If Pirates Move on from Paul Skenes, the Trade Must Look Like This

Despite the fact that the Pittsburgh Pirates have absolutely no reason to move on from Paul Skenes in any deal this offseason, some still believe there's an opportunity for that to happen.

Whether it does or not remains to be seen, but as I've said many times, drastic changes would have to happen within the organization if it ever did.

The latest suggests a trade could happen, although the return was actually something that's a lot more fair than most other mock trades, and Anthony Castrovince of MLB.com proposed a deal that would move on from Skenes in a deal to send him to the Detroit Tigers.

Mets get: LHP Tarik Skubal

Tigers get: RHP Paul Skenes

Pirates get: SS/OF/2B Jett Williams (Mets’ No. 3 prospect), RHP Jonah Tong (Mets’ No. 4 prospect), 3B/1B Jacob Reimer (Mets’ No. 6 prospect), OF Max Clark (Tigers’ No. 2 prospect), SS Bryce Rainer (Tigers’ No. 4 prospect)

“Here, I can’t stress enough that we’re trying to have some fun with these ideas and that we don’t actually expect the Pirates to deal Skenes (I’m also still skeptical the Tigers actually deal Skubal, but we’ll see). This, however, is a scenario in which you could reasonably argue that the Tigers and Pirates are properly taking advantage of the trade value of their respective aces.....

As for the Pirates, they might be going into this winter with the intent to spend to amplify their offense for Skenes, who received all of 11 runs of support total in his 10 losses in 2025. But let’s be honest: They feel more than a (realistically priced) bat or two away from contention. This trade would give them a healthy stash of prospects (including four Top 100 guys in Williams, Tong, Clark and Rainer) that would make Pittsburgh a much more viable force in 2027 and beyond.

If we're talking in possibilities here, I'm still going to go out on a limb and say this would never happen.

The Pirates, again, don't have absolutely any reason to move on from Skenes, but if it were to happen, this is the type of package they’d have to get back.