Bold and beautiful: James Wood’s debut latest dividend from Nationals' Juan Soto deal
WASHINGTON, D.C. — It has been nearly two years since Mike Rizzo donned his gigantic World Series championship ring, stared into a sea of cameras and declared, with only a trace of hubris, that he built the Washington Nationals’ 10-year run of contention — and that he’d create their next one, too.
Rizzo, the Nationals’ general manager since 2009, had just traded generational talent and World Series hero Juan Soto for a star-studded but uncertain quintet of San Diego Padres prospects, a deal that stunned Soto and the industry given Soto’s age (22) and two-plus years remaining before free agency.
Rarely do franchises so obviously signal their intent to immolate. Under these circumstances, Rizzo chose defiance, to proudly wear the mantle of “GM who traded Juan Soto.”
“I was the guy who signed him, too,” Rizzo said on that somber August 2022 afternoon, less than three years removed from that championship season. “I’ll remember Juan as the guy who was with me when I won my first World Series as a general manager.
“And now I’m looking to do my next one.”
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Jump ahead to Monday night at Nationals Park, a perfect 80-degree summer evening, and the fruits of that painful decision abounded. On the mound was 25-year-old MacKenzie Gore, the left-hander with the heavy 97-mph fastball, second-hardest among southpaw starters in the major leagues.
CJ Abrams, the 23-year-old who has displayed all five tools this season, sometimes on the same night, patrolled shortstop. And jogging out to left field for his major league debut, No. 50 draped on his sturdy 6-foot-7 frame, was power-hitting outfielder James Wood.
All three arrived in the Soto trade, the bulk of a haul that rival evaluators lauded at the time, yet with all the caveats that come with a deadline deal that gave away two and a half years of Soto, already a sure thing.
Getting from there — a franchise implosion, a stunning pivot — to here — a trio of potentially foundational pieces sliding into place — is fraught with peril. And so many Ls: 107 in 2022, 91 last year.
And let’s be clear: They’re not sizing Rizzo’s other finger for a championship ring just yet. At 39-45, these Nationals are on the outskirts of the National League wild-card race, a status your hairdresser or mail carrier could credibly claim, too.
Yet moving boldly to fortify a fallow organization doesn’t usually yield evenings like Monday that are as satisfying as they are gorgeous. They raised no banner — not even Mission Accomplished — at Nationals Park, but as they took the wraps off their latest No. 1 prospect, the checkpoint on the road to respectability was undeniable.
“I give Mike Rizzo a lot of credit and his team in the front office — to see these players, scout these players and be able to make these kinds of trades we need,” says manager Dave Martinez, who presided over the World Series title and then had to wear all the losses — and face the scorn — as the team’s most public-facing employee. “To develop these guys and get them up to the major leagues — they’ve done a great job. Not just James Wood, but a lot of great players coming.
“We’re very excited about what’s going to transpire here for many years.”
And Wood’s arrival was no reason to spare any excitement.
‘A completely different baseball player’
As Wood, 21, took his first batting practice hacks as a big leaguer, his parents, Kenny and Paula, and older sisters stood as testament to the athletic and personal greatness that guided Wood to the big leagues. Kenny Wood is a University of Richmond Hall of Famer, thanks to a hoops career in which he scored more than 1,400 points and spearheaded a 1991 upset of second-seeded Syracuse in the NCAA Tournament.
Older sister Sydney was a Big Ten honorable mention and team captain for Northwestern’s women’s team and now serves as a basketball operations assistant in the San Antonio Spurs organization. Kayla is a Notre Dame graduate and environmental scientist.
It is from this cocoon that James emerged, but Paula cites an even wider one — she estimated hundreds of supporters from Olney, Maryland, were making the hourlong drive to D.C. for his debut. That number included coaches and members of his longtime travel team — one former coach of the Olney Pirates was driving from New Jersey — as well as coaches from Florida’s IMG Academy, where he spent his last year and a half of school.
As James grew to 6-6, that support system helped mold him into a second-round pick of the Padres in 2021. He posted an .874 OPS in his first full season in the Nationals organization. Yet an off-season dedicated to improving his plate discipline paid off when Wood put on a show in Grapefruit League games and took it to Class AAA Rochester.
Wood struck out 173 times in 2023, a 31.5% strikeout rate between high A and AA. This year: 18.1%, with 10 homers, a .453 OBP and 1.058 OPS.
“Shoot, he’s a beast,” says Nationals left-hander DJ Herz, who spent the first two months at Rochester before getting called up. “But this year, he was like a completely different baseball player. Hitting it backside, making a lot more contact and obviously, the power is going to come.
“Making so much more contact and putting balls all over the field.”
And avoiding strikeouts only opens up the tantalizing possibilities with a player of Wood’s stature.
At 6-7 and 234 pounds, Wood can stand eye to eye with New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge (6-7, 282) and Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop Oneil Cruz (6-7, 215). He’s a smidge taller than the 6-6, 245-pound Giancarlo Stanton and both taller and stronger than Cincinnati Reds second-year phenom Elly De La Cruz (6-5, 200).
Why the comps? Well, it is the taller players who can control the strike zone and make contact that are most likely to destroy baseballs at a rate far greater than their peers.
Of the hardest hit home runs since Statcast began measuring such things, Stanton and Judge have combined to hit 13 of the 20. De La Cruz has another, as does the great Shohei Ohtani.
The top six players in average exit velocity this season? Judge (97 mph), Ohtani and Cruz (95.2), Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (94.5), Soto (94.4) and Stanton (94.3).
That’s what made Wood’s first major league at-bat so glorious: His newfound plate discipline milked a full count against New York Mets left-hander David Peterson before he scorched a ball 106.7 mph between third and shortstop for an opposite-field hit.
Later on, he forced a throwing error from Mets reliever Jake Diekman by running hard on a swinging bunt, and drew a walk to fortify the Nationals’ four-run, 10th-inning rally.
Working the count? Using all fields? Crushing the baseball? Wood certainly checked all the boxes the Nationals had dreamed on as he climbed the organizational ladder.
“It gets you excited,” Gore said after he struck out at least eight for the seventh time in 17 starts. “We gotta keep getting better in here and understanding where we’re at as a group. I think if we keep doing that, we’ll start winning some games in here. And we need to figure out how to do that soon.
“But he’s going to make us better.”
Coming into focus
Wood’s a pretty chill dude. He said he had little trouble sleeping the night before his big league debut — “I’m pretty good at sleeping,” he says — and seemed pleased but unbothered by the trappings of the debut.
Sure, there was the now de rigueur viral call-up video and T-shirt giveaway, and his minor league highlights played on various loops before the game. But nerves were not evident, and Martinez says the rookie’s demeanor is a significant upside.
It certainly helped him get through this half-season at Class AAA, with Nationals fans and prospect heads clamoring for his promotion.
“Even the struggles, going through those and learning how to get through them, it helps a lot,” says Wood. “Baseball is more of a mental game. Just learning how to work through and stay strong through those, it helps a lot.”
Monday night, in front of a giddy crowd of 26,719, proved as much. Gore was great, leaving with a 1-0 lead after striking out eight Mets in 5 2/3 innings. Abrams made a highlight-reel play at shortstop.
Yet he also came up on a scorched ground ball that would’ve ended the sixth inning but instead skidded through his legs into left field. Instead, three runs scored. The Mets moved to .500 with a 9-7 win in 10 innings.
Rizzo’s vision is not yet complete, though Wood — awed in his debut only by the third deck in Nationals Park, the cheers largely for him — certainly pretties the picture.
“I don’t want him to feel like he’s the face of anything. I just want him to play baseball,” says Martinez. “We’re getting there. We’re getting there. This is just one of many guys we feel will help us at the major league level.
“But we’re really excited about the future — James Wood and everybody else.”
Indeed, Rizzo and his staff still have a chance for a 5-for-5 jackpot in the Soto deal. Fellow outfielder Robert Hassell III has a .369 OBP at Class AA Harrisburg, though he’s on the injured list.
Right-hander Jarlin Susana, whose 100-mph fastball made him an alluring lottery ticket in the deal, is striking out 13 batters per nine innings at Class A Fredericksburg — but also walking 28 in 51 innings. Still, he’s 20 years old.
Meanwhile, recent top draft picks Dylan Crews and Brady House are bubbling toward D.C. Perhaps it’s not quite the “15 or 16 high-quality, high-tooled-up players that have very impactful futures ahead of them,” that Rizzo touted a couple years ago.
Yet the club’s massive overhaul in player development has yielded results, especially on the pitching side, where unheralded arms like Herz, Jake Irvin and Mitchell Parker have impacted the big league club.
“It’s super exciting,” says Herz, “that this young team has come to fruition.”
The harvest was all over the diamond Monday night, thanks to a bold gambit that’s still paying off.
