Bedford High School alum Joey Wiemer entered a recent Low-A East Carolina MudCats series against the Kannapolis Cannon Ballers with nine home runs in his first full season of minor league baseball.
He ended the six-game series with 13.
And he hasn’t slowed down — even after earning a promotion in the Milwaukee Brewers’ system.
Over a three-game span, Wiemer launched two walk-off home runs and his first career grand slam. After a series in which Wiemer went 14-for-24 (.583 batting average), the former University of Cincinnati Bearcat was named Low-A East Player of the Week by Minor League Baseball. Two days later, Wiemer was promoted to the High-A Wisconsin Timber Rattlers.
“Everything matched up for him where he was certainly excelling on the field, and with the things that we really look at and value, he was checking those boxes, as well,” Brewers vice president of minor league operations Tom Flanagan said. “So everything lined up in this case, and it made it a pretty easy decision that this was a good time to move him up.”
In nine games in High-A, he is batting .387 with five more home runs and a 1.390 on base plus slugging.
A 2020 fourth-round pick by the Milwaukee Brewers, Wiemer’s first minor-league season started out rocky. He opened the season 0-for-11, but wasn’t alarmed.
“I was never concerned or pressing a panic button,” Wiemer said. “There's going to be adjustments getting to pro ball. So it was kind of just taking it day-by-day.”
Part of his adjustment was about getting comfortable to minor league baseball, but he also noticed he hit a lot of ground balls and made hard outs. So he was close.
Wiemer’s roommate at Low-A and High-A, Zavier Warren, pointed out that Wiemer was starting his swing too upright.
The adjustment ignited his now scorching bat.
Entering Friday, Wiemer is hitting .536 in the month of August with a 1.071 slugging percentage and 1.652 OPS.
“It just slows down head movement a lot,” Wiemer said. “I had a long stride to the pitch, and I was moving my head down, and I had to come back up. So what I’m doing now is more start down and then just see ball, hit ball.”
Although Wiemer hit .200 in his first 70 at-bats, he demonstrated a strong plate discipline and an ability to hit for power, Flanagan said.
Over the course of June and July, Wiemer’s development began to appear in his slash line. He had a .267 batting average, .421 on-base percentage, and a .413 slugging rate in the month of June.
His on-base plus slugging jumped almost 200 percentage points from May to June — from .640 to .834.
Low-A allowed Wiemer to get comfortable with the minor leagues. He played in the Brewers’ Arizona Fall Instructional League, but 2021 is his first full-professional season.
So far, so good.
“Joey's an interesting guy,” Flanagan said. “He has a high amount of trust in his ability, and he's extremely athletic. With those guys, it's more about putting them in an environment where they can let their athleticism play, and they'll kind of figure it out within their training and practice,” Flanagan said ”I think he's done a nice job with figuring out how he feels and how things are moving for him in different patterns.”
First Published August 20, 2021, 4:15 p.m.
