The best player in baseball is a very hard question to ask as there are multiple people who the answer could be. If you said Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani I can see arguments for and against both of those players. But the other side of the argument is where are the pitchers. Paul Skenes in my opinion is the best pitcher in baseball coming into the season and I can make the argument that he is the best player in baseball.

Paul Skenes last year won the Cy Young award in just his second posting an ERA of 1.97! Are you kidding me that is insane for a season to have an ERA below 2 is so incredibly difficult to do. And for those of you that do not know ERA is how many runs a pitcher gives up for every nine innings that they pitch. An ERA of 1.97 basically means that per game he gave up only 2 runs. Adding 216 strikeouts in just 187.2 innings pitched last year. He was the best pitcher in the national league by far last year and possibly the best pitcher in the entire league.

In my opinion pitcher is the most important position in all of baseball and the hardest one to perform exceptionally at. Pitchers have full control over the baseball if they are bad then the other team will take advantage and be a big reason for why a team loses games. Paul Skenes plays on the Pirates a team with a not so good offense and while Skenes did have his off games most of his losses on the season can because of a lack of offense.

Skenes this next season will be even better in my opinion his mechanics are just too good for him to have any kind of a drop off. Skenes is adding another pitch to his already long list of pitches and it makes perfect sense for him. As a pitcher hitters will study long to try and figure you out and adding something that can’t be studied a sure way to play even better.

Overall with pitcher being the most important position on the field this gives them an edge in my personal rankings. If Skenes has another season like the two before making it three years in a row of exceptional baseball it would be hard to make the argument that he isn’t the best player in baseball even over Judge and Ohtani.