After drafting righthander Seth Hernandez sixth overall in 2025, the Pirates opted not to stretch him, but he did throw during instructional league in the Dominican Republic.\u00a0<\/p>\n
It wasn\u2019t much, but enough to make an impact on Pirates farm director Michael Chernow. \u201cYou see the ball out of the hand, I mean, it\u2019s explosive. It is absolutely explosive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see why the industry has dreamed on him. Obviously, it was short bursts, but you\u2019re seeing triple digits.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hernandez can go four pitches deep, but his changeup is his bread-and-butter, and he immediately put it on display.<\/p>\n
\u201cHis feel for his changeup,\u201d Chernow said. \u201cI mean that really stood out, in terms of understanding at his age, why the pitch is moving the way it is, and the way he needs to adjust (finger) pressures.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having a great changeup can really help Hernandez early in his pro career, where a lot of low-level hitters will not have seen a pitch of that caliber before. He\u2019s also able to mix in three other pitches, a huge leg up for someone his age.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey all look great coming out of the hand too,\u201d Chernow said. \u201cHe does a really nice job in terms of throwing with intent. Some guys will try to make it look good on a TrackMan plot, but the intent that he throws it with is above that age group.\u201d<\/p>\n
Despite being advanced, Hernandez is still coming from the high school ranks, and Chernow recognizes that there will be challenges and things he will have to adjust to, but the fact that he has so much to offer now should make things easier to find the right mix in the future.<\/p>\n
\u201cWho he\u2019s going to be when he\u2019s pitching in the big leagues is not going to be who he is today, right? There\u2019s going to be changes that need to be made, there\u2019s going to be punches and counter punches, right?<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, the fact that he\u2019s got a really strong base positions him to continue to evolve from a higher baseline.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"After drafting righthander Seth Hernandez sixth overall in 2025, the Pirates opted not to stretch him, but he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":81209,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2276],"tags":[5,2291,4,1586,3935],"class_list":{"0":"post-556613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-draft","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-major-league-baseball-draft","10":"tag-mlb","11":"tag-mlb-draft","12":"tag-organization-reports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116019981470069138","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=556613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/556613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=556613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=556613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=556613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}