After 17 months away from the game, Blake Shepardson stepped on the mound in the fall of his senior year and delivered an 87 mph omen.
It was only a 20-pitch outing for the Mountain Vista High School product, but it was enough to prompt a prescient prediction from his club baseball coach Scott Bauer:“Dude, you better get ready for the 2024 draft.”
“I said that and hugged him,” Bauer said. “I’m not sure how much I believed it, and I’m not sure how much he believed it. But there was definitely a hopeful feeling there.”
What Bauer couldn’t have known then was that the same thing could also have been said to Blake’s younger brother Grant, who at the time was a no-name freshman at Mountain Vista.
Fast forward four years, and the Shepardson brothers made Colorado baseball history this summer.
Grant, who just graduated from MVHS, was selected in the fifth round by the Marlins on July 15. Then Blake was drafted a day later by the White Sox in the 11th round out of the University of San Francisco.
With that, the hard-throwing right-handers became the first Colorado brothers to be drafted and signed in the same year.And they couldn’t have done it without each other.
“Throughout this whole journey, we’ve held each other accountable, we’ve pushed each other to get our work in every day,” Grant Shepardson said. “We communicate with each other when things are good, things are bad. We’re usually each other’s first person to talk to about baseball. And getting to make history together, that’s definitely the coolest part.”
The older brother’s adversity
The Shepardsons’ road to a rare draft double-dip seemed like a pipe dream during Blake’s high school days.
Heading into high school, Blake was dealing with an elbow issue known as osteochondritis dissecans (OCD) of the capitellum. Essentially, he had a loose piece of cartilage that would get locked into his elbow joint. When that happened, he couldn’t close his elbow.
After one doctor told the family Blake’s elbow may be able to heal without surgery, the family elected for rehabilitation instead. He was able to pitch as a freshman, but the issue flared up again shortly into his sophomore season at Mountain Vista. At that point, surgery was necessary, sidelining Blake for the rest of that spring and all of his junior season.
“I was just battling through those days,” Blake recalled. “There were so many times in high school, I was like, ‘You know what, I don’t know if I want to play anymore. My arm hurts. And I’m not that good.’”
But when Blake finally returned to the mound in that fateful outing for his club team in the fall of his senior year, the abbreviated outing offered a glimmer of what he could become. Even though he threw only two-thirds of an inning on a strict pitch, clocking 87 mph as a baseline proved to be a defining moment in the pitcher’s comeback.
Finally healthy, Blake committed to Regis University that spring. He was the Golden Eagles’ No. 3 starter that year and pitched in the postseason as the team ran the table to the Class 5A state title.
When he got to Regis, Blake was still trying to figure out what sort of pitcher he might become. Control issues continued to plague him. He posted a 10.89 ERA with 27 walks and 10 hit by pitches in 20 2/3 innings as a freshman, mostly out of the bullpen, and then an 8.39 ERA in 12 starts as a sophomore. Then he entered the transfer portal and caught USF’s attention after Grant — who was already pledged there — mentioned his older brother to the Dons coaching staff during a recruiting visit.
Blake’s stats in his first season in Division I still weren’t exactly attractive (7.80 ERA in 19 games), but his dominant showing for the West Virginia Black Bears in the MLB Draft League turned heads. There, the 6-foot-5 hurler had a 0.00 ERA in five games, with two hits, two walks and 11 strikeouts while showing off a triple-digit fastball.
“Because I hadn’t been pitching consistently before college, I wasn’t built up and I was only fully starting to learn how to pitch,” Blake said. “There were definitely growing pains. I wasn’t completely mentally sound (with the game), and I was failing a lot. I felt completely derailed and had a bit of imposter syndrome.
“It wasn’t until after my sophomore year of college that I really started to change as a pitcher, and even though my ERA wasn’t the best this season (with USF), I really started to believe in my true potential and in the process I was going through.”
In addition to a heater that sits 96 to 99 mph and has topped out at 101, Blake’s arsenal also includes a sinker (95-98), sweeper (84-88), slider (89-92) and changeup (88-90).
That repertoire led Chicago to pick Blake at No. 319 overall. The White Sox beat several other teams to the punch at the opening of the third day of a draft. The 21-year-old’s destination was changing by the minute that day on the back end of negotiations until the White Sox officially took him and signed him for a $150,000 bonus.
The younger brother’s rise
The day before Blake realized his dream, the Marlins nabbed Grant at No. 155 overall to make him the first Colorado high school player taken. There was less drama with that pick: Grant knew several rounds ahead of time that Miami was going to draft him.
The Marlins proceeded to sign him for $897,500, more than double the slot value of the pick ($427,000), which made it an easy choice for Grant to bypass his scholarship at USF.
“I was open-minded going into the draft and I wasn’t really set one way or another on if I was going to college or into pro ball,” Grant said. “I wasn’t anxious. I was just going to let it happen. But then that morning of the first day, I felt (more decisive). … I wanted a development-focused path in pro ball.”
Grant was 4-3 with a 3.13 ERA this spring for Mountain Vista while showcasing a range of pitches that intrigued scouts. His fastball sat 93 to 95 mph, topping out at 98, in addition to a plus slider (83-86) and a curveball (80-82), sinker (93-95) and changeup (85-87).
Like Blake, Grant had an injury at the start of high school, though the younger brother’s issue was a hiccup compared to the multi-season setback Blake endured. Grant sat out his freshman year at Mountain Vista, and the summer and fall that followed, with a mild OCD lesion in his knee.
That required rehabilitation and rest, but no surgery. In that span, the same time frame in which Blake was nearing his way back to the mound, the brothers leaned on each other. They went fishing, golfed and played lots of video games, deepening a bond that was tight all the way back to childhood.
As Blake went through his tribulations at Regis, the older brother constantly pushed Grant to get in the weight room and take his approach to the game seriously. Grant listened, gaining about 15 pounds heading into his junior season and undergoing a significant velocity spike into the low 90s.
“Blake was staying on me about developing a routine, developing a plan about how I was going about things, and making sure I was taking everything seriously coming into my final two years of high school,” Grant said. “He constantly was checking in to make sure I was taking all the little details into account because I think he saw the talent I had and he didn’t want me to waste it.”
Then this spring came the coming-out party.
Grant’s first start was in Arizona against powerhouse O’Connor, where he showed the scouts that he was a pitcher to watch. A few weeks later, the 6-foot-1 senior backed that up in front of a hoard of scouts on hand for a high-profile showdown against eventual Class 5A state champion Cherry Creek.
That day in Greenwood Village, Grant tossed a complete game on 87 pitches, with one unearned run, no walks, two hits and 12 strikeouts. His pinpoint fastball command, in conjunction with a wipeout slider, made him basically unhittable.
“If he pitched well that day, he was going to move up on everybody’s radar,” Mountain Vista coach Ron Quintana said. “And that’s what he did, and it really put him on the map and that definitely shot up his draft stock. It was pretty obvious he was going to get drafted following that performance. He gave up a hit to the first batter, then after that, was dominant.”
The next Rogers bros?
Mountain Vista’s had one player make the majors — right-hander A.J. Schugel, a 2007 graduate who played for the Diamondbacks and Pirates from 2015-17.
If the Shepardsons fulfill their potential, they could triple that and follow in the footsteps of the Rogers twins, Chatfield alums who are now bullpen stalwarts for the San Francisco Giants. Columbine products Darrel and Duane Akerfelds were also drafted in the same class in 1983, both by the Mariners, but Duane never signed.
“The ceiling is just so high on both of them,” said Bauer, who was also Grant’s club coach. “The fact that Blake hasn’t thrown a ton due to injury, there’s so much left in that arm. His arm is probably two to three years younger than the other college guys in the 2024 draft just because of that.
“And as far as Grant goes, to be up to 98 in a game this spring coming out of high school, that’s crazy potential. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also hits 100. Plus, his slider is one of the nastiest high school pitches I’ve ever seen.”
The brothers will likely have different paths to the majors, even as they both find themselves in farm systems of cellar-dwelling franchises in the throes of full-scale rebuilds.
For Grant, it’ll be a slow burn. He just began building his arm back up after taking some time off following the combine. He’s going to be working through bullpens and live at-bats at the Marlins’ training complex, and there’s a chance he could make his pro debut later this season with the Low-A Jupiter Hammerheads.
“The two building blocks I’m focused on are dialing in the fastball command and showing a better feel for the changeup,” Grant said. “Those two things will help me make another big jump.”
Blake has the chance to be a quick riser as a back-end bullpen arm with unique velocity.He will likely soon make his pro debut with the Low-A Kannapolis Cannon Ballers. If he can continue to hone his control, promotions will come quickly.
Whatever the case, the brothers will continue to lean on each other from afar — just as they did back in Highlands Ranch.
“Just having this opportunity to rise through the minors with my brother is amazing in itself,” Grant said. “And if it culminates with us both in the big leagues, then that’s even cooler.”
Originally Published: August 4, 2024 at 5:45 a.m.
