Is this Pittsburgh Pirates star headed toward Mike Trout territory?

The Pittsburgh Pirates are one of the worst teams in baseball and have remained one of the league's worst clubs for over 30 years now. Whatever they have been doing clearly has not been working, and there is no end in sight.

So what does that mean for superstar pitcher Paul Skenes, who is in his second season with the Pirates and has already established himself as one of the top arms in the big leagues?

Well, trade speculation has already surged around Skenes, who is under team control through 2029. Pittsburgh rebuffed inquiries for him back at the deadline, and it seems unlikely that the Pirates would move him this winter.

That could mean that Skenes may end up stuck in Steel City for the foreseeable future, which has Zachary D. Rymer likening the 23-year-old to one of the MLB's most prominent fallen stars: Mike Trout.

"Skenes is clearly one of these guys on paper [a bona fide ace], but that only matters to MLB so much as long as he struggles to capture the hearts and minds of fans outside of Pittsburgh," Rymer wrote. "Sadly, it feels like Mike Trout and the Los Angeles Angels all over again. Throughout the 2010s, Trout was well on his way to being GOATed. Yet despite all his success and not-infrequent attempts by MLB to hype him, it always felt like he was just a bit outside the mainstream as he labored in Anaheim for an Angels franchise now mired in an 11-year playoff drought. Now in his post-prime years, what star power Trout had is a ghostly apparition. It's a sad story that MLB surely does not want repeated with Skenes."

To be fair, the Angels' ineptitude is not the only reason for Trout's demise. The former first-round pick has played in 100 games just twice over the last six seasons, with the 120 contests in which he has appeared this year representing his highest mark since 2019.

In the case of Skenes, it isn't injuries. It's the fact that the Pirates are currently an irrelevant franchise, and while the right-hander has certainly garnered national attention because of how good he is, there is also no question that the spotlight is limited because he is playing for a perpetually losing organization.

Skenes has pitched to the tune of a 2.03 ERA in 2025, tops in the majors. He has allowed just 132 hits while racking up 209 strikeouts over 181.1 innings of work, making his second straight All-Star appearance.