North Rockland’s Wirchansky Among Six Pitchers Signed By Boulders

The New York Boulders continued to build their roster for their initial foray into the Frontier League in 2021 as they bolstered their pitching staff this past week with six signings, including North Rockland High School and Pace University graduate Danny Wirchansky.

The team also inked right-handers Luke Burton, Alex Carrillo, Ben Strahm, and Gaylon Viney, and also extended the contract of southpaw Matt Valin.

The left-handed Wirchansky, 23, graduated from North Rockland in 2015. After a year at Rockland Community College, he transferred to Pace, where he pitched from 2017-2019. In the 2019 season, he went 6-2 with a 1.38 ERA for Pace. He has not pitched since that season.

Drafted in 2019 by the Milwaukee Brewers, Wirchansky, who resides in Stony Point, has also been the property of the Texas Rangers, but was released by both teams late that year with an arm injury and underwent Tommy John surgery.

“This is a great opportunity to get back on the field,” Wirchansky said. “It is a chance for me to go out there and prove that I can still play and compete in the game that I love and have been playing since I was a little guy.”

Burton, 24, is also a local product, hailing from Rockville Centre on Long Island. He originally signed with the Rockland Boulders late in the 2019 season out of Molloy College and did not record a decision in four appearances. This past summer, Burton pitched for the Palisades Credit Union Park-based New York Brave in the All-American Baseball Challenge.

Meanwhile, Carrillo, 23, of Paramount, CA, signed with the Texas Rangers in 2019 out of Faulkner University in Montgomery, AL and pitched for their Arizona Rookie League team that summer; while Strahm, 23, also pitched in the 2019 Arizona Rookie League, for the San Francisco Giants’ affiliate after being selected by the Bay Area team in the 2018 MLB Draft out of Northeastern State in Tahlequah, OK.

Viney, 26, last pitched for the University of Central Oklahoma back in 2018; while Valin, 23, who pitched for the Ottawa Champions of the Can-Am League in the summer of 2019 after graduating from SUNY-Cortland, signed with the Boulders before the suspended 2020 season and agreed to an extension with the club.

Valin also participated in this past summer’s All-American Baseball Challenge as a member of the New York Brave.

Debuting in 1993, the Frontier League is the largest and longest-running of the modern independent leagues and features teams stretching from the Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi River and from the Ohio River to the St. Lawrence Seaway.  This past September, the Frontier League reached an agreement to become a “Partner League” with Major League Baseball.

As a “Partner League,” the Frontier League and its teams will meet regularly with MLB representatives to discuss joint marketing and promotional opportunities, as well as collaborate on initiatives to provide organized baseball to communities throughout the United States and Canada.