Wooster & Div. III Baseball great Michael Wielansky was named to Team Israel's roster for the upcoming WBC. Wooster athletics photo by Matt Dilyard

Michael Wielansky, who was selected by the then-defending Major League Baseball World Series champion Houston Astros in the 18th round of the 2018 First-Year Player Draft, is one of 30 players on Team Israel’s roster for the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Official rosters for all 20 teams were announced on the MLB Network on Thursday evening.

Wielansky, who played for Panama in the Caribbean Series this winter, joins a Team Israel squad that features 13 players with MLB experience and is coached by MLB legends Ian Kinsler (manager), Brad Ausmus (bench coach), and two-time World Series champion Kevin Youkilis (hitting coach). The World Baseball Classic runs from March 8-21. Teams are split into four pools of five teams each. Following pool play, the top two teams from each pool advance to an eight-team single-elimination bracket. Israel is part of Pool D, which includes the Dominican Republic, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela.

Since being drafted, Wielansky played three seasons in the Houston Astros organization, reaching as high as Triple-A Sugar Land in 2021. He totaled 86 hits, 64 runs, 39 RBI, 16 doubles, eight stolen bases, five triples, and four home runs over 122 Minor League games. This summer, he played for the Long Island Ducks, a team in the Atlantic League of Professional Baseball. There, he hit .269 (78-for-290) over 83 games. Wielansky scored 64 runs, drove in 43, legged out 11 doubles, and clubbed eight home runs for the Ducks.

The 2018 American Baseball Coaches Association Div. III Position Player of the Year was the first NCAA Div. III position player drafted in 2018. The consensus first-team ABCA and D3baseball.com All-American and Mideast Region Position Player of the Year in 2018 became the second known player in Div. III history to record 200 hits, 200 runs, and 150 RBI before the end of his junior year. Wielansky hit .401 (79-for-197), led Div. III with 76 runs, tallied 50 RBI, 40 walks, 20 doubles, seven triples, and six home runs in 2018, a year in which he helped lead Wooster to its sixth regional title and sixth appearance in the Div. III “World Series.”

As a sophomore, Wielansky earned first-team ABCA All-America honors, and was tabbed the best defensive shortstop in Div. III, as evidenced by earning the ABCA Gold Glove Award. Wielansky’s professional stock skyrocketed between his sophomore and junior seasons with a summer in the Valley Baseball League. He earned the summer collegiate wood bat league’s MVP honor after turning in one of the highest batting averages - .432 - since the league became a NCAA-sanctioned summer league in 1961. Wielansky’s .489 on-base and .677 slugging percentages, hits (67), runs (38), and doubles (18) were all tops in the league during the 2017 regular season.

Wielansky was a lifetime .400 hitter (231-for-578) at Wooster with 206 runs, 156 RBI, 59 stolen bases, 53 doubles, 23 home runs, and 18 triples over 145 career games.