The pressure is on now for ValleyCats’ Wielansky
TROY » ValleyCats infielder Trey Dawson has been promoted to the Quad Cities River Bandits and Jeremy Pena still deals with shin splints which are keeping him sideline day to day, leaving shortstop responsibilities to Michael Wielansky.
“Shortstop was my natural position coming in, so any time I get there I love it,” said Wielansky on being the everyday shortstop. “If Trey moving up means that I get the opportunity then I am definitely going to take it and I’d love to be the guy there.”
The Houston Astros’ 18th round draft pick in the 2018 draft, Wielansky played shortstop at the College of Wooster before becoming a rotating fixture in the ValleyCats infield.
At Wooster, an NCAA III school, Wielansky was a consensus first team All-American and was the Mideast Region Player of the Year in both 2017 and 2018.
Other college accolades Wielansky earned at Wooster consist of being just the second player ever in NCAA III to log 200 hits, 200 runs, and 150 RBI before the end of his junior year, and also led all of Div. III in scoring for back to back years in 2017 and 2018.
Safe to say, Wielansky can handle shortstop.
“It’s always fun playing at a spot you’ve been playing your whole life but playing it at the professional level,” said Wielansky.
“Which is something not a whole lot of people can say, so just having fun with it -it’s never that much pressure.”
This past week Wielansky also hit his second home run of his young professional career. In 136 at- bats, two home runs is nothing to bat an eye at. Manager Jason Bell is aware of Wielansky’s power, now both need to figure out how to harness that raw power.
“He’s a guy that actually does have a lot of power, it’s just a matter of time before it translates from what we see in practice, to the game,” said Bell.
“He can hit breaking balls, it’s just the confidence he needs to instill to hit that. Him getting a home run on a breaking ball should hopefully help his feel for swinging at those pitches and not just taking them early in the count and all of a sudden it’s 0-2, because if they leave one up, and you have the ability to hit it, the numbers say you can hit breaking ball as well, hit it.”
Wielansky has been working on his swing with ValleyCats hitting coach Jeremy Barnes.
“Yea, I’ve been working on a lot of stuff and it’s starting to feel a lot better, which is always good, and hopefully that keeps trending up and I can keep hitting extra base hits,” said Wielansky. “It’s slowly changing just as a whole. It’s definitely different. Everyone will say their swing changes eventually once you come to this level, it’s starting to get some results which is good.”
On the defensive side, Bell sees the potential in Wielansky and is excited for the prospect of building Wielansky as a fully dimensional f ive tool player.
“He’s a guy with a lot of potential on the defense too,” said Bell. “For him there is a lot in there, now it is time to dig in there and coach him he’s really coachable and he’s fun to work with.”
Wielansky has a ton of upside, which is exciting. He has shown off his speed with his triple against the
Brooklyn Cyclones, his power with a home run in the same series, and practices, and games, have proven to be good indicators of his arm and defensive ability.
“He has a strong arm,” said Bell. “It’s just getting him quicker with it and adjusted to the speed of the runners and things like that. He has it in him, one of the stronger arms on the team.”
Wielansky understands the road to “The Show” is a long and grueling one, but is one he is willing to work for.
“You just have to trust what you are doing,” said Wielansky. “In practice, you practice how you play. Ever since I was little my coaches have preached that.”