Through 48 years of covering high school baseball in Southern California, watching so many prolific pitchers develop into legendary pro players has been one of the funnest parts of being a prep sportswriter. I’ve learned to always look for someone who can throw strikes.
There was Jack McDowell of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame and Bret Saberhagen of Cleveland in the 1980s. They became Cy Young Award winners for the Chicago White Sox and Kansas City Royals, respectively.
In the 1990s, there was Jeff Suppan of Crespi, Russ Ortiz of Montclair Prep and Randy Wolf of El Camino Real. In the 21st century, there were Cy Young winners Gerrit Cole (Orange Lutheran), Shane Bieber (Laguna Hills) and Trevor Bauer (Hart); and standouts Paul Skenes (El Toro), Hunter Greene (Notre Dame), Jack Flaherty (Harvard-Westlake) and Max Fried (Harvard-Westlake).
Bringing up these names is to remind everyone how stunningly good Seth Hernandez of Corona has been this season as he prepares for the Southern Section Division 1 playoffs and heads off to be the next great pitcher from the Southland.
In 42 1/3 innings, he has struck out 88 batters while walking only three. Never has there been someone throwing a 98 mph fastball as a teenager with so much pinpoint control. In fact, he’s only hit one batter all season. Teenagers who throw in the 90s normally hit and walk lots of batters.
Not Hernandez. His command is freakishly good.
“That was his goal,” coach Andy Wise said of improving over his junior season. “What are we going to do to get better and that was his No. 1 thing to do.”
Hernandez has never suffered a pitching defeat since he started playing high school baseball. He went 9-0 and had 15 walks in 56 innings last season. This season he’s 8-0 with an 0.17 ERA. Showing off his athleticism, he has also hit five home runs.
As comparison, probably the pitcher closest to having a season with this much control was Flaherty in 2013, when he walked 10 in 89 innings, struck out 112 and went 13-0 as a junior. But he didn’t come close to Hernandez’s velocity. Greene was throwing 101 mph fastballs and had 10 walks in 55 2/3 innings in 2016, his junior season.
Greene’s coach at Notre Dame, Tom Dill, said of Hernandez, “You take an arm like that with the ability to throw strikes and the upside is fantastic.”
The Washington Nationals have the first pick in this summer’s amateur draft. Their general manager attended a Corona game to see Hernandez pitch.
Attending high school baseball games is free, so the best ticket around might be going to watch Hernandez pitch when he’s expected to be on the mound next Tuesday in Corona’s playoff opener. The pairings will be released on Monday, and Corona is expected to have a first-round bye when the playoffs begin on Thursday.
It’s not only his control and fastball that are impressive, it’s his poise and his breaking pitches. He really does have all the qualities scouts want in a pitching prospect, from work ethic to competitiveness to the ability to deal with pressure situations.
If opponents want him to autograph a ball during the playoffs, that wouldn’t be acting silly. That would be someone understanding they are in the presence of someone they’ll be watching from their living room one day pitching at a major league stadium.