Pirates ace Paul Skenes wins first Cy Young Award and Tigers star Tarik Skubal goes back-to-back

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The individual trophy cases for Paul Skenes and Tarik Skubal are growing increasingly full.

The next step in the evolution of baseball’s two best pitchers is winning — preferably where they are.

The 23-year-old Skenes capped his blistering rise to stardom by capturing the National League Cy Young Award on Wednesday night. The Pittsburgh Pirates ace was a unanimous choice by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America, the honor coming minutes after Skubal won baseball’s premier pitching prize in the American League for the second straight year as the anchor of the Detroit Tigers.

As gratified as they are by the recognition, both said they are eager for their respective teams to get in on the act in 2026.

That’s where things get tricky.

The 28-year-old Skubal is entering his final year of club control, and while he would like to stay in Detroit beyond next season, he’s also well aware the Tigers could trade him as a business decision, considering the hefty raise the left-hander figures to command should he hit the open market as a free agent.

It’s much the same for Skenes, who remains under team control for the rest of the decade but found himself pushing back against a report that he’s already told teammates he is eager to move on.

“I don’t know where that came from,” Skenes said. “The goal is to win and the goal is to win in Pittsburgh.”

The Pirates finished last in the NL Central in 2025, well off the pace of front-running Milwaukee. The first pitcher since Dwight Gooden with the New York Mets in the mid-1980s to win Rookie of the Year one season and a Cy Young Award the next remains optimistic Pittsburgh is closer to contending than most think.

“The way that fans see us outside of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh is not supposed to win,” Skenes said. “There are 29 fan bases that expect us to lose. I want to be a part of the 26 guys that change that.”

Skenes — selected first overall by the Pirates in the 2023 amateur draft after a standout career at Air Force and LSU — did his part in 2025, leading the majors in ERA (1.97) while striking out 216 batters in 187 1/3 innings during his first full season in the big leagues.

Yet even with his brilliance, Skenes needed a little late help from Pittsburgh’s woeful offense to avoid becoming the first Cy Young-winning starting pitcher to finish with a losing record. Skenes won three of his final four decisions to finish 10-10.

That so-so win/loss mark didn’t stop the towering 6-foot-6 right-hander from placing atop all 30 ballots. Philadelphia left-hander Cristopher Sánchez received every second-place vote, and World Series MVP Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers finished third.

Sánchez’s 2029 option price increased by $1 million to $15 million and his 2030 option price by $1 million to $16 million as a result of being a Cy Young Award finalist.

Skubal received 26 first-place votes in the AL from a separate BBWAA panel. The other four went to runner-up Garrett Crochet of the Boston Red Sox. Hunter Brown of the Houston Astros came in third.

Although disappointed to be out of contention, Skenes said playing out the string was “a blessing” individually in some ways.

“It allowed me to try some new things in August and September that I wouldn’t have gotten to try if we were playing for the playoffs,” he explained.

Skubal and the Tigers have gotten a taste of October baseball each of the last two seasons, thanks in large part to his ascendance.

A year after taking a massive step forward by winning the AL pitching Triple Crown on his way to being a unanimous Cy Young winner, Skubal backed it up by serving as the anchor for the Tigers during a volatile season in which they squandered a 15 1/2-game lead in the AL Central and were caught by Cleveland down the stretch.

Detroit got a bit of revenge in the wild-card round, beating the division-champion Guardians in three games following a 14-strikeout gem by Skubal in the series opener.

Yet as fun as the season was at times, the disappointment of falling short of the ultimate goal lingers.

“Ending the season on a loss is not a fun thing,” Skubal said. “You can be proud of what we accomplished, but you want to end the season with a win … the one in October or maybe deep in November you get to play in.”

Skubal is the 12th hurler to win baseball’s top pitching honor in consecutive years, joining a group that includes Hall of Famers Randy Johnson and Pedro Martínez, who was the last American League pitcher to go back-to-back, for Boston in 1999 and 2000.

“I think a lot of it is not being complacent with who I am today,” Skubal said. “I still think there’s more to tap into. I don’t think this is the finished version of myself.”

And he doesn’t think this is the finished version of the Tigers.

“You want to win this award as many times as you can in your career, but I’d gladly trade a Cy Young for a World Series,” Skubal said.

Skubal was 13-6 with an AL-leading 2.21 ERA and 240 strikeouts in 195 1/3 innings during the regular season. Then he went 1-0 with a 1.74 ERA in three playoff starts for Detroit, which was eliminated by Seattle in their Division Series.

Crochet led the American League in innings (205 1/3) and strikeouts (255).

Brown’s top-three finish earned Houston an extra pick after the first round of next July’s amateur draft under the prospect promotion incentive in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement.

Skubal’s historic run comes with a chance for him to cash in as potential free agency looms. Economics aside, Skubal would be just fine sticking in the Motor City.

“I’ve given everything I have to this organization. I want to be a Tiger for a very, very long time,” he said. “I’m just going to do what I do and not really focus on any of that stuff.”

Skenes and Skubal both started the All-Star Game this year. The only other time the two All-Star Game starters won the Cy Young Awards in the same season was 2001, when Johnson and Roger Clemens accomplished the feat.

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MVP awards for both leagues will be handed out Thursday.

Dodgers two-way star Shohei Ohtani is a heavy favorite to repeat in the NL and win for the fourth time overall, including twice in the AL.

New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge is seeking his third AL MVP in what could be a close vote with another top contender, Seattle catcher Cal Raleigh.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB