PITTSBURGH (93.7 The Fan) – While he grew up in California, Pirates first round pick Seth Hernandez is familiar with the organization. He played for the same high school age travel baseball team as Bucs starting pitcher Jared Jones.
Hernandez met Jones at his team’s end of the year banquet.
“At the time, he was like, ‘Yeah, man, I hope you come to Pittsburgh with me.’ Hernandez said to Pittsburgh reporters on Sunday after the MLB Draft. “To be able to do that, he kind of spoke it into existence in a way. … I was able to pick his brains a little bit.”
The 6’4” right-handed pitcher used that to then pick the brains of the Pirates representatives. Hernandez said during pre-draft meetings he asked a lot of questions as he wanted to get a feel for what they do and how the Pirates organization would use him going forward. He said he felt comfortable with the Bucs because of those meetings.
There is another pitcher from California currently on the 40-man roster and Hernandez said it was like a dream to think about being teammates with Paul Skenes, who he called ‘a stud’. Hernandez, like Skenes, can touch 100 miles-an-hour, although he doesn’t throw as hard consistently. Hernandez throws on average around 95 mph, touching 97. He currently has about a handful of options.
"I had four pitches this year: fastball, slider, curve, changeup,” Hernandez said. “Obviously, my changeup has always been my bread and butter, but I think this year especially, I was able to spin all four pitches for strikes, which was really cool. I think it was just being able to fine tune my mechanics, make them repeatable, and once that happened, the breaking stuff really just started to lock in."
Hernandez was home schooled and then dealt with COVID and only pitched his last two years in high school, but played for a team that also had the 10th overall pick, shortstop Billy Carlson on it and the 32nd overall pick, infielder Brady Ebel.