Emerson Hancock is failing upwards (complimentary)

Through adversity, Emerson Hancock is discovering who he is as a big-leaguer

Last night, Emerson Hancock—taken sixth in the 2020 MLB Draft—faced off against Garrett Crochet, who went 10th overall that same year to the White Sox. But each pitcher took a vastly different path to the majors. Crochet, who worked out of the bullpen and as a spot starter at Tennessee, was pressed into MLB service in his draft year as the White Sox made it to the Wild Card series; he’d go on to pitch out of the White Sox bullpen in 2021 before needing TJ surgery, missing all of 2022 and most of 2023 before returning, this time as a starting pitcher. Hancock, despite battling injury issues of his own, has had a much more straightforward path to the big leagues, although that doesn’t mean it’s been easy.

In contrast to Bryan Woo, the pitcher he replaced on the roster during the first part of the season, Hancock’s collegiate experience is extensive, starting three years for Georgia in the powerhouse of the SEC. Hancock was an intriguing prospect coming out of high school, but was considered a very tough sign due to a strong commitment to Georgia, where the Cairo, GA-born Hancock was a legacy. Hancock immediately slotted in to Georgia’s weekend rotation as a freshman and pitched for a team that advanced to the Regional Finals; in his SEC debut, he carried a one-hitter into the seventh inning against Alabama.

By his sophomore year, he was Georgia’s Friday night starter, garnering comparisons from his coach to top SEC arms like Alex Faedo and Brady Singer. His 1.99 ERA was the eighth-best in school history, and he was named a semifinalist for the prestigious Golden Spikes Award, given every year to the best player in college baseball. He was seen as one of the top pitchers entering the 2020 draft, if not the top pitcher, or even a potential number two overall (the first, of course, being shoo-in Spencer Torkelson from ASU). The Mariners nabbed him with the sixth overall pick, with injuries and the pandemic pushing Hancock to the third pitcher taken, behind Max Meyer (third overall to Miami) and Asa Lacy (fourth overall to the Royals).

Since then, it’s been a slow climb for the first-rounder, who spent parts of his first three professional seasons working at the Double-A level, trying to establish consistency while battling nagging shoulder and lat issues. He was lapped organizationally by Bryce Miller and Bryan Woo, both drafted in 2021 in the fourth and sixth rounds, respectively, who claimed the last two spots in the big-league rotation. Healthy at last after seeing his debut year cut short by a lat injury in 2023, Hancock now has to contend with pitching in the bounce houses of the PCL, gritting and grinding his way through starts against seasoned Triple-A hitters anxious to take advantage of Hancock’s propensity to be around the strike zone. It’s not the seamless journey to the bigs a high-floor polished collegiate performer often takes, but it’s been his journey. While assigned to Tacoma, Hancock has been focused on how to become the best version of himself.

“I think it starts with understanding who you are,” said Hancock postgame when asked about what he’s been focusing on improving in the minors. “What are the things that you do well, how can you maximize that, and what are the things that I can learn, start working on it down there and try to bring them back up.”

“You know, you’re always messing with the slider, you’re always missing with the sinker, throwing it in different locations. How can I command my changeup better. It’s kind of a combination of all of those things.”

It’s an improvement his manager Scott Servais has seen as well:

“I thought the development of his secondary pitches, especially the slider—the changeup is a really good pitch for him too—but getting the slider working, so he really had three pitches to work with...when he’s got all three working, he can get through any lineup.”

Small sample size ahoy, but in the bigs this year the slider has a near 30% whiff rate, making it his best swing-and-miss offering. But it’s not the slider that’s Hancock’s primary pitch.

“I think once he got to understanding how effective his two-seam fastball can be when he’s super aggressive early in counts, forcing contact, they typically hit it on the ground,” said Servais. “With his two-seam fastball, we have pitch metrics on every pitch that’s thrown by every one of our players within our organization, and those pitch metrics are all based on how that pitch would play at the big-league level. So it doesn’t matter if you’re pitching in Modesto, Tacoma, or here, it’s projected on how it would play out here, and his numbers have all increased since he’s been [in Tacoma].”

“So he’s working on the right things, he’s getting the right results.”

Making a spot start last night to help the rotation reshuffle so the top of Seattle’s rotation can face the division-rival Rangers this weekend, the White Sox did indeed hit many of Hancock’s pitches on the ground, grounding out nine times. That helped Hancock turned in his longest start as a pro, going seven innings and giving up just two runs, each on a solo home run. “It was good to get back out there and try to give us a chance to win,” he said. “This is where you want to be. This is the group you want to play with.”

“I though he did a heck of a job,” said Servais, praising Hancock for attacking the strike zone and getting hitters to put the ball in play for easy ground ball outs.

After striking out around eight batters per nine innings in college and the minors, Hancock has become more of a contact manager in the bigs, striking out about half that but eliciting lots of weak contact. He only struck out one last night, but made it through those seven innings largely thanks to his ability to generate weak ground ball outs and soft flyouts. It’s a little bit different than the dominant Friday night starter he was at Georgia in 2019, firing 98-mph heaters. The big-league version of Hancock averages around 93 mph on his fastball, in the bottom third of fastballs in the league.

His manager doesn’t care for the phrase “pitching to contact,” saying he’s never met a pitcher who said “here, go ahead and it it,” but acknowledges Hancock, like many other young pitchers, is going through a process of maturation.

“If you’re throwing strikes in the right part of the strike zone, typically at the bottom of the strike zone, there is going to be contact. But as far as the strikeout numbers go, you have to figure out what your niche is and your game changes over time. Oftentimes the young first-round pick that you’re drafting out of college, he’s different. He matures. His game changes, maybe stuff changes a little bit, gets better, gets worse, whatever the case may be. And you evolve into the big-leaguer you are.”

“I really don’t care if he strikes him out or he gets him to hit the ball on the ground,” said Servais. “As long as they’re outs and get us deep in the game.”

For his part, Hancock isn’t dwelling on the vision of his past self; his focus is on the future.

“I think you’re always adapting. You’re always adjusting. You have a foundation of who you are as a pitcher, but you also get introduced to new pitches, and how do you use those while also staying true to who you are. And I think that never ends. You’re always trying to add in new things, figure out what works for you, and try to see what it does, ultimately.”

What’s been his biggest source of learning as he’s evolving into the next version of himself?

“Probably failure. Truthfully. I think you go out there and you go through certain things, you go through adversity, if you use it as a positive and make it into something, make yourself a better pitcher, then you got something out of it. So I think just going out there, see if it fails, and then going from there.”

Try again, fail again, fail better—maybe Hancock took a class on Samuel Beckett at Georgia?