Nick Solak

Before the draft, Baseball America had ranked him as 86th-best prospect for it.

He made his professional debut with the Short-Season Class A Staten Island Yankees and hit two three-run home runs during his first at-bat there.

Nicholas Blake Solak (born January 11, 1995) is an American professional baseball second baseman and outfielder in the Seattle Mariners organization.

He has previously played in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Texas Rangers, Atlanta Braves and Detroit Tigers.

Solak attended Naperville North High School in Naperville, Illinois, and the University of Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky.

Solak was born on January 11, 1995, in Woodridge, Illinois.

He has a sister named Alexis.

His father Mark worked for Motorola for 30 years, while his mother Roseann (Pawlak) has a background in community health and substance abuse prevention.

He was named after Nick's Sports Page, a sports bar in Dolton, Illinois, where his parents had first met during an event featuring Carlton Fisk.

Nick played the saxophone in elementary and junior high school band, and he resumed playing it after his father had the old saxophone refurbished.

Growing up outside of Chicago, Solak was a childhood fan of the Chicago White Sox, and his favorite childhood baseball players were Scott Podsednik, Paul Konerko, and Mark Buehrle.

Solak played three seasons with the baseball team at Naperville North High School in Naperville, Illinois, where he played as a middle infielder.

He batted .442 with 27 runs batted in (RBI) as a junior in 2012.

As a senior in 2013, he had a .340 batting average.

However, only the Pittsburgh Pirates sent him a questionnaire before the 2013 Major League Baseball draft.

Solak married his girlfriend, Roxanne McVey, on November 20, 2021.

Solak made his college baseball debut on February 16, 2014, pinch hitting for the Louisville Cardinals in their 6–1 win against the Delaware Fightin' Blue Hens.

The following week, Solak experienced a number of collegiate firsts.

On February 19, during the Cardinals' season home opener against Eastern Kentucky, he recorded his first RBI on a groundout.

Two days later, he recorded his first hit in the Cardinals' 21–8 rout of the Western Michigan Broncos, and he made his first start the day after that as a designated hitter when the Cardinals shut out the Broncos 8–0.

In the summer of 2014, he played for the Vermont Mountaineers of the New England Collegiate Baseball League.

As a sophomore in 2015, Solak attained a .324 batting average, and hit three runs, forty RBIs, fifteen doubles, and stole eighteen bases.

Along with Pete Alonso, he played for the Bourne Braves of the Cape Cod League, with Solak name a league all-star.

The New York Yankees drafted Solak in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft.

In 2016, he played as a second baseman, and despite suffering from an injury, he was named a Second Team Academic All-American by the College Sports Information Directors of America, and earned second-team All-America recognition from the National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association.

He had a slash line of a .376 batting average, .470 on-base percentage, and a .564 slugging percentage.

He also hit four home runs, and 26 RBIs in his 42 games played in 2016.

Solak finished his collegiate career with a slash line of .346/.442/.484 with 10 home runs, 94 RBI, 36 stolen bases, and a .926 on-base plus slugging (OPS).

The New York Yankees selected Solak in the second round of the 2016 MLB draft as the 62nd overall pick, and signed him for a $950,000 signing bonus.

He finished the 2016 season with a .321 batting average and 3 home runs, with his 77 hits a tie for the second-most hits in the New York–Penn League (NYPL), and 48 runs a tie for the third-most runs.

He also hit .411 during a 14-game hitting streak stretching from July 28 to August 13.

He was named to the NYPL's mid-season all-star team, and Baseball America's Short-Season All-Star team.

Following the season Baseball America also ranked Solak the number 19 prospect in the Yankees organization.

In 2017, Solak finished with a .301 batting average for the high-A Tampa Yankees, hitting 10 home runs with 44 RBIs and 13 stolen bases.

After playing in several minor-league teams in the Yankees farm system, Solak was traded to the Tampa Bay Rays in 2018 in a three-team trade, during which he played for the Double-A Montgomery Biscuits and, in 2019, the Triple-A Durham Bulls.

On July 13, 2019, the Texas Rangers acquired Solak, and he was assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds.

Solak made his major-league debut for the Rangers on August 20, 2019, and was voted the team's Rookie of the Year that season.

Solak remained with the team until July 23, 2021, when he was sent down to the Triple-A Round Rock Express.

He returned to the Rangers on August 20, 2021, and stayed with the team until May 19, 2022, when he was once again optioned to Round Rock.

Solak and McVey met during their attendance at the University of Louisville, where McVey played volleyball, with Solak proposing to her in 2019 at the bar where they first met.