As Paul Skenes reflected on the historic season that resulted in winning the National League Cy Young Award, the Pittsburgh Pirates’ ace couldn’t help but look forward to the future.

For someone who prefers to talk about the why, Skenes admits that awards and accolades are not his motivation. From becoming the No. 1 overall pick of the 2023 MLB Draft to winning NL rookie of the year and now the recipient of a unanimous vote for the ultimate pitching award, it’s always been about the next thing he can accomplish.

“I never thought about winning the Cy Young growing up,” Skenes said Wednesday night on a Baseball Writers Association of America conference call, prompting a follow-up question about his main ambition going forward. “Winning championships. Winning World Series championships — and multiple of them.”

If that sounds more like a demand from Skenes than wishful thinking, it was intentional. There is a belief in the baseball world that the Pirates are wasting a generational talent, which the numbers back up: Skenes had 20 quality starts, allowed two earned runs or fewer in 26 starts and no earned runs at all in 14. Yet he became the first starting pitcher to win the Cy Young with a .500 record (10-10), as the Pirates ranked among MLB’s worst in most major offensive categories and went 17-15 in his 32 starts on their way to a 91-loss season and last-place finish in the NL Central.

As dominant as the 23-year-old Skenes was in his second season, leading the major leagues in ERA (1.97) and ERA+ (217), the NL in WHIP (0.95) and setting a franchise record for strikeouts by a right-hander (216), he didn’t hesitate when asked where he could improve.

“I think give up less runs. Give up less runs, throw more innings, strike more guys out, walk less guys. There’s always better. Bob Gibson had like a 1.12 ERA in whatever year that was,” Skenes said of the St. Louis Cardinals Hall of Famer’s 1968 season in which he swept NL MVP and Cy Young honors. “That’s pretty cool. I don’t know. Thinking about all that stuff, I don’t have exact answers about how I’m going to do it, yet I will to the best of my abilities. We have time to figure that out. The plan is not to be the same pitcher that I was last year when I showed up to spring training because there’s stuff to do better.”

That starts with winning, and the Pirates have had only four winning seasons since PNC Park opened in 2001. As someone who starred on the Air Force Academy’s first Mountain West Conference championship in 2024 and led LSU to the College World Series title, Skenes had become accustomed to winning before pitching for the Pirates.

“That’s what we need to do. That needs to be the focus every day in the locker room,” Skenes said on a video conference call with Pittsburgh media. “It’s funny because you show up and everybody’s motivated and happy and hopeful. That’s the feeling that I’ve had over the last couple of years and then as the season goes on the newness wears off and you get into the grind of June, July, August and your ‘why’ changes. The reason that you show up to the ballpark changes. What you’re trying to accomplish everyday changes.

“The focus needs to be winning a World Series in Pittsburgh. We haven’t done it since 1979. That’s 46 years. It’s not the longest drought in Major League Baseball, but that’s something we’re working to change from within the clubhouse. I know the organization is doing the same thing. That’s why I’m throwing and lifting and doing all that right now.”

It bothers Skenes that he started his offseason throwing program two-plus weeks ago, while the World Series was being played. For all of his individual success — two starts in the All-Star Game, the NL rookie of the year in 2024 and now the Cy Young — Skenes considers it an individual game within a team concept.

Skenes repeatedly reminded himself that the award should be shared with everyone who helped him along the way, from the family and friends that surrounded him on his couch for the MLB Network announcement to his coaches and teammates.

After NJ.com reported that Skenes told teammates he wants to play for the New York Yankees, Skenes had to address the trade talk that accompanies the offseason while celebrating his Cy Young. So did Ben Cherington earlier in the day at the General Manager Meetings in Las Vegas, where he went on record to say that Skenes won’t be traded and “is going to be a Pirate in 2026.”

While Skenes downplayed the significance of the Cy Young — an award he never dreamed of winning and one he doesn’t want to define his MLB career — and how the recognition is great but only temporary, he talked about the importance of being a steward of the game and for baseball in the City of Pittsburgh.

Skenes saluted the contract extension given to manager Don Kelly in October as one step in the right direction and the hiring of Bill Murphy as pitching coach as another that should benefit both him personally and the young pitching staff that has “been craving people to challenge us.”

“Donnie is the perfect guy to manage the Pittsburgh Pirates,” Skenes said. “Obviously, he knows baseball. He’s a people person, a baseball guy. That’s all great. That’s what makes managers manager material. But he’s from Pittsburgh, and I’ve talked to him and he said that he wouldn’t want to do it anywhere else besides Pittsburgh.

“That’s how people are in Pittsburgh. It’s such an interesting city, such an interesting character, and that needs to be our identity coming into next year, I believe. Whatever identity is what it is, but that’s kind of what I think we need to get back to, that gritty, blue-collar personality that Pittsburgh is. I’m going to push for that. I know there are others that are going to push for that, and then whoever’s new to the organization, they’re going to realize real quick. But that’s what the goal is.”

A California native, Skenes is quick to note that he’s an adopted son of Pittsburgh but one who embraces the expectations of winning that comes from the City of Champions and loves that fans only support a winner. He remembers watching the Pirates’ 2013 NL wild-card win over the Cincinnati Reds at PNC Park and when fans share how much they want to experience another postseason appearance.

Skenes noted that the Pirates haven’t won a World Series since 1979, doing the quick math to realize that it’s a championship drought that spans 46 years. Now that he has the top individual hardware, Skenes said he wants to be part of the group that accomplishes that.

“That’s the goal. I have the Cy Young now. What else do I have to accomplish in this game? A World Series championship,” Skenes said. “We’ve just got to get everybody pushing in the right direction. I think it’s going to be better next year, but talk is cheap. We have to show up and do it. I have confidence that we’re going to and we’re going to get better. But there’s a long way to go. I’m excited for the challenge.”

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