after blowing a 3–0 lead, but now they have to go to Colorado. They have to win one there to have much hope.
• Are the Hurricanes the Moneyball A’s, in terms of being built for the regular season and struggling in the postseason? That’s an earnest question.

Chicago:

• Skenes is the story for the Cubs’ weekend series in Pittsburgh, but Jared Jones is probably the tougher matchup. Skenes still projects as a better pitcher on a per-inning basis, but he’s only made it through five innings once in his professional career, while Jones has done at least that in every one of his major league starts, a number that’s now up to seven. Skenes leads the International League in ERA, FIP, and strikeouts per inning. Jared Jones is in the top 30 in the majors in all of those plus xERA, and he’s fifth in strikeouts per inning. Skenes should be very good. Jones already is.
• Dansby Swanson’s a guy to watch on the Cubs side, and not in a good way. His knee’s been bothering him, enough that he sat out on Wednesday to get a BOGO deal on rest, with yesterday a short travel day. With Seiya Suzuki potentially returning this weekend, there will be some sort of roster move. Hopefully it isn’t necessary to put Swanson on the IL.
• That said, second base is less physically demanding than shortstop. I wonder if the Cubs would consider flipping Nico Hoerner with Swanson until Swanson’s 100% again. Swanson has still been fine defensively overall (the issues have been throws, which are probably fluky given the sample), but Hoerner is more than capable.
• In other shadowy injury developments, the Cubs didn’t list Jameson Taillon as Sunday’s starter. Left it ‘TBD’ even though Taillon last pitched last Sunday. Kyle Hendricks is going to make another rehab start, so it isn’t that, but a little concerning.
• The NBA Draft Lottery is this weekend, and the Bulls have a two percent chance at grabbing the top pick, plus about a seven percent chance of picking second, third, or fourth. Most likely, they’ll select eleventh. There isn’t a surefire first overall pick, but picking earlier is better, even if you’re the Bulls.
• In other Bulls news, that front office reportedly offered Patrick Williams a four-year extension at $16M/year before this past season began, per K.C. Johnson. He would have been the fourth-highest paid player on the Bulls, or third if you don’t include Lonzo Ball. It’s unclear if he’ll get that much through restricted free agency as a guy who missed half this season, has some other injury history, and hasn’t yet broken through as hoped.
• In a correction to that reporting from The Athletic about the new TV network for the Bulls, White Sox, and Blackhawks, the Sun-Times reported yesterday that Stadium Network, of which Jerry Reinsdorf is the controlling owner, will indeed be involved. They’ll produce the content. Standard Media Group will help with distribution.
• The Blackhawks and IceHogs extended their affiliate deal with the Indy Fuel over in the ECHL. Three more years of Fuel. That’s 137 Hanukkahs.

Iowa State:

• The new wrestling facility isn’t happening, and in that context, Jamie Pollard made a lot of freehand remarks about NIL and other college athletics financing questions. He said some interesting things, but the most interesting was probably his warning to some of his peer institutions: “If I was a member of the Big Ten or SEC, I’d start looking over my shoulder and wondering when is the day going to come when the top of the SEC is not going to want the bottom of the SEC.” It’s a valid question, and the most crucial fulcrum is probably going to be whether, in the next round of TV negotiations, the Big Ten and SEC end up pushing for non-uniform revenue payouts across the conference. When Washington and Oregon joined the Big Ten, the conference crossed that Rubicon. When Stanford, Cal, and SMU joined the ACC, that league followed suit. Is that going to become normal? If so, it’s going to get expensive for Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, and USC to subsidize Illinois’s membership in their league. Even a particular school in Iowa City might be at risk of relegation.

One more:

• The concept of John Calipari leaving four scholarship spots empty might make some sense (the idea is that injuries are rare enough that keeping four extra guys happy isn’t worth the trouble), but this opening line from ESPN’s article on the topic was too funny not to share: “As he prepares for his first season at Arkansas, John Calipari said he won’t stack his rosters with an abundance of talent, which was his tactic during his lengthy tenure at Kentucky.” Don’t look for talent in Fayetteville, guys!