The No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 draft is on his way to the majors. Pirates right-hander will make his highly anticipated MLB debut this Saturday in a home outing against the visiting Cubs, the the team announced. The 66, 235-pound Skenes is the embodiment of a prototypical, power-armed ace. Hes widely regarded as one of the top pitching prospects in the sport if not the top pitching prospect. Pittsburgh selected him with the top pick in last years draft after Skenes posted a 2.18 ERA and fanned more than 36% of his opponents in a three-year college career that included two seasons with the Air Force Academy and a third with the eventual national champion Louisiana State University Tigers. Skenes posted a comical 1.69 ERA over the course of 122 innings, striking out a hair over 45% of his opponents. You wont find a scouting report on Skenes that doesnt laud him as a potential perennial All-Star and front-of-the-rotation pitcher with Cy Young upside. His fastball sits in the upper 90s and can J.p. Crawford Jersey reach 102 mph. , and all give him credit for a plus-plus (70-grade) fastball on the 20-80 scale, with MLB.com even pegging as an 80-grade pitch. His slider draws similar praise. that Skenes four-seam/slider combo was so dominant in college that he needed to work on his seldom-used changeup and a two-seamer in order to reach his ace-level ceiling. Hes worked to incorporate both into his repertoire more regularly in Triple-A this year. alongside , and as one of the four best pitching prospects in the past 20 years of the MLB draft. To this point in his young career, Skenes has done nothing to suggest the hype is unwarranted. Hes made seven starts in Triple-A the Pirates have limited his per-outing workload, leaving him at 27 1/3 innings on the season and posted a 0.99 ERA with an over-the-moon 42.9% strikeout rate against a 7.6% walk rate. Skenes has kept the ball on the ground at a 51% clip and yielded just one homer all season. Though Pittsburgh has ramped him up in quite cautious fashion, hes now been up to six innings in a start, so he should be able to work relatively deep into his debut effort if his performance dictates. Skenes ascension to the Pirates rotation comes at a time when fellow rookie looks well on his way to becoming a high-end rotation arm himself. The 22-year-old Jones entered the season as a top-100 prospect himself and has raced out to a brilliant start: 2.63 ERA, 33.8% strikeout rate, 3.2% walk rate in 41 innings. In an ideal setting, that electric young duo will join stalwart righty , who signed a five-year extension during spring training, in forming the core of the Bucs rotation for years to come. Veteran is holding down one of the rotation spots behind that trio for now, but hes only on a one-year contract. Fellow southpaw entered the season in the rotation as well, but hes since gone down with a forearm strain. The Pirates are surely hopeful that some combination of , , , and can break through in the majors and form a homegrown rotation that can thrust the team into perennial contention. The timing of Skenes promotion comes at a point when enough time has elapsed that he cant accrue a full year of big league service time at least not by conventional means. There will only be 143 days remaining in the season by the time he debuts, leaving him well shy of the requisite 172 for a year of service. However, under the prospect promotion incentives in the 2022-26 collective bargaining agreement, Skenes could still gain a full year of service if he finishes in the top two of National League Rookie of the Year voting. In the event that Skenes achieves that feat, hed have five additional years of club control, meaning he wouldnt be eligible for free agency until the 2029-30 offseason and wouldnt reach arbitration eligibility until the 2026-27 offseason. If Skenes sticks in the big leagues but does not gain a year of service based on Rookie of the Year voting, hed be under club control through the 2030 season. However, the timing of his promotion also leaves him as a surefire Super Two player in that scenario, meaning hed still be arb-eligible following the 2026 campaign and would go through the arbitration proce s four times rather than the standard three. Gorman Thomas Jersey