{"id":104060,"date":"2025-07-13T20:23:49","date_gmt":"2025-07-14T00:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/?p=104060"},"modified":"2025-07-13T20:23:49","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T00:23:49","slug":"pirates-draft-seth-hernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/07\/13\/pirates-draft-seth-hernandez\/","title":{"rendered":"Pirates Draft No. 3 Prospect, High School Pitcher in 2025 Draft"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted right-handed pitcher Seth Hernandez with the sixth overall selection in the 2025 Amateur Draft. With <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2024\/07\/14\/pirates-draft-konnor-griffin\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">last year\u2019s selection<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=griffi000kon&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-13_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Konnor Griffin<\/a>, this marks the second consecutive year the Pirates chose a high schooler in the first round.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_104071\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-104071\" style=\"width: 455px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-104071\" src=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"455\" height=\"303\" srcset=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-768x512.jpg 768w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-2048x1365.jpg 2048w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/USATSI_26637492_168400885_lowres-1200x800.jpg 1200w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 455px) 100vw, 455px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-104071\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jul 13, 2025; Atlanta, GA, USA; MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred opens the MLB Draft at The Coca-Cola Roxy. Mandatory Credit: Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<h2>Pirates Draft Seth Hernandez 6th Overall<\/h2>\n<p>Well, this one certainly fell out of left field, thanks to two earlier under-slot picks. Few had the Pirates selecting a high school pitcher with their pick, but here we are. He\u2019s a right-handed pitcher out of Corona High School, a hotbed for major league prospects. It\u2019s produced four draft choices in the past, the best known of which is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/search\/search.fcgi?pid=kellyjo05,kelly-008joe,kellyjo03,kellyjo04&amp;search=Joe+Kelly&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-13_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Joe Kelly<\/a>. There are four projected to go in this year\u2019s draft. Hernandez was ranked first among them and No. 3 in the entire draft according to MLB Pipeline. The six-foot-four, 190-pound right-hander is committed to Vanderbilt. However, the slot money allocated to a sixth overall pick should persuade him to begin his professional career right away.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">With the sixth pick of the 2025 <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/MLBDraft?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#MLBDraft<\/a>, the <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Pirates?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">@Pirates<\/a> select RHP Seth Hernandez from Corona (CA) High School. <a  href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/ntluDdeGlM\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/ntluDdeGlM<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 MLB (@MLB) <a  href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MLB\/status\/1944527427159601394?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">July 13, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>At age 19, he\u2019s considered \u201cold\u201d for a high school prospect, but that obviously didn\u2019t deter the Pirates. Hernandez features a fastball, curveball, hard slider, and changeup. The fastball touches 98 mph. His changeup is advanced far beyond his years and could quicken his path to the majors. Tight situations don\u2019t rattle him. He\u2019s a good athlete who also played the outfield in high school. He\u2019s a fast runner who completes the 60-yard dash in 6.75 seconds. As a hitter, he impacted the ball in high school. However, professional baseball has few two-way players not named <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/o\/ohtansh01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-13_br\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shohei Ohtani<\/a>. He\u2019ll be strictly a pitcher from now on.<\/p>\n<p>Pirates fans may have preferred a college hitter who was closer to the majors. Nevertheless, it\u2019s no surprise to see general manager Ben Cherington stick to his philosophy and draft the best player available. Once Hernandez fell to No. 6, this was too good an opportunity to pass up.<\/p>\n<h3>The Last Word<\/h3>\n<p>Cherington\u2019s work isn\u2019t done. Now he pivots back to the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/2025\/07\/10\/pirates-sellers-buyers-trade-deadline\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_self\">trade deadline<\/a> in search of possible deals to improve his floundering ball club. The Pirates organization needs improvement at both the major and minor league levels, making July a crucial month for the beleaguered executive.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Main Photo Credit: \u00a9 Brett Davis-Imagn Images<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Pittsburgh Pirates drafted right-handed pitcher Seth Hernandez with the sixth overall selection in the 2025 Amateur Draft. With last year\u2019s selection of Konnor Griffin, this marks the second consecutive year the Pirates chose a high schooler in the first round. Pirates Draft Seth Hernandez 6th Overall Well, this one certainly fell out of left [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5010,"featured_media":104070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26,1071,35],"tags":[3215,903,28625,29054,2178],"class_list":["post-104060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pirates","category-mlb","category-news","tag-ben-cherington","tag-joe-kelly","tag-konnor-griffin","tag-seth-hernandez","tag-shohei-ohtani"],"modified_by":"Lewis Masella, Site Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5010"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104060"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104060\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":104072,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104060\/revisions\/104072"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/baseball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}