Perrotto: Paul Skenes’ All-Star Game Start Proof of Changing Times
I am a product of the old-school baseball church.
It was part of the time I grew up in, the 1970s and early 1980s, when pitching strategies were much different from those used in 2025.
Starters looked to pitch complete games. And when they couldn’t go nine innings, they were expected to last at least six or seven innings.
There were no openers or bullpen games. Most teams had 10-man pitching staffs as opposed to today’s 13-man staffs.
That’s not to say that I yearn for the old days. And I’m certainly not against all the new age thinking when it comes to openers and bullpen games. Hey, whatever it takes to win games.
However, sometimes I can’t completely bury my old school ways. Tonight’s All-Star Game in Atlanta is an example.
Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes will start for the National League in the game at Truist Park. He will become the first pitcher to ever start All-Star Games in each of his first two seasons.
I can’t quibble with NL manager Dave Roberts of the Los Angeles Dodgers selecting Skenes. There is no doubt in my mind that Skenes is the best pitcher in the NL and deserves the honor.
However, there’s something I can’t get past, and that’s Skenes’ win-loss record. He is 4-8 through 20 starts.
I understand that pitching wins have been devalued over the years, especially as starters’ workloads keep shrinking. Here’s a little inside scoop: pitchers have ego and still like to see a W next to their name in the box score.
Yet it doesn’t feel right to have a pitcher with a 4-8 record starting in the All-Star Game. And it won’t sound right if Fox’s Joe Davis says at the start of the broadcast that “four-game winner Paul Skenes is on the mound for the National League.”
It’s still hard to accept after growing up in a time when 20 wins was a benchmark of a great season and a 4-8 record was bad.
However, we have plenty of more advanced metrics that can measure a starting pitcher’s success. Skenes grades out well in all of them.
Skenes’ 2.01 ERA leads the major leagues. So does his 4.8 bWAR, 29 pitching runs, and 3.2 adjusted pitching wins. Skenes is also atop the leaderboard or close to it in many other metrics.
I would take the time to explain them all, but I’m not Bill James and have a limited amount of bandwidth. So, please check Baseball Reference, FanGraphs, or Baseball Prospectus for more details.
Those numbers say Skenes should be on the mound to start the game.
The only way to dispute that is if you still subscribe to the theory that the pitcher with the most wins should start. In that case, the Milwaukee Brewers’ Freddy Peralta, who is 11-4, should be on the mound.
However, if Skenes played on a good team like the Brewers, then he would have 11 wins. And if Peralta played on a team as offensively feeble as the Pirates, he might have just four wins.
Though he says all the right things publicly, Skenes would much rather be pitching tonight with an 11-4 record than a 4-8 one.