Left-hander Darwinzon Hernández is looking to sign with a club in major league baseball, reports Alex Speier of The Boston Globe. He pitched for the Red Sox from 2019 to 2022 but has spent recent seasons pitching for the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball.
Hernández, 30 in December, showed big stuff in his big league career but struggled to get it over the plate. He tossed 85 1/3 innings for the Sox over four seasons with a four-seamer and sinker that both averaged at least 95 miles per hour. He also threw a low-80s slider and high-70s curveball. He struck out opponents at a massive 32.3% clip but also gave out free passes at an untenable 17.7% pace.
The command issues eventually pushed him off of Boston’s roster. He was designated for assignment in January of 2023 and flipped to the Orioles in a cash deal. The Orioles passed him through waivers the next month. He pitched 27 1/3 innings for Triple-A Norfolk with similar results to his big league track record to that point. With the Tides, he had a 2.96 ERA, 32.2% strikeout rate and 16.5% walk rate.
He was released in July of 2023 and signed with the Hawks. Since then, he has seemingly reined things in. He has thrown 131 2/3 innings with a 2.46 ERA, walking just 8% of batters faced while still getting strikeouts at a strong 31.3% clip.
Some context is perhaps necessary. The NPB is normally a pitcher-friendly environment and they have been playing with a dead ball in recent years. This is speculative but it’s possible Hernández felt more comfortable just grooving the ball over the plate. Tatsuya Imai had a walk rate between 10 and 17% in each NPB season from 2018 to 2023. He got that down to 9.8% in 2024 and then 7% last year in the deflated offensive environment. But when he made the move to MLB in 2026, that walk rate shot up to 15.1%.
Of course, each individual pitcher is different and Hernández might not follow the same path as Imai. But teams MLB teams may have concerns that the gains he made in Japan haven’t been proven against big league hitters.
The lefty relief market is highlighted by Adrián Morejón but also features Alex Vesia, Steven Okert, JoJo Romero and plenty of others. For teams who miss out on those options, they could perhaps look to Hernández as a low-cost alternative.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Fisher, Imagn Images
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