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  • Kiley McDaniel, ESPN MLB InsiderJun 29, 2023, 07:00 AM ET

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    • ESPN MLB Insider
    • Kiley McDaniel covers MLB prospects, the MLB Draft and more, including trades and free agency.
    • Has worked for four MLB teams.

THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY of top prospects for the 2023 MLB draft have spent years in the youth sports industrial complex, participating in a decade or more of regular events and leagues. It’s a familiar refrain for many of us: AAU basketball, travel teams, little league, etc., a system that costs tens of thousands of dollars and countless long weekends. It can all be worth it, though, for the dream of one day getting a Division I scholarship, becoming a draft pick and eventually making it to the big leagues.

That wasn’t Arjun Nimmala’s path.

Growing up, Nimmala and his family would take trips from his hometown of Valrico, Florida, to India to visit relatives. They stayed in the southern city of Vijayawada, visiting for a few weeks each time. He’d play cricket with friends. He was a batsman — when he tried bowling (akin to being a pitcher, but with a stiff throwing arm) it didn’t go well. Nimmala’s scouting report on his bowling: “I’m horrible, I don’t get the form right. I’m just a hitter.”

Until he was 12, these trips were a regular part of Nimmala’s life, and cricket was one of his most frequent pastimes. When I asked if he was good enough to be, say, the equivalent of a Division I athlete at cricket, he paused, then agreed. “If I really practiced to the point that the others did, I think I would’ve been pretty good at cricket,” he said.

Nimmala’s cricket future is a hypothetical now — he gave it up, along with soccer and basketball, to focus on baseball when he started high school in 2019. Just four years later, earlier this spring, I ranked him as the third-best baseball player on Earth born in 2005.

The 17-year-old shortstop is right there at the top of this year’s MLB draft class, a near lock to go in the first round next month. I went to see him play in April in a regular-season game for Strawberry Crest High School outside of Tampa, Florida, and there were a couple dozen scouts there, just like at every game this spring, including two general managers, one of those picking inside of the top five picks. One scout who saw him weeks before me said Nimmala had “the most impressive pregame [combinations of] infield [practice] and batting practice I’ve ever seen from a high school player.”

How Nimmala got there says plenty about the draft pipeline — but even more about Nimmala.

THE SCOUT’S VIEW of Nimmala is pretty simple. His batting practice is incredibly impressive, with scouts projecting anywhere from 25 to 35 homers annually from his raw power. Defensively he’s solid at shortstop, though some scouts worry that he’ll continue getting stronger, lose a step and be forced to move to third base. He has all the traits needed to project to hit for average — hitting mechanics, bat speed, loose hands, intelligence for the game — but his in-game performances against top competition have been more good than great.

One easy explanation is that he’s nearly a year younger than most of the other players in his draft class. Being young for the class is one of the strongest empirical indicators of future success for high school position players, which is why Nimmala allows scouts and executives to imagine almost any outcome, with names like Javier Baez and Carlos Correa tossed around by evaluators.

The other influencing factor is relative inexperience: Nimmala missed all of those showcases full of middle schoolers and their dog-eat-dog travel parents in search of that elusive D-I offer — because as a freshman in high school, he and his family still weren’t aware any of it existed.

“My parents are from India and they had no clue about the recruiting process,” he said. “We didn’t even know there was a certain thing called college commitments. We didn’t even know a D-I player. It was so new and out of the blue for us.”

Despite that, Nimmala committed to Florida State as a freshman in high school, months after playing his first travel ball game. His family discovered what college commitments were essentially just as he was getting his first offer. (The Nimmalas are now old pros at the process — Arjun’s younger brother Akhil committed to UCF this spring.)

Jimmy Belanger is the Florida State coach who first spotted Nimmala; he’s now the pitching coach at Clemson. He described a pretty normal recruiting process — FSU showed interest soon after first scouting him, the family took a tour of the school, primarily focused on academics, and Nimmala committed within a few months of first contact — but the process of discovering him was more unusual.

Belanger was new to the job and to recruiting in Florida. He asked Nimmala’s travel ball coach Jimmy Osting before a game if they had anyone interesting on the team and Osting mentioned the new kid at shortstop. “Nimmala immediately stood out,” Belanger said. “At that age — he was 14 at the time — he didn’t have physical tools necessarily, nobody really does at that age. But the ease and fluidity in all of his actions, the projection to his frame — you knew the tools were going to come. I immediately called our other coach in the area to come see him the next day.”

Because Nimmala was new on the scene, rival schools like Miami and Florida didn’t know about him yet. Belanger saw Nimmala in a more secluded field at the tournament, but when he brought his colleague the next day, it was at a four-field complex with a number of rival coaches around.

“We quickly agreed this kid was special, so then we both made sure not to make it obvious who we were watching because the other coaches were there to see other teams,” he said. “We took turns talking to rival coaches and making sure their backs were turned toward the field Nimmala was on.”

By the time the other schools caught up, it was too late. “He became famous to colleges about a year later when he went to a national showcase,” Belanger said. “By then, the tools were obvious.”

THIS OFFSEASON, Nimmala trained with New York Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor, whose agent is also advising Nimmala ahead of the draft — and who happens to be Nimmala’s favorite player. Lindor was born in Puerto Rico but also went to high school in central Florida and committed to Florida State, so there are some parallels. But for Nimmala, it’s more about the vibe: “He’s my favorite player and not because I’ve been practicing with him … he was my lock screen before I even met him,” Nimmala said. “He loves to play the game with fun and passion and he still carries that with him. That’s why they call him Mr. Smile. And that’s kind of what I model my game after.”

Last year’s fifth overall pick, Nationals outfielder Elijah Green, Rays outfielder Josh Lowe and Rangers first baseman Nate Lowe, Josh’s brother, also joined Nimmala and Lindor in the workouts. And Lindor had some pointers for Nimmala defensively, aimed at saving his arm for a grueling 162-game season: “He wanted me to move my feet around more and be really agile and quick to the ball and stay low when I throw. And those are the kind of things I worked on and got better at this season.”

It’s all a far cry from summers in India, which have been on pause since 2018, partly because of the pandemic but mostly because baseball has become a year-round focus for him. Nimmala has played a full summer of games for the past few years, which he says also has taught him about a pro mentality and schedule to training. (It doesn’t hurt that the head coach at Strawberry Crest, Eric Beattie, was a second round pick by the Detroit Tigers in the 2004 draft.) Focusing on building functional baseball strength and flexibility without losing sight of mechanical work and live reps has become a full-time job. Nimmala told me in April that it was the last day of his intensive International Baccalaureate course schedule, so his days until the draft would be more like a pro schedule, focused even more on training (with some studying for tests mixed in).

In a short time, Nimmala went from being late to learn about the recruiting process to one of the earliest commitments in his class to training with his favorite MLB player. Now add GMs showing up to games and millions of dollars on the line, it had to have felt like everything was heating up this spring.

“That’s true. It did get so much hotter,” Nimmala said. “But the thing is I felt like I was really geared for that … I felt like I was ready for the pressure because I put in all that work, not to just bail in front of them for me to do good for myself. So all, all the tension, all the pressure, of course it got worse and there was more of it, but I just tried to stay off that as much as I can.”

And playing in front of the heavy-hitter execs and GMs coming to every game? “In the preseason … I would be thinking about that a lot and I was like, ‘Oh shoot, this dude’s coming, this dude’s coming.’ What I realized is that I should really not be thinking about that they’re here. … I want to impress them and do as well as I can, but I’m playing for my team and for myself, not for them​​.”

I expected that once he committed to FSU as a freshman, something that objectively put him in the top 50 or so players in the country for his age group, Nimmala would have considered himself a future professional. But when I asked him when he felt like pro ball was a reasonable thing to dream about, the answer was surprising.

“Last summer, my last travel ball year,” he said. “I realized I was pretty good because I heard draft talk and it’s hard to keep away from that because things just get to you and people talk. Then I realized that there was a decent amount of attention, and that’s kind of when I realized that I had a good chance.”

There were dozens of scouts, and sometimes more than a hundred, at most of his summer events. Nimmala was playing with the best players in the country; in some cases every player on the field was going to play pro ball. And yet he considered himself a potential pro prospect at the latest time he could possibly think that. I asked a number of scouts and coaches if Nimmala was being falsely humble. Every single one of them laughed and said some version of “nope, that’s who Arjun is.”

AS AN ELITE prospect with a unique background, Nimmala is plenty notable already. But after chatting with him for 45 minutes I was amazed at how composed and natural he was as a 17-year-old talking with a stranger during a pivotal time in his life. I mixed a couple of tricky questions in — how would you evaluate your brother as a player? how do you handle facing competition well below your level? how do you handle failure on the field? — that even veteran pros might have some trouble with, and he quickly and naturally found an honest and/or correct answer for all of them. I asked the most impressive hitter he has played with and he immediately named the consensus best hitter in the class, Walker Jenkins. When I asked the pitcher he was most impressed with, he said the guy with probably the best raw stuff in the class whom he faced last summer: Charlee Soto.

I sat at a picnic table waiting for his practice to end, and when he was done he sat down and immediately asked what I was working on — the early stages of a piece projecting Shohei Ohtani’s contract — and I spoke off the cuff about the biggest deals in baseball history but forgot to mention Mike Trout‘s extension, which is the biggest contract of all time. Nimmala immediately mentioned it and knew the figures but was kind enough to offer it as something that might be true (he knew it was true).

I like to ask young hitters about how they adjust when facing pitchers who are future pros (i.e. their talent peers), as opposed to high school pitchers who won’t even pitch in college. They almost always say they prefer facing the future pro types because the speed of the pitch matches the speed of their bat. Nimmala described it unlike anyone else has. Facing pro-type pitchers, he said, is what he’s trained for, so he is able to just react: never consciously thinking throughout the at-bat. Against lesser pitching, he said, he has to think “slow down” or “don’t try to pull that 62 mph curveball no matter how juicy it looks.” (He had faced a 62 mph curveball the night before.)

I asked him about what he’s trying to do at the plate, which locations and pitches he likes and where he’s trying to hit them. He spoke of his approach, trying to stay balanced and hit everything up the middle, which is where his batting practice power is most consistent. That was almost word for word what I wrote in my notes after watching his batting practice the day before, and that’s also a pro-style approach to hitting. That approach doesn’t always lead to the best high school numbers: For elite players, due to the huge gap in talent in high school, some situations against non-pro level pitchers calls for a non-pro style swing. Nimmala approached these lesser pitchers in the same way as the elites, hoping to avoid getting into bad habits. It’s how seasoned professional hitters think, but not many 17-year-olds.

But it does lead into the question teams have about Nimmala: How much will he hit? There’s really nothing else to nitpick him over — he might be a big league shortstop with 30-plus homer potential — but hitting, broadly, is the most important thing for a position player. Last summer, his performance with wood bats in games against his peers — though most were a year older than him — was not strong enough to emphatically answer the question. In the first game I saw him in this spring, he barely saw a pitch to hit; in the second, he faced a pro-level pitcher and swung and missed a few times.

To be fair, that was almost exactly what last year’s No. 1 overall pick, Jackson Holliday, did in the second game I scouted him last spring. A number of teams have had Nimmala in for pre-draft workouts and he’s consistently posting the most impressive batting practices and peak exit velos despite being by far the youngest player in attendance, sometimes outslugging 21-year-old college prospects. There’s interest among teams picking in the top 10, with a strong chance he goes in the top 15 picks. I projected him going 13th overall to the Chicago Cubs in my latest mock draft.

Being late to the summer circuit, still having among the highest upsides in his draft class — while also being among the youngest — and training with pros are all great indicators of how much Nimmala can improve. What might be even more important than that obvious, surface observation of Nimmala is that his mental game, from analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of his swing to how he thinks of failure, or leadership, is something that will be a part of him every day of his career. He’s a lead-by-example type who internalizes any hint of failure, which jives with what I’ve seen from him in games.

I described a scenario with a terrible umpire to him, to see how he would view failure that wasn’t really his fault. “I try to think about why I also failed because not all three pitches are going to be bad calls by him. I have to have gotten one pitch in there that I should have hit or something I should have put a bat on … So I’d rather try to get on base for my team even if it means me going outside of what I think is my strike zone than get out … adjust to what the game is and what [the umpire] thinks because he’s also trying to do his best job out there.”

This conversation helps paint a picture of the impressive person and player Nimmala is and could be, but there’s also the precedent-setting aspect of his background. I’m not aware of another second-generation Indian American baseball player of any note to scouts, so I asked him how he thought the subcontinent might respond to his career if he continued succeeding.

“I try to make the Indian culture proud and just do what I can to do my best for them. That’s really it,” he said. Does he want India to watch him in the big leagues? “I hope, to be honest, I hope I play well enough for them to really watch me, like how Japan stopped and watched [Shohei] Ohtani in the WBC. … I hope they pay attention, that’d be so cool. I just want them to watch and be proud of what we Indians can do.”

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‘Everything’s on the table’ for Connor McDavid’s NHL future

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June 25, 2025

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'Everything's on the table' for Connor McDavid's NHL future

  • Greg WyshynskiJun 25, 2025, 07:30 AM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

Edmonton Oilers star Connor McDavid sat in a news conference days after losing in the Stanley Cup Final to the Florida Panthers for the second straight season. He was peppered with questions about his future, with unrestricted free agency looming in summer 2026 if he doesn’t sign an extension with the Oilers.

The Edmonton media was fishing for any sign that McDavid was committed to the organization and the city, but he wasn’t biting. Someone asked if he had a sense of unfinished business with his teammates after coming so close to raising the Cup, losing in seven games to Florida last season and in six games this month.

“This core has been together for a long time and we’ve been building to this moment all along. The work that’s gone on behind the scenes, the conversations, the endless disappointments and some good times along the way, obviously. We’re all in this together, trying to get it over that finish line,” McDavid said.

Then came the four words that shook a city to its soul.

“With that being said,” McDavid continued, “ultimately, I still need to do what’s best for me and my family. That’s who you have to take care of first.”

It was the first time McDavid even hinted at hesitation about his future in Edmonton. He’s entering the final season of an eight-year, $100 million deal signed in July 2017. Many assumed the ink would be drying on an extension with the Oilers — in what is expected to be the richest contract in NHL history — when he’s eligible to sign on July 1. But McDavid is unlikely to sign that extension unless he is comfortable with the progress Edmonton’s made in improving its roster for next season and beyond.

“I’m not in a rush to make any decision, so I don’t think that there needs to be any timeline,” McDavid said. “I know people are going to look at July 1 and will be looking to see if there’s anything done. But for me, no, I’m just not in a rush in that way.”

An NHL source said that McDavid isn’t committed, at this point, to staying with the Oilers beyond next season. But he’s also not committed to moving on from the organization that drafted him first overall in 2015.

“He’s trying to find reasons to stay, not to leave,” the source said. “But everything’s on the table for Connor right now.”

IF MCDAVID DOESN’T RE-SIGN with the Oilers, it would be an unprecedented moment in the history of NHL free agency. Never before has a generational talent — with multiple MVP awards and scoring titles to his credit — reached unrestricted free agency in his prime.

There might not be a comparative moment in North American professional sports since LeBron James and “The Decision” in 2010 — although given what fans and players have been chanting about McDavid after the Panthers’ second Stanley Cup win over Edmonton, one assumes McDavid won’t be taking his talents to South Beach.

With Stanley Cup contention as his goal, the pool of teams with whom McDavid would consider signing is limited. There’s been speculation about the Ontario native having a homecoming with the Toronto Maple Leafs, still seeking their first Stanley Cup since 1967; that he could join former Oilers GM Ken Holland with the Los Angeles Kings; that the New York Rangers could make him the king of Broadway while easing his goaltending headaches with Igor Shesterkin; or that well-maintained franchises like the Boston Bruins, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights, Dallas Stars and Tampa Bay Lightning could make their pitches.

McDavid is committed to Edmonton for the 2025-26 season. That list of potential suitors could change in that span, depending on their own fortunes.

play

1:35

Messier: McDavid and Draisaitl are the two best players of their generation

Mark Messier joins “Get Up” and breaks down where Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl stack up in the NHL after the Oilers’ overtime win.

After Leon Draisaitl inked an eight-year, $112 million deal last summer — a contract that will keep him in Edmonton until 2033 — many assumed McDavid’s extension would be a mere formality. After all, why would Draisaitl sign without some indication that his close friend and frequent linemate McDavid would do the same?

But sources told ESPN in January that one signing was not a harbinger of the other, and that McDavid would make his own decision independent of Draisaitl’s.

But make no mistake: Draisaitl is a factor in McDavid’s decision. As are defenseman Evan Bouchard, forward Zach Hyman, forward Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and every other core player who theoretically will be in Edmonton for the next several seasons. As McDavid said, the core has been through playoff battles together, and there’s a sense of unfinished business for him in Edmonton.

“We were two games away from winning. Last year, we were two shots away from winning, so the belief is incredibly high in that room,” he said. “We talked about that all throughout the playoffs, and we do believe that this group can win and will win.”

But for all that belief, McDavid wants to understand the plan for how the team can win in the short term and the long term. It’s an essential part of his decision-making process to remain in Edmonton.

He wants to know how a team with just over $10 million in cap space, without much draft capital and the 30th-ranked prospect pool, can make the necessary moves to get over the championship hump and remain competitive. Last summer, that pool of young players got thinner when forward Dylan Holloway and defenseman Phillip Broberg were poached by the St. Louis Blues via offer sheets.

McDavid nodded at that thin prospect pool during his press conference. “It’s not like we have a ton of cap room and we’ve got a long list of highly touted prospects knocking on the door,” he said.

McDavid reiterated: “If I feel that there’s a good window to win here over and over again, then signing is no problem.”

GM Stan Bowman didn’t necessarily agree that pitching McDavid on the Oilers’ window to win was any more vital than meeting his asking price during negotiations.

“I don’t know if you have to sell one thing any more than another,” he said.

But Bowman knows that convincing McDavid of Edmonton’s continuing commitment to win is paramount. When he was hired to replace Holland last summer, Bowman visited with McDavid, who told him that he wanted to win the Stanley Cup.

“That was it. We didn’t talk about anything else. This is his singular focus,” Bowman said.

“I guess it’s my job to connect with Connor and demonstrate that’s what we’re all trying to do. We all have the same objective. I know how passionate he is about winning. It’s what I love about him,” he said. “He’s not just a fantastic hockey player, but he’s a great person, a great leader, and he’s incredibly motivated to do whatever it takes.”

IF MCDAVID ULTIMATELY RE-SIGNS with the Oilers, what he hears from Bowman could determine the length of that contract. There’s a growing belief that McDavid may not sign an eight-year extension like Draisaitl, but could explore something in the three- to five-year range. That would allow him to attempt to finish the “unfinished business” with the core in Edmonton, while reaching UFA status in his early 30s with the NHL salary cap projected to continue its record-setting ascent.

Another reason to believe this could happen is Judd Moldaver, executive vice president at Wasserman and McDavid’s agent. He was the first NHL agent in the salary cap era to seek contracts for superstar clients with significantly less than maximum term. He’s gone shorter than eight years on blockbuster extensions for Maple Leafs star Auston Matthews, with a five-year deal in 2019 and a four-year deal signed in 2023, as well as Columbus Blue Jackets star Zach Werenski (six years, signed in 2021). He could seek to do the same for McDavid.

Matthews had the league’s highest cap hit ($13.25 million average annual value) before Draisaitl’s contract ($14 million AAV) kicks in next season.

McDavid is all but certain to eclipse that. His next contract — at whatever length it ends up being — will range between $15.5 million and $19 million per year on a max deal, multiple sources indicated to ESPN. Anything above Draisaitl’s cap hit would set a new NHL record for highest average annual value in the cap era.

The money will take care of itself. It’s Connor McDavid, the guy with three Hart trophies as NHL MVP, a Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP and five scoring titles. In theory, the contract negotiation with McDavid is essentially a general manager asking how much he needs, and then writing the check.

But McDavid has said that the chance to lift the Stanley Cup is more important than his bank account.

“Winning would be at the top of the list,” he said. “It’s the most important thing.”

The Oilers are confident that, after two trips to the Stanley Cup Final, they offer the best shot at winning for McDavid. But they also offer the comfort of being the only NHL home he’s known.

McDavid and his wife, Lauren Kyle McDavid, have a house in the Parkview area of Edmonton that was featured by Architectural Digest. Kyle McDavid also recently helped open the stylish Bar Trove in Edmonton that features Trove Living, a retail home furnishing store on the floor above it. Her company, Kyle & Co. Design, is located on the third floor of the building.

Given his history with the team and his roots in the city, the Oilers are optimistic but patient with McDavid.

“He’s earned the right for us to be respectful of his timing. Certainly we’re eager to meet with him whenever he wants, but we also understand that he just went through a very tough ending to the season,” Bowman said.

play

1:04

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman: Connor McDavid transcends hockey

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman tells Stephen A. Smith that Connor McDavid’s impact transcends the game of hockey.

Last year, Leon Draisaitl didn’t sign his extension until Sept. 3.

“Timing-wise, Connor’s going to drive that process, but there’s no question he’s a pivotal player on our team for not just what he does on the ice, but his leadership,” Bowman said. “I’ve had a chance to work with him now and I’ve been just so impressed with things you guys probably don’t see. He’s incredibly important to our group and whenever he’s ready, we’re going to dive into that.”

Near the end of his news conference, McDavid was asked by a local reporter for a message to the fans. The ones that have been on this journey with the Oilers during his time with the team. The ones “wanting to see what exactly happens with your future here” in Edmonton, as the questioner put it.

“My message to the fans would be to keep being patient and keep believing. They’ve been through a lot, just like our team has. The emotional highs, the lows. I look at what these playoff runs do to my family. It’s hard on them. It’s hard on the fans. It’s hard on everybody. But ultimately when that day comes, it’ll all be worth it,” he said. “These moments are tough now. But when that moment comes, it’ll be worth the wait for sure.”

The message wasn’t a passionate commitment to stay in Edmonton nor was it a declaration that his bags are packed for free agency. The message was that a championship will make all the postseason heartache worth the pain. As the NHL offseason begins, where McDavid might eventually win that championship is, at this moment, uncertain.

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Oilers trade Evander Kane to hometown Canucks

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June 25, 2025

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Oilers trade Evander Kane to hometown Canucks

  • Greg WyshynskiJun 25, 2025, 12:38 PM ET

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      Greg Wyshynski is ESPN’s senior NHL writer.

The Edmonton Oilers have traded winger Evander Kane to the Vancouver Canucks, clearing valuable cap space ahead of NHL free agency next month.

Kane, 33, has one more year on his four-year contract that carries a $5.125 million cap hit, and Vancouver is picking up his full salary. The Canucks traded Ottawa’s fourth-round pick in 2025 to the Oilers. That pick was actually sent to Vancouver by Edmonton last summer in a trade for forward Vasily Podkolzin.

Kane had a modified 16-team no-trade list. He is a Vancouver native who also played junior hockey in the city.

The veteran winger missed the entire 2024-25 season after multiple surgeries, first to his hip and groin areas and then knee surgery in January. He returned in the Stanley Cup playoffs, scoring 6 goals and 6 assists in 21 games as the Oilers lost to the Florida Panthers for the second straight season in the Final. His main asset was his physicality, as Kane had 44 penalty minutes to lead Edmonton in the postseason.

Kane thanked Oilers players, staff and ownership in a message on X “for believing in me and giving me the opportunity to be a part of such a respected and passionate franchise.” He thanked Oilers fans for “embracing me and showing unwavering support throughout my time in Edmonton.” Kane then said that he’s “incredibly excited for the next chapter of my career” with the Canucks.

“It’s an honor to become part of an organization and team I grew up watching as a kid. Vancouver is a city that lives and breathes hockey, I’m looking forward to the opportunity to play in front of my hometown as I did many years ago as a Vancouver Giant,” he wrote.

The Oilers needed to open up salary cap space to improve their roster, but also because two hefty new contracts will hit their books next season: Center Leon Draisaitl’s cap hit goes from $8.5 million to $14 million on a new contract, and standout defenseman Evan Bouchard will also get a raise over his $3.9 million AAV as a restricted free agent.

The trade comes as the NHL is investigating the Oilers for their use of long-term injured reserve on Kane last season, a source confirmed to ESPN, focusing on the second surgery he had on his knee in January. The trade is not expected to affect that investigation.

Daily Faceoff first reported the investigation.

Canucks GM Patrik Allvin said the acquisition of Kane brings toughness to the team.

“Evander is a physical power forward who will add some much-needed size and toughness to our group,” Allvin said. “We like the way he wins puck battles along the boards and handles himself in the dirty areas in front of the net. Evander moves well around the ice and has proven to be a productive goal scorer in the National Hockey League. We are excited to bring him back home to Vancouver and our staff looks forward to working with him this coming season.”

This will be Kane’s 16th NHL season, having played 930 games with the Atlanta Thrashers, Winnipeg Jets, Buffalo Sabres, San Jose Sharks and Oilers. He has 326 goals and 291 assists for 617 points in those games, including 1,186 penalty minutes.

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30-game winner Paul Skenes?! A new formula to bring pitcher wins back to life

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June 25, 2025

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30-game winner Paul Skenes?! A new formula to bring pitcher wins back to life

  • Bradford DoolittleJun 25, 2025, 07:00 AM ET

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      • MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com
      • Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com
      • Been with ESPN since 2013

There have been 2,664 pitchers who have made at least 30 career starts since 1901.

Three of those pitchers — or one out of every 888 — own a career ERA below 2.00. Two of them are Hall of Fame deadball era greats: Ed Walsh (1.82) and Addie Joss (1.89). The third is Pittsburgh Pirates superstar Paul Skenes.

The chances of Skenes, who has made just 39 career starts, remaining in that class are slim. That’s nothing against him. It’s the reality of math and the era in which he plays. The careers of Joss and Walsh overlapped in the American League from 1904 to 1910, when the aggregate ERA was 2.61. The collective ERA in the majors since Skenes debuted is 4.04.

This season, Skenes’ 1.85 ERA leads the majors, and he’s first among all pitchers in bWAR (4.4). The latter figure is actually tops among all National League players, period. The current numbers generated by my AXE system and the futures at ESPN BET both mark Skenes as a solid favorite to win his first NL Cy Young Award.

Incidentally, Skenes’ won-loss record for the woeful Pirates is a meager 4-6. Should we care?

Yes, we should care about pitcher wins

Won-loss records for pitchers are no longer part of the evaluative conversation, so if your response to the previous question was “no” then congratulations for paying attention. If your response was anything else, then it’s almost certainly because you’re in a fantasy league that still uses pitcher wins, not because you think Skenes’ record actually tells us anything about his true value.

But what if I could tell you this and prove it: Skenes’ real won-loss record is 11-5, the win total tied for the third-most in the majors. I’m going to explain how I got there, but first, let me explain why I think it matters.

Just to illustrate how starting pitchers were written about for most of baseball history, I pulled up the 1980 MLB preview from the Sporting News and went to the page where the Pirates (defending champs at the time) were analyzed. Here’s a bit on their pitching:

“The Pirates last year won without a 15-game winner. The staff won in bunches. Five pitchers won 10 or more games.”

There were no other pitching statistics in the staff outlook. No ERAs, no strikeout rates, nothing about walks. This was it. This is just how pitchers were discussed back then.

It’s good that we understand how to assess pitchers now at a deeper level and, even back in 1980, people like Bill James were already doing it. But pitching wins still meant something as one of the baseball statistics James might allude to as having achieved “the power of language.”

That is: To describe a pitcher as a 20-game winner had real meaning. It was an avatar for quality, and if someone was a five-time 20-game winner, that was an avatar for greatness.

Pitcher wins have always been an imperfect measure, but its flaws have ballooned over time as the game and the responsibilities of the starting pitcher have evolved. Last season, 41.3% of decisions went to relievers. One hundred years ago, that number was 18%.

A good win statistic clears away a lot of contextual noise. In every game, you have two starting pitchers, on opposing teams, pitching on the same day, at the same ballpark and in the same weather conditions. While starters will never admit they are competing against each other (“my job is to get the opposing lineup out” is the standard refrain), they actually are. Their job is to pitch better than the other pitcher, because doing so means giving up fewer runs than him and, if you do that, you win. Well, at least before the bullpens get involved, but a good win stat would filter out that factor, too.

Take anyone who has ever pitched for the Colorado Rockies. The Rockies have been around for more than 30 years and it’s still exceedingly difficult to make heads or tails of their pitchers because so much of their data has to be greatly adjusted for ballpark context. And, while park effects are necessary and sophisticated, they are also estimates.

The Rockies have never had a 20-game winner. The closest was Ubaldo Jimenez, who won 19 in 2010, when he also became one of two Rockies starters to top 7 bWAR. (The other was Kyle Freeland in 2018.) Jimenez is Colorado’s career ERA leader as well, with a mark of 3.66. Every other qualifying Colorado starter in franchise history is at 4.05 or above.

Thus, when we talk about the best pitchers of the current era, Rockies pitchers are almost always going to be left out of the conversation. Their numbers just don’t seem telling or comparable.

This is where a better win statistic would be so useful. Because whatever the precise effects Coors Field might have on a game’s statistics on any given day, a good win stat would be comparing two starters on that field in almost exactly equal conditions. If we do it that way, maybe the Rockies do get some 20-game winners on their ledger.

Is such a win stat possible?

A better way to win

For me, the pitcher win should strictly be the domain of a starting pitcher. This dictum is clouded by the use of openers to start games and bulk pitchers who are used like starters but just not at the outset of games. For now, let’s try not to think about that.

The question about each game I want to answer is this: Which starting pitcher was better in that game? The starter who becomes the answer to that question gets the win; the other gets the loss. And that’s all. It’s as simple as that. Every starter in every game gets a win or a loss and no-decisions don’t exist.

Well, the no-decisions would still exist, because I’m not proposing that we erase traditional won-loss records from the books. There’s too much history attached. Early Winn is remembered in part for clinging to his career in pursuit of 300 wins, and he finished with that number exactly. Cy Young is remembered for his unbreakable career record of 511 wins. Likewise, Jack Chesbro’s claim to immortality is that he owns the modern single-season record of 41 wins. We don’t want to erase those things — we want to add to our understanding of starting pitchers.

Something I’ve proposed on a number of occasions is to use James’ game score method to assign wins and losses. In fact, I’ve tracked game score records for several years and for this piece, I expanded my database back to 1901 to see how the historical record might look.

There are other game score methods, but I like James’ version for its simplicity, though the modified version created by Tom Tango for MLB.com has the same virtue. With either, you can look at a pitching line and easily calculate the game score in your head, once you’ve got the formula down. (If you can’t do that calculation, study more math.)

I also would try to account for short, opener-style outings. I use James’ version but dole out a heavy penalty for going fewer than four innings. To avoid ties — when the starters end up with the same game score — you can give the W to the starter on the winning team.

Awarding pitcher wins like this isn’t perfect. The conditions for the starters aren’t truly equal because the quality of the lineups they face won’t be the same. When Skenes beat Yoshinobu Yamamoto earlier this season, for example, his task against the Los Angeles Dodgers’ lineup was a bit more difficult than Yamamoto’s figured to be against Skenes’ teammates. Likewise, the quality of the defenses behind opposing starters won’t be the same in any given contest.

Despite those disparities, the mandate for both starters is identical: Out-pitch the other guy. And you know what? The game score method of assigning wins and losses to assess the success of that assignment works pretty well.

How game score wins would change history

Let’s call a game score win a GSW and a game score loss a GSL. Do you know who owns the single-season record in GSW?

It’s Chesbro, still. In fact, his 1904 feat looks just as impressive by this method. Here are the top five seasons by GSW:

Jack Chesbro, 40-11 (1904)
Christy Mathewson, 35-9 (1908)
Iron Joe McGinnity, 34-10 (1904)
Mathewson, 34-12 (1904)
Ed Walsh, 34-15 (1908)

Still all deadball guys, sure, but that’s just the top of the leaderboard. There have been 21 30-win seasons by the traditional wins method since 1901 but only three during the last 100 years: Lefty Grove (31 in 1930), Dizzy Dean (30 in 1934) and Denny McLain (31 in 1968).

By the game score method, the list of 30-game winners grows to 36 and it’s not so dusty — 12 of them land in the expansion era (since 1960) and we even get two 30-win seasons during the wild-card era (since 1994). Here are the most recent instances:

33 GSWs: Sandy Koufax (twice, 1965 and 1966) and Mickey Lolich (1971)

32: Steve Carlton (1972, for a last-place team), Denny McLain (1968)

31: Koufax (1963)

30: Whitey Ford (1961), Juan Marichal (1968), Jim Palmer (1975), Ron Guidry (1978), Randy Johnson (twice, 2001 and 2002)

The Big Unit! Johnson won the last two of four consecutive NL Cy Young Awards in 2001 and 2002, during which his combined traditional record was 45-11. His combined game score record is 60-9.

When you go down the list to 29 wins, the roster is just as interesting — and more recent. Here are the last five instances:

• Dwight Gooden (1985)

• Mike Scott and Roger Clemens (1986)

• Curt Schilling (2001)

• Gerrit Cole (2019)

I mean, are we having fun now, or what? Imagine those seasons and the coverage that would go with their pursuit of 30 wins. Schilling would be trying to match Johnson to give the Arizona Diamondbacks a pair of 30-game winners. And Cole, only a few years ago, would have been racing for 30 wins in his last season for the powerhouse Houston Astros in advance of free agency. Wouldn’t you have liked to have had this headline at ESPN to react to that winter?

Yankees sign 29-game winner Cole to $324 million deal

None of this is a product of a fantastical what-if scenario. This is all based on what these pitchers actually did, just framed and measured a little differently. And I think it adds to their accomplishment (or lack thereof in the case of Homer Bailey’s 0-20 season in 2018) and improves the conversation about pitching, which now is too bogged down by statistical complexities that many or even most fans roll their eyes at.

Advanced measures would still matter a great deal of course, but barroom conversations about pitching would be much improved. I imagine somehow sitting down for one more baseball chat with my late grandfather, who was one of the people who taught me about the sport. If I told him something like, “Gerrit Cole had 7.8 WAR last year and a 28% strikeout rate,” it wouldn’t mean anything to him. But if I told him, “Gerrit Cole won 29 games last year,” he’d understand that and would not be misled about what it meant.

Thinking about pitcher wins in this way brings the past back into conversation with the present. For all of the differences between what was expected of Christy Matthewson in 1904 and Tarik Skubal in 2025, the core mission outlined by this framework is identical: To outpitch your opponent when you take the mound.

This becomes evident when you look at the list of those who have reached 300 career game score wins since 1901, a roster of greats that covers every period of the modern era … and is about to grow by one:

Next up, at 299: Clayton Kershaw, who will join Verlander and Scherzer as active 300-game winners, at least by this method. By the traditional method, none of them are likely to reach 300.

What about Skenes?

There’s a reason we chose Skenes as our jumping-off point. As mentioned, Skenes’ 4-6 mark over his first 16 starts tells you nothing about a pitcher with a 1.85 ERA. His game score record (11-5) is a lot more on the mark. Here’s Skenes’ game score log entering his start Wednesday against Milwaukee Brewers rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski:

For his career, Skenes is now 30-9 by the game score method. He’s 15-9 by the traditional formulation. Same number of losses, but double the wins. Which version is more indicative of Skenes as a pitcher?

It’s cherry-picking to home in on Skenes, but his game score log translates to this: Skenes has pitched better than his starting opponent 76.9% of the time as a big leaguer, despite the treachery of the punchless offense behind him.

Now let’s do one more list. Here are the three highest game score winning percentages, minimum 30 career starts, since 1901:

1. Paul Skenes, .769 (30-9)

2. Nick Maddox, .722 (52-20)

3. Smoky Joe Wood, .722 (114-44)

Wood is historically prominent, while Maddox, who pitched for the Pirates 115 years ago, is not. Still, since Maddox popped up, I have to share this late-in-life quote from him, because it so typifies the old-timer mindset, “These guys today aren’t pitchers — they’re throwers. Why, in my day, I’d throw one so fast past that guy [Ralph] Kiner he’d get pneumonia from the wind.”

Skenes is a pitcher and a thrower, a budding all-time great who is in conversation with pitchers who retired decades before he was born. If Skenes stays healthy (knock on wood) and his career builds, we can marvel at his accolades and statistical achievements. But will we ever say, “Skenes has a chance to be a 60 WAR guy” and expect that to resonate?

Maybe someday. But wouldn’t it be more fun to track how many 20-win — or even 30-win — seasons he can rack up? Wouldn’t it be more fun to count down his progress to 300 wins, which he is never going to sniff by traditional wins, unless the game itself changes dramatically?

Wouldn’t it be more fun to align pitching’s present with pitching’s past? Wins have always been the currency of baseball in general, and of pitching in particular. It’s just that up until now, pitching wins have been an unstable currency.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

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