Master · 2024-present · right-handed
Paul Skenes
The modern phenom whose splinker, a pitch he found by accident, is already one of the best in baseball.
Signature pitchSplinker
Skenes reached the majors in 2024 and was the NL Rookie of the Year that fall. His signature is the "splinker," a sinker-splitter hybrid his catcher named, thrown in the mid-90s with splitter-like dive off a 98 mph four-seam look. He still thinks of it as a sinker.
A "splinker," held with a light two-seam split rather than a deep splitter wedge, fired around 94 mph off a 98 mph four-seam look. Low spin gives it more drop than a normal splitter and arm-side run into right-handers; it leaves the hand on nearly the same path as the fastball, then falls.
He discovered the modern version by feel: the grip did not change, but the release and the feel at release did, on one random throw.
The splinker seam, our own schematic
Skenes leans on deception by sameness, the splinker emerging on the same arm slot and release as his four-seam so hitters cannot tell the rising fastball from the diving hybrid out of the hand. He treats it as a confidence pitch, reaching for it in the highest-leverage counts and using it differently every outing.
“I still think of it as a sinker. It’s funny to see guys swing at fastballs in the dirt.”
Roughly 4 mph under his four-seam and nearly 8 mph above the average MLB splitter.
Far below the average sinker (about 2,150 rpm), which is why it behaves like neither a true sinker nor a true splitter.
Filed the way every record here is: each figure season-stamped where it applies, confidence-labeled, and one click from its source. Where the reputation and the data disagree, the gap is shown, not smoothed over.