Brothers in arms: UBC’s Ryan Heppner joins sibling Sean as MLB pick

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Teammates with the UBC Thunderbirds last year, siblings Sean and Ryan Heppner could be rivals on minor league mounds within the next season or so.

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Ryan, 20, was picked in the 19th round of this year’s Major League Baseball Draft on Tuesday by the Atlanta Braves. He is the 20th T-Birds pitcher ever chosen in the draft, joining a list that includes big brother Sean, 22, who was selected in the 12th round last year by the Cleveland Guardians.

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Sean is a right-hander currently working out of the bullpen for the Lynchburg Hillcats, Cleveland’s single-A affiliate. The Hillcats’ opponents in the Carolina League include the Augusta GreenJackets, which is a Braves’ farm team.

The Braves could assign Ryan to Augusta to finish off this summer. They could have him based out of their rookie league team in Florida instead. It’s hard to guess. The same goes for when Cleveland might promote Sean up the ladder.

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But you never know. What are the odds of brothers from Richmond getting drafted in the first place?

“When I got to UBC, we finally got to play on the same team, but never before have we played against each other. I think it would be a lot of fun,” Ryan said Tuesday. “We’re both really competitive. I think if we were both pitching against each other that would be the best experience.

“This has been my dream, too, but to follow in his footsteps all the way is the coolest thing ever.”

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The brothers were both born on this side of the border, but the family has lived for much of their lives in Point Roberts, Wash., which is tied to having an American mother and Canadian father.

Ryan’s the youngest of five siblings. He is a Vancouver College graduate. He played his minor baseball with the Tsawwassen Athletics, Delta Tigers and then the Delta Blue Jays before moving to UBC.

He’s a 6-foot, 190-pound right-hander who had a 7-2 record to go with a 4.38 earned run average in 15 appearances with UBC this season, including 14 starts. He allowed 70 hits in 74 innings, while striking out 77 and walking 24.

“I don’t know what life is going to be like without the Heppners. There’s not enough of them,” laughed UBC head coach Chris Pritchett. “They’re both phenomenal students and value education. They are both going to be civil engineers one day. These guys are 90 per cent-plus students. And they’re tremendous athletes.

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“This is where Sean really wanted to come, and I think Ryan wanted to play on his team one day. It wasn’t as tough (recruiting them) as it would be normally be with their talent level.”

UBC went 39-19 this past season, marking the most wins for the program in nearly a decade. They also advanced to the NAIA World Series for the second time in their 28-year history. They were eliminated in two games.

After the draft on Tuesday, UBC outfielder Jonny McGill, 23, who is also from Richmond, signed a free-agent deal with the Los Angeles Angels. The 5-foot-11, 210-pound left-handed hitting McGill batted .405 in 57 games with UBC, and recorded 18 home runs and 56 runs batted in. He also stole 17 bases.

That gives UBC 34 players who have either been drafted or signed by big-league clubs. And, keep in mind, baseball has scaled back its minor-league systems. It dropped 43 farm teams from affiliate status during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown, looking to both cut costs and streamline development. The MLB Draft, too, has been to moved to 20 rounds from its previous traditional 40-round.

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For further perspective, there were 615 players taken in this year’s draft when you add in extra selections for things like losing free agents. That’s down from 1,217 total selections in 2019.

“Obviously there was some concern for that for us, knowing that was going to be a harder path,” Pritchett said of the shrinking minor league system. “It always was a part of the recruiting process. It’s always been ‘Come here and get a great education but you’ll still have an opportunity to go play pro ball.’ What these guys have done pretty phenomenal. You’re going right to high-A now from this level, and that means people think you have a chance.

“I’m really thrilled how it’s gone for us the last couple of years.”

Heading into action Tuesday, Sean Heppner was 4-1, with a 4.95 earned run average, in 24 relief appearances with Lynchburg. He has allowed 20 hits in 31 innings, while striking out 27 and walking 26.

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The Toronto Blue Jays, whose high-A farm team is the Vancouver Canadians, made a couple of B.C. pickstaking Abbotsford righty Micah Buckham, who is at Dallas Baptist University, in the fourth round, and Coquitlam third baseman Tim Piasentin, who is with the Alberta’s Okotoks Dawgs Academy, in the fifth round.

Florida State righty Cam Leiter, who was born New Jersey but lived in Maple Ridge for a decade and played for the Langley Blaze program, went in the second round to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Other picks with B.C. ties include righty Carson Latimer (Delta/Sacramento State) going in the 12th round to the Cincinnati Reds; righty Tyrelle Chadwick (Kamloops/Illinois State) going in the 18th round to the Colorado Rockies; lefty Hayden Cuthbertson (Ladner/Miami-Ohio) going in the 18th round to the Miami Marlins; and lefty Shane Brinham (North Vancouver/North Shore Twins) going to the Dodgers with the final selection of the draft in the 20th round.

@Seveves

SEwen@postmedia.com

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