The Pittsburgh Pirates added right-handed pitcher Kevison Hernandez to their 2021 international signing class back in the middle of April, but his contract just became official yesterday. He wasn’t their last signing from this class, but he’s the final one to become official. So here’s the scouting report on the 18-year-old out of the Dominican Republic, along with some video I found a few days ago.
Hernandez is 6’5″, 188 pounds, and he’s a bit older for the signing class, turning 18 back on July 20th, though he has current stuff better than most of the younger signings, along with plenty of projection left in his frame. He has long arms and a strong body. He already hits 92-93 MPH with his fastball, which has good sinking action and some life to it. He has clean repeatable delivery with above average arm speed and he shows good athleticism on the mound. His curve is 72-74 MPH with good shape and the feel to locate the pitch. His changeup has good separation from the fastball at 82-83 MPH. He keeps the pitch down and maintains his arm speed well. While he profiles better as a hard-throwing reliever with the potential for two above average pitches, there’s also a chance that he could end up as a starter with a nice three-pitch mix.
Here’s some video, which is older (2019 and early 2020) when he was eligible to sign, so there has been some progress made since then:
January 2020
https://www.facebook.com/cachac90/videos/577202086464078/
Here’s the updated international signing tracker. Notice that more than half (11 out of 21) of the signings are right-handed pitchers. Wasn’t on purpose, just how it worked out.
