Paul Skenes made a difficult decision last summer.

Skenes chose to transfer from his beloved Air Force Academy after playing baseball with the Falcons for two seasons. He landed at LSU and the transition couldn’t have been better – or likely more lucrative.

In what figures to his lone season with the Tigers, Skenes led them to the national championship while being named Most Outstanding Player of the College World Series. The 21-year-old right-handed pitcher was the No. 1 overall selection on Sunday by the Pittsburgh Pirates in Major League Baseball’s First-Year Player Draft.

MLB’s recommended slot bonus value for the first pick is $9,721,000 and he will likely sign a contract for close to that figure. It is highly doubtful Skenes would have gone 1-1 – baseball parlance for being selected in the first round with the first selection – if he not transferred to an elite program in the strong SEC.

Thus, it comes as no surprise that Skenes is happy with his decision.

“LSU was huge,” Skenes said. “When I came to LSU, the goal wasn't to be the No. 1 overall draft pick, it was to win a national championship and get better every day. When you start with the end in mind, when you start with a goal in mind, then you can go along the road that allows you to accomplish that.

“I think the way that I've gone about my player development over the past few years, you know, go back to high school, taking it a day at a time and focusing on incrementally getting better. When you do that, when you surround yourself with the right people, it makes it very possible for stuff like this to happen, I think.”

When the Washington Nationals selected LSU center fielder Dylan Crew directly after the Pirates took Skenes, it marked the first time since the draft was instituted in 1965 that teammates were selected Nos. 1 and 2.

“It says that we have the right people, that coach (Jay) Johnson is doing a good job in bringing the right people into the building,” Skenes said. “I don’t think it’s done any time soon. It’s going to be a pattern of success for LSU baseball. I’m really excited to see where that program goes.”

The Pirates are excited to see where Skenes’ career goes. The 6-foot-6, 250-pounder has a fastball that reaches 103 mph along with an outstanding slider and developing changeup.

Scouts and talent evaluators from MLB teams almost universally believe Skenes will become a top-of-the rotation pitcher. Many of those same people also feel Skenes is so talented that he could make the very rare jump of going straight to the big leagues from college.

The Pirates are unlikely to have Skenes have his pro career begin in the majors. However, there is no denying he is coming off a remarkable college season in which he had a 12-2 record with a 1.69 ERA and 0.75 WHIP in 19 starts as well as 209 strikeouts in 122 2/3 innings.

Baseball America named Skenes its College Player of the Year over Crews, who won the coveted Golden Spikes Award as the best amateur player in the country.

“Paul was on the top of our board,” Pirates general manager Ben Cherington said. "Whatever’s next, he’s going to want it. A combination of the pitcher on the field, the person off the field as we got to know him, just felt like the right match at the right time for the Pirates.”

Skenes set those wheels in motion by transferring, even though he had decided he wanted to attend Air Force as soon as he toured the Colorado Spring campus following his freshman year of high school in Lake Forest, Calif.

“Immediately when I went there, I was just sold on going to the Air Force Academy,” he said. “I didn’t want to do anything else. I got recruited by some other schools, but Air Force was the one place I wanted to go. So, it was the easiest decision of my life to go there, hardest decision of my life to leave.”