Washington Nationals news & notes: James Wood was ready for challenge in majors…

Notes and quotes on the Nationals’ rookie outfielder and his first run in the majors this season…

From July 1st, when he made his MLB debut as a 21-year-old, through the end of the season, James Wood, the top prospect in the Washington Nationals’ organization at the start of the season, “ranked among Major League rookies in stolen bases (T1st, 14), walks (2nd, 39), hits (3rd, 78) and on-base percentage (3rd, .354).”

In 79 games and 336 plate appearances in the majors, the now-22-year-old outfielder put up a .264/.354/.427 line with 13 doubles, four triples, and nine home runs in a 1.2 fWAR run.

Wood connected for 78 hits in 79 games, with his hit total, walk total, and AVG/OBP/SLG, “… [pacing] the Nationals from July 1 through the end of the season,” as the club noted in their 2024 Season in Review.

“The 39 walks were tied for seventh in the National League over this span,” the Nats noted, and, “Wood ranked third in the NL with a .383 on-base percentage (62 H, 32 BB, HBP) from July 27 through the end of the season,” and, “… reached base safely in a career-high 14 straight games from Aug. 28 to Sept. 13 during that stretch.”

Wood had a 15-game hit streak early in July, and he also, while we’re going on about streaks, “… reached safely in 17 of his final 23 games: 23-for-79 (.291), 3 2B, 3 HR, 9 RBI, 6 BB, 13 R.”

The rookie outfielder hit four of his nine home runs in a 13-game stretch in mid-September, something he and skipper Davey Martinez said is a trend for Wood when he gets locked in at the plate.

“It’s kind of how it happened in Triple-A,” Wood said in September, after a two-home run game snapped a nearly-month-long homer-less stretch.

“You try not to [think about it],” Wood said of the 23 games without one, “… but sometimes it’s like, ‘Damn, I feel like I haven’t hit one in a while.’”

“I think it’s just a timing thing, and right now if he gets the ball in the strike zone he needs to pull the trigger a lot more,” Davey Martinez said that night.

“Today, he did that. And he hit them high and far. That’s a good sign for him. And like I said, hopefully, he continues to do that here for the next 10 days or so and he finishes up strong.”

The difference for Wood when he’s just hitting the ball hard (as he did during his time in the majors, ranking 14th in Barrel% among major leaguers with at least 300 PAs on the year, and 10th in Adjusted Exit Velocity as well, 97.0, not too far from Giancarlo Stanton’s MLB-leading 99.2 Adjusted EV) and hitting home runs?

“He was behind the balls really well. He stayed in the middle of the field, which was awesome,” Martinez said.

“So let’s see if we can keep him there until the end of the year and he hits a few more for us.”

“He got back early, he stayed in the middle, and he was able to elevate the ball in a good way, and that to me, if he could stay right there, I could see him doing this quite often here in the future.”

Martinez told reporters early in Wood’s time in the majors he was impressed with the way the young outfielder carried himself and handled himself at the plate.

“He has a plan every time he goes up there. He doesn’t try to do a whole lot. And I get to appreciate it, because when he does hit the ball the way he does, it’s almost like a ‘Wow!’ for me,” Martinez said, “… because I know what he’s really trying to do up there. He’s not trying to just go hit home runs. He’s trying to stay in the middle of the field, and he’s really trying to focus on just hitting the ball hard, and driving the ball, and when he does that he really does hit the ball hard. I have a lot of appreciation for him because people don’t realize it’s always an adjustment. This league, you got to adjust. They’re going to adjust to you, and he’s constantly adjusting, and I can see that he’s done it.

“He’s young, he’s going to go through these spurts, but he’s special, he really is. And he’s going to be a good one.”

The biggest adjustment he saw Wood make as he reacted to the way pitchers attacked him?

“It’s been — one, he didn’t get many fastballs in the minor leagues as sometimes he’s getting here, so he had to make adjustment to how they were pitching him here, and he’s done it. The other day we saw him turn on a ball, and vice versa. He was getting a lot of changeups early, down, he made adjustments about just trying to see the ball up. We want him to be aggressive, but be aggressive in the strike zone, and you can tell he’s being a lot more patient, he’s staying back a little bit better. Obviously he’s still going to chase some balls, but he’s done a whole lot better in-between his at-bats to how he’s approaching each and every at-bat, so like I said, every new team that he faces it’s different for him. He’s never seen the pitching. He’s studying a lot, watching video. I watch him even before he goes to hit, he makes sure he watches the pitcher to see what he’s doing, and he also watches how they pitch CJ [Abrams] and the other left-handed hitters, so he can make adjustments that way as well.”

GM and President of Baseball Ops Mike Rizzo, after watching Wood in the majors for a few months, told Audacy’s The Sports Junkies the young star had “unlimited potential.”

“I think he’s got potential to be a really good impactful player for us, I’ll just leave it at that,” Rizzo said.

“I think he’s going to be a really good middle of the lineup guy for us and he’s gonna be a guy that’s impacts the game in a positive manner for us on all sides of the ball – base running, offense, defense and inside the clubhouse.

“I think that we’ve got a really good special player in our midst and I think that it’s gonna be enjoyable to watch him play his career here.”