Coming off his spring training debut over the weekend, Paul Skenes is feeling "fired up" about the Pittsburgh Pirates' upcoming season. The reigning National League Rookie of the Year returned to the mound on Saturday, impressing with his new cutter.

Yet Skenes' new pitch and improvements off his otherworldly rookie season are far from the only reason he's excited for what's in store for the Pirates this season. Skenes noted that this Pittsburgh team feels "different," pointing to the amount of buy-in he's seeing from his teammates.

"On the pitching side, obviously we have stuff," Skenes said, via MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. "On the hitting side we have a couple All-Stars and a really good opportunity to build this thing from within. I think the thing that fires me up the most this year is that we have a lot of buy-in. It just feels different. 30 clubs are probably showing up with hope to spring training. Hope doesn't win ball games, but it's exciting now to see the differences in the locker room from last year. At the end of the day we have to go out there and do it, we have to go out there and prove it and win and show up every day, but I think we have a really good opportunity this year."

Despite the emergence of Skenes, the Pirates had a relatively quiet offseason outside of trading for Spencer Horwitz. Pittsburgh finished the 2024 season 76–86, last in the NL Central, and are approaching an entire decade without a postseason appearance. Skenes lauded what he's seen internally from the Pirates, but it has yet to be seen if it will be enough to overcome an underwhelming offseason and turn this team around from a near decade of futility.