James Wood doesn’t think he’s shy.
Still, baseball’s No. 2 overall prospect, a baseball unicorn who made his MLB debut Monday for the Washington Nationals, acknowledges he comes across as a quiet guy.
“I don’t really talk a lot,” the 6-foot-10 vaulter told Yahoo Sports in a recent conversation before being called up. “I’m just pretty relaxed.”
In short, that’s Wood as a person: relaxed, low-key, stress-free. The ultimate chiller. The 21-year-old’s words come out of his mouth with a Gen Z disaffection that, to a cynical ear, might sound like disinterest. But don’t mistake his easygoing nature for that of a slacker or a late bloomer. Wood cares. He works hard and he listens. He’s reserved but incredibly attentive. Coaches and teammates rave about his character and work ethic while making borderline irresponsible statements about how bright his future is.
And why wouldn’t they?
Wood, drafted 62nd overall in 2021 by San Diego and traded to Washington a year later, has done nothing but swoon and turn heads in his relatively short time as a pro. In three remarkably short years, the D.C.-area kid has gone from developmental dream to franchise-changing force. In 52 games this season in Triple-A before his call-up, Wood posted a ridiculous 1.058 OPS with 10 homers and nearly as many walks as strikeouts. All this despite being 5 1/2 years younger than the average Triple-A player.
With his Olympic volleyball frame and impressive top-end speed and power, few baseball players are like Wood. He is now one of only three MLB hitters, along with Aaron Judge and Oneil Cruz, to be 6 feet tall or taller. No one in the minor leagues who played or coached with or against him forgets watching him run, much less taking batting practice.
“He’s a giant, you know,” Jake Lowery, manager of the Low-A Fredericksburg Nats, told Yahoo Sports. “I always say he’s like a gazelle in the outfield. He doesn’t look like he runs fast, but when you look at his sprint speed numbers, you’re like, ‘Jesus Christ, this guy is really good.’”
In his debut Monday, Wood showed all the qualities that make him a tantalizing prospect. In his first at-bat, he hit a 106.7 mph opposite-field single through the left side.
Later in the game, he posted a sprint speed of 30.4 feet per second, tied for the second-fastest speed in MLB this season.
It’s simply a generational talent.
Which, to be clear, is different from being a generational player. As with any prospect, there are landmines and pitfalls ahead. The annals of MLB are littered with “should haves.” Wood will struggle, adapt, and struggle some more. His ability to adapt and continually improve at the major league level will dictate how his career unfolds. He knows all that and is as prepared as anyone.
But for the Nationals, a club that has been mired in mud since its triumphant 2019 World Series title, Wood’s debut represented the start of an exhilarating new chapter.
In July 2022, the Nats hit the reset button. Less than three years after the red and blue confetti fell at Minute Maid Park, the organization faced a bleak future. Veteran stars from 2019 had left in free agency or rusted with age. The farm system, exhausted by years of winning trades and poor development, couldn’t keep the window of competition open.
So general manager Mike Rizzo and his management decided the only reasonable move was to trade Juan Soto, already one of the game’s best players at age 23. In exchange for the man who should have been their “all-time player,” the Nationals received a cornucopia of prospects from the Padres: Wood, pitcher MacKenzie Gore, shortstop C.J. Abrams, outfielder Robert Hassell III and pitcher Jarlin Susana.
Wood, then 19 and playing for San Diego’s Low-A team in Lake Elsinore, Calif., remembers the trade vividly. He was on a bus somewhere in the hills of southern San Bernardino County, 30 minutes from the start of a six-hour road trip. All season, rumors of Soto’s trade had permeated the sport, but Wood didn’t expect to be traded until that morning, when he woke up with “a feeling.” He was scrolling through Twitter when he saw the news and discovered he was headed home to D.C.
But first he had to wait until the end of the journey. The exchange was not yet finalized and the team was not going to turn back.
Upon arriving in Visalia, Wood took an Uber to Fresno, flew to San Diego, Ubered back to Lake Elsinore, packed up his gear, drove to San Diego and then flew to join the Nationals’ Low-A affiliate on the road in Kinston, N.C. The experience was a whirlwind, but Wood, as usual, was unfazed.
Looking back, he laughs at the absurd day of travel. “I just had to carry it,” he says with his usual nonchalance.
He hit a home run two days later in his first game as a minor leaguer for the Nats.
“He came into the office and he obviously didn’t have any Nationals gear or anything,” Lowery recalled. “And you know, we’re on the road. So we outfitted him with whatever we had: a couple shirts, some shorts. Most of the time, it was too big or too small. And he just said, ‘Bro, I’ll take whatever I want.’”
Wood has always been like that: easygoing, easygoing, extremely kind. It’s an approach fostered, in part, by his upbringing. His two older sisters, Sydney and Kayla, were both highly competitive basketball players. Sydney was the team captain and an All-Big Ten honorable mention at Northwestern. James’ father, Kenny Wood, was a legendary Long Island high school basketball player who became a member of the Richmond University School of Fame. His mother, Paula, works in global health and has dedicated much of her professional life to eradicating dangerous diseases around the world.
This is not the kind of environment that produces bums.
So James proved himself to be a particularly gifted athlete early on. Around the fourth grade, he made the decision to prioritize baseball over basketball for a simple, hilarious, and very on-brand reason.
“I was better at basketball,” he recalled, “but baseball was more fun.”
As James grew, so did his talent. He enrolled at St. John’s College High School, traditionally the best baseball program in Washington, D.C. But things didn’t really take off until 2020, after his junior season was canceled by the pandemic. He gained 30 pounds that year, spending the months after the lockdown eating like a bear and working out at a nearby church with friends.
It was also around this time, in July 2020, that Wood hit what remains the most impressive home run of his career.
“You’ve probably seen the video,” he said with a laugh when asked about it.
Playing for a local travel team called the Dirtbags in a high-profile tournament in Georgia called the WWBA, the 17-year-old Wood took a ball at eye level and hit it away. His teammate Derek Bender, now an All-Conference player at Coastal Carolina, was in the playing circle and stood there speechless, completely stunned.
“That’s where the legend of James Wood came to life. He didn’t play the whole tournament,” Bender said. “The kid’s 6-foot-10, he’s a string bean at that point. He’s up there, no gloves on, his hands are about his size. And he never really hit any pitches up or in — that’s really why I made that face.”
Bender isn’t the first to make that face in response to a James Wood move on a baseball field. And he certainly won’t be the last. Nationals fans, coaches, players and management hope the near future is filled with such moments of inspired wonder.
Wood carries the dreams of an organization on his broad shoulders. For many, that expectation would be a burden.
But he doesn’t let it faze him. When asked how his relaxed, reserved demeanor compares to some of the game’s more flashy personalities, Wood simply shrugs.
“Baseball is fun. That’s kind of what it is. I just like to play.”