Pirates' Paul Skenes has added a new pitch

Paul Skenes has a new pitch.

That's what The Athletic's Eno Sarris revealed during an appearance on MLB Network on Wednesday night.

The Pittsburgh Pirates' Cy Young winner has been working on "a slower version of his sweeper," according to Sarris.

That's what the great ones do, isn't it? Skenes had a magical second season in the major leagues, and so he's been in the lab adding yet another weapon.

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In 2025, Skenes already threw seven different pitch types tracked by Baseball Savant, tossing all of them at least 140 times.

They were:

• 4-seam fastball, 98.2 MPH
• Sweeper, 84.5 MPH
• Split finger, 93.7 MPH
• Changeup, 88.7 MPH
• Sinker, 97.6 MPH
• Slider, 85.3 MPH
• Curveball, 83.9 MPH

Given that the pitches listed as a sweeper and a curveball for Skenes were so close in velocity, it could make some sense for him to want to have one offering that's even slower.

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Of course, for a guy with the arm speed of Skenes, that isn't the easiest thing to accomplish while maintaining mechanics that are otherwise the same. You don't want hitters to be able to pick up on something that suggests a slower pitch is coming.

But if Skenes pulls it off, he'll be that much more dangerous.

He enters the season as the favorite to repeat as the NL Cy Young winner, and he hasn't stopped trying to get better.

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