When Seth Hernandez Will Likely Make Pirates MLB Roster
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PHILADELPHIA — The Pittsburgh Pirates have one of the best pitching prospects in all of baseball in Seth Hernandez and he earned himself another honor in his young professional career.
Hernandez earned a spot at the Futures Game during All-Star Weekend, where he will represent the Pirates for the National League at Citizens Bank Park on July 12.
The Futures Game puts Hernandez amongst the top talents in the sport at just 20 years old and is also joined me with fellow High-A Greensboro teammate in top Pirates outfielder prospect Edward Florentino.
He's only just begun his professional career, but Hernandez is putting himself on the right track towards an early MLB Promotion.
MLB Path For Seth Hernandez
Hernandez is currently at High-A, so he'll still need to throw at both Double-A Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis before he makes his Pirates debut.
The Pirates obviously won't call up Hernandez this year, as there is no need to bring him into the major league fold, particularly with the starting rotation, which includes 2025 NL Cy Young Award winner Paul Skenes.
Hernandez has shown his talent on the mound, with a tantalizing pitch mix, featuring a 100 mph, "blow by you" fastball and offspeed pitches that baffle opposing hitters in his changeup, curveball and slider.
His velocity on his fastball, mixed with the movement and break on his offspeed pitches is exactly what the Pirates want to see out of him at this point, and the potential for an extra pitch in his arsenal and improvements on his current pitches is something they can help Hernandez with as well.
Single-A Bradenton was almost a joke for Hernandez, posting a 0.96 ERA over six starts and a 16.07 K/9, but High-A Greensboro has provided a better challenge.
Hernandez had a few struggles early on, particularly dealing with the hitter's friendly ball park of First National Bank Park in Greensboro, where he has given up five of his six home runs at High-A at.
There are some encouraging signs from Hernandez, who has given up just one run over his last three starts, which included posting eight strikeouts and allowing one hit and a walk, over six scoreless innings in a 5-1 road win over Winston Salem (Chicago White Sox) on June 20.
It's looking good for Hernandez so far and the Pirates will keep monitoring him on any improvements in his mechanics and outings overall.
Realistic Timeline for Hernandez Joining the Pirates
One of the biggest areas for Hernandez is how he'll deal with an increased workload in his first season in the minor leagues.
Hernandez joined the Pirates as the sixth overall pick from Corona High School in Corona, Calif., but threw less than a combined 110 innings over his junior and senior seasons, not throwing more than 60 innings in either year.
His innings total is currently at 62.1 innings through the end of June and could breach the century-mark this season, but there's always precaution from MLB teams with their young prep pitchers and managing the workload to prevent injury, which Pirates' director of coaching and player development Michael Chernow expanded on after Hernandez's honor.
"It is a really thorough, collaborative process," Chernow said. "We’re really fortunate to have the performance and body team that we have, as well as our pitching leadership. Like we do with all of our pitchers – certainly, Seth is higher profile than most – we have a really detailed process, in terms of how we structure every outing for these guys, what their intensities look like in the bullpen, what their throwing program is like.
"There’s a lot of work that goes into being able to take a guy from as early February in some cases through the season and do so in a really safe way for the player that allows them to reach all of the milestones and check marks that we have set out for them throughout the course of a given year."
Hernandez could realistically make it to Double-A Altoona by the end of the year, but it's most likely he'll spend a large part of the remainder of 2026 with Greensboro.
Altoona and Triple-A Indianapolis should be where Hernandez is at the most in 2027, which sets up a promotion in 2028, barring serious injury or setback to his development.
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Dominic writes for Pittsburgh Pirates On SI, Pittsburgh Panthers Pn SI and also, Pittsburgh Steelers On SI. A Pittsburgh native, Dominic grew up watching Pittsburgh Sports and wrote for The Pitt News as an undergraduate at the University of Pittsburgh, covering Pitt Athletics. He would write for Pittsburgh Sports Now after college and has years of experience covering sports across Pittsburgh.