Skenes All-Star Start to Atone for MLB’s Strasburg Marketing Miss

ARLINGTON, Texas – Fourteen years ago, Major League Baseball made a grievous mistake. The league left rookie pitching sensation Stephen Strasburg off the National League roster for the All-Star Game played that year at Angel Stadium.

MLB didn’t make the same mistake this year. An equally impressive Paul Skenes, a flame-throwing rookie right-hander  now pitching for the Pittsburgh Pirates, will start Tuesday night’s All-Star Game for the National League.

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“I’m well aware of the history of misses,” NL manager Torey Lovullo said Monday at Globe Life Field of players mistakenly left off All-Star teams, “And that was a big whiff,” he said of the Strasburg decision.

Lovullo publicly broke the news to Skenes while he was a guest Friday on The Dan Patrick Show. Lovullo called the show from his home in Phoenix where he manages the defending NL champion Arizona Diamondbacks.

“I just wanted to congratulate you,” Lovullo said, surprising Skenes on the radio show. “I’ve chosen you to be the starter for the NL in the 2024 All-Star Game.”

Now the ball is rolling. Skenes, whose romance with LSU gymnast and Sports Illustrated swimsuit model Livvy Dunne has made him known far beyond the normal MLB fan base, will face Corbin Burnes of the American League and pitch at least the first inning. If he sets the AL side down in order, Lovullo could let him face Aaron Judge, batting cleanup in the AL lineup, to open the second.

“That would be cool,” he said, although Lovullo has yet to commit to that move.

In 2010, Strasburg was recalled from the minors by the Washington Nationals and made his first big league start on June 8. For his baseball exploits, Skenes nationally has gone largely under the radar–his No. 30 jersey is not among the Top 20 sellers for the first half of the season, MLB reported. Strasburg was heralded by Sports Illustrated at the time as the “most hyped and closely watched pitching prospect in the history of baseball.”

He didn’t disappoint. He struck out 14 that day on his way to defeating the Pirates, 5-2, at Nationals Park in front of 40,315.

Strasburg had seven starts prior to the July 10, 2010, All-Star Game, winning three, logging a 1.91 ERA and 61 strikeouts in 42 2/3 innings. He was the highest impact pitcher in baseball, yet MLB missed a huge marketing and public relations opportunity.

Not so, this year.

Skenes signed a one-year, $9.76 million contract with the Pirates out of LSU that included a major-league record $9.2 million bonus and a base contract at the rookie minimum of $740,000 that had a cash value of $560,898 because he spent the season’s first two months in the minor leagues, according to Spotrac. He doesn’t earn a bonus for selection to the NL All-Star team.

He was brought up from the minors on May 11. In his inaugural, he pitched before a crowd of 34,924 at 40,000-seat PNC Park in Pittsburgh, lasted four innings and struck out seven, failing to earn the decision in a 10-9 win over the Chicago Cubs.

Skenes has made 11 starts total and is 6-0 with a 1.90 ERA and 86 whiffs in 56 1/3 innings. Twice already he’s been taken out early with no-hitters because he reached 100 pitches.

But he hasn’t been a home crowd pleaser. For his six Pittsburgh starts this season, the crowds have averaged just 28,969. Others, though, in the baseball world have noticed.

“When I got a chance to make a decision like this, it was a no brainer,” Lovullo said. “I wanted the world to get a chance to see him.”

Strasburg and Skenes were the first players selected in their respective drafts. Like Strasburg, Skenes is a high impact pitcher who regularly reaches 100 mph with his fastball and what others have dubbed a “splinker,” a high velocity cross between a fastball and sinker.

The Nationals tried to protect Strasburg by slow walking his progression through the minor leagues for almost a year. The rationale behind leaving Strasburg off the All-Star Game roster was two-fold: He hadn’t been in the Majors long enough and it seemed he would have plenty of chances to play in All-Star Games.

Unlike these days when the rosters are pre-selected, managers had the ability to choose and add several pitchers. Strasburg didn’t make the team in the voting of fans and players. NL manager Charlie Manuel also declined.

“I say let him pitch and let him get his feet on the ground in the major leagues and kind of let him earn his way,” he said at the time.

It was a missed opportunity.

Strasburg made five starts after the All-Star Game before blowing out his elbow, making his last start for more than a year on Aug. 21, 2010. He subsequently had Tommy John surgery and didn’t make the NL All-Star Game roster until 2012. He was granted that honor only two more times in his injury-shortened 13-year career.

This time, MLB is striking while Skenes is hot, like Matt Harvey in 2013. Harvey, another hard-throwing right-hander for the New York Mets, was in his first full season when he was chosen to start the All-Star Game at New York’s Citi Field. He was 7-2 with a 2.35 ERA heading into the July 16 game, which had a carnival-like atmosphere and was a one-off in Harvey’s own home park.

Harvey would soon blow out his own elbow, undergo Tommy John, and never realized his incredible promise. He missed the entire 2014 season, never made another All-Star team, and his career dissipated over nine seasons.

The Pirates have tried to manage Skenes by pitching him every six days. He’s gone as far as seven innings only three times and thrown 100 or more pitches only four times. So far, so good.

The Bucs haven’t been as successful with another rookie right-hander, Jared Jones, who throws equally as hard as Skenes. Jones started the season with the Pirates, but has been on the injured list since June 15 after making his 16th start because of a strained lat below his right shoulder. There’s no timetable right now for his return.

These are the cautionary tales as Skenes embarks on his first All-Star start.

“It’s just a matter of learning the game, forming your base and being strong,” Skenes said when asked how he can avoid the injuries that have befallen other high-intensity young pitchers. “We have our trainers here and they’ve been watching closely the volume [of pitches] I throw. You can be cautious, but after that things fall where they may.”

Skenes upside is limitless if he remains healthy.

His baseball cards are already MLB’s hottest on the collectable market. Collectors submitted over 3,000 Skenes trading cards for grading in June, according to Professional Sports Authenticator data provided to Sportico.

Lovullo said he was pretty impressed by Skene’s seven innings of no-run, no-hit ball at Milwaukee on June 11, so the decision to start him Tuesday became easy.

He said he was so excited about it, he called MLB with the idea of making the announcement early. It’s accustomed for All-Star managers to make that choice public on the Monday prior to the game, as AL manager Bruce Bochy did with Burnes.

Lovullo, though, said the plan was hatched for him to break the news on Patrick’s radio show.

“We’re going to be on a big stage [Tuesday],” he said, explaining his actions. “I’m here to support MLB. He’s potentially a generational talent. I want to showcase him in the best way I can.”

Dylan Manfre contributed to this story.

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