NEW YORK — A Pittsburgh radio host has put the Yankees back in the middle of the Paul Skenes sweepstakes, floating a trade idea that would bring the reigning National League Cy Young winner to the Bronx. The proposal lit up social media within hours. It also drew an immediate counter from the Yankees side: not at that price.
The idea, pitched by Pittsburgh-area host Andrew Fillipponi spread fast because the name at the center of it sells. Skenes, 24, is the most coveted young pitcher in baseball, and the notion of him in pinstripes is enough to start an argument.
Fillipponi publicly questioned whether Skenes should truly be considered untouchable and floated a Yankees package centered on young pitching and top prospects.
“Is Paul Skenes really untouchable? If the Yankees offered the following, would you make the trade?” Fillipponi wrote while outlining a proposed package featuring Yankees prospects and young major league talent.
The Pirates are trying to climb back into the National League Wild Card race, and Fillipponi’s tarde framework would hand them a frontline starter to replace Skenes, a second arm for the back of the rotation, and a pair of premier prospects to restock the system. For a rebuilding club, that is a haul.
Skenes is the prize that makes any package tempting. He won the 2025 NL Cy Young Award and carries a 2.86 ERA with 107 strikeouts over 88 innings this season, all while under team control for years. Pitchers like him almost never reach the market, which is exactly why mock trades keep inventing ways to move him.
The name that blows up the deal
Here is the package in full: Cam Schlittler, fellow starter Will Warren, and top prospects George Lombard Jr. and Spencer Jones, all to Pittsburgh for Skenes. Warren is the piece swapped in this time, replacing prospect Carlos Lagrange from last summer’s version. And the centerpiece, Schlittler, is precisely why the whole thing collapses.
A year ago, Schlittler was a question mark. By late July 2025 he had made just three big league starts with a 4.91 ERA, a fast-rising prospect still unproven at the highest level. Trading him then was an easy call to consider.
That player no longer exists. Schlittler has become one of the most dominant starters in the sport. He leads the American League in ERA and ranks first in the majors in strikeout-to-walk ratio, and he sat atop the most recent MLB.com Cy Young poll on the AL side, drawing all but one first-place vote.
The historical company he keeps is the clearest sign of his rise. Yankees beat writer Chris Kirschner laid out a stat that frames the absurdity of including him in any Skenes package.
“Cam Schlittler’s 2.25 career ERA is the lowest ERA by a Yankees pitcher whose first 30 career appearances were all starts,” Kirschner posted. “It’s also the third-lowest ERA by any MLB pitcher since 1913, trailing only José Fernández (2.09 ERA) and Paul Skenes (2.15 ERA).”
The takeaway is hard to miss. Through 30 starts, Schlittler’s numbers sit a hair behind Skenes and ahead of nearly every pitcher in modern history. The Yankees would be trading a 25-year-old ace to acquire a 24-year-old ace, then adding three more pieces on top for the privilege.
Why the Yankees would never do it
That is the core of the backlash. Skenes is the bigger national name, the reigning Cy Young winner, the face of a franchise. But the gap between him and Schlittler has narrowed to almost nothing, and Schlittler comes with the same youth and the same years of cheap control.
For the Yankees, the appeal of adding a top arm is real, but only as a complement to Schlittler, not a replacement for him. New York’s stated goal is to stack aces, not swap one for another while emptying the farm system. Surrendering Schlittler plus Warren, Lombard and Jones would weaken the very rotation the deal is meant to strengthen.
The Yankees have other young arms they could dangle if they truly wanted to pursue an ace, names like Lagrange and others in the pipeline. Schlittler is not one of them. He has pitched his way out of every trade conversation.
A debate that says more about the Bronx
The proposal is unlikely to ever leave social media, and the Pirates have given no indication they intend to move Skenes at all. But the noise serves a purpose. It confirms how far Schlittler has climbed in a single year.
New York entered the week navigating a rough stretch and a tightened American League East race, with the rotation one of the few constants. The idea of trading its breakout ace for another team’s, even one as gifted as Skenes, lands as a non-starter in the Bronx. The most outrageous part of the scenario is not that someone wants Skenes in pinstripes. It is the suggestion that the Yankees would give up Schlittler to get him.
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