Pair of Bison Pitchers Added to MLB Player Pools

SHAWNEE – Former Oklahoma Baptist pitchers Taylor Hearn and Julian Merryweather have been selected to the player pools for the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays, respectively.
 
For this season Major League Baseball instituted the player pool system in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Each team has up to 60 players in their pool, and only those players are allowed to participate in summer training camp which begins July 1.
 
Active rosters will allow up to 30 players to start the season, then be cut down to 28 after two weeks, and then to the final 26-man active roster two weeks after that. All players added to teams' 40-man or active rosters must first be added to the 60-man player pools.
 
Hearn pitched for the Bison in 2015, compiling a perfect 9-0 record with an ERA of 3.50, striking out 71 in 64.1 innings, and holding opposing batters to a .191 average as OBU advanced to the NAIA World Series.
 
He was drafted in the fifth round by the Washington Nationals and was traded to the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2016, before being acquired by the Rangers via trade in the summer of 2018. He made his Major League debut against the Seattle Mariners on April 25, 2019, becoming the first OBU alumnus to reach the big leagues.
 
Merryweather joined the Blue Jays in the fall of 2018 following several years in the Cleveland Indians organization after being drafted in the fifth round in 2014.
 
Pitching for the Bison from 2013-14, Merryweather ended his career at OBU with a 22-5 record. The All-American had a career ERA of 1.73 in 182 innings pitched after tying the second-lowest ERA in program history with 1.07 in 2014. He registered 208 career strikeouts with the Bison.
 
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