Why James Wood should be MLB’s next top prospect to debut: Five things to know about Nationals outfielder

Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander Paul Skenes made his big league debut on Saturday, featuring a 100 mph fastball and striking out seven batters without earning a decision against the Chicago Cubs. (You can read more about Skenes’ beginnings by clicking here.) In the process, Skenes became the fourth prospect ranked in the CBS Sports top 10 of 2024 to reach the major leagues this season, joining Jackson Holliday, Wyatt Langford and Jackson Chourio. (Two other members of the top 10 list debuted last year, Tampa Bay Rays infielder Junior Caminero and Texas Rangers outfielder Evan Carter.)

In this era of diminishing attention spans, you may wonder: who will be next? From our perspective, we think there’s an obvious candidate: Washington Nationals outfielder James Wood.

Top 10 Prospects That Haven’t Been Created Yet MLB debut:

Wood, 21, was the centerpiece of the trade that sent Juan Soto to the San Diego Padres. (The Nationals also received left-hander MacKenzie Gore and shortstop C.J. Abrams in a deal that worked out better than expected for them, as they were parting ways with a young slugger on a Hall of Fame path.) CBS Sports ranked him as the sixth-best prospect in February, summing him up as an “imposing outfielder with great patience and power.” So far this season at Triple-A, he’s hit .346/.444/.581 with seven home runs and nine stolen bases (in 10 attempts) in 35 games.

It is, then, only a matter of time before Wood makes his big league debut. Below, CBS Sports highlighted five things you should know about his game and the potential timing of his promotion.

1. Elite Force

If you absorb nothing else about Wood, know this: he hits the ball hard.

Wood enters Monday boasting a seasonal exit velocity of 94.6 mph, the same as Los Angeles Dodgers superstar Shohei Ohtani. Of course, it would be unfair to describe these numbers as equal: Ohtani produced his pitching against MLB; Wood counted his weapons against Triple-A weapons.

Still, Wood’s innate strength is impressive. His most-hit ball clocked in at 185.3 mph, a number that would rank 13th this season among MLB hitters, just ahead of Kyle Schwarber, Marcell Ozuna and William Contreras. He has also surpassed the 110 mph mark on 10 occasions. For reference, only six MLB hitters have hit 110 mph that often this year: Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Juan Soto, Giancarlo Stanton, the aforementioned Ohtani, Bobby Witt Jr. and Yordan Alvarez.

It’s great company for anyone, let alone a 21-year-old.

2. A striking resemblance to Soto

Whenever you have a hitter like Wood with an enormous amount of raw power, you might suspect he’s getting to the plate and trying to hit a home run every time. This usually involves swinging with an upward trajectory that results in a lot of contact with the fly ball. In the process, the hitter reduces his ability to hit for average while maximizing his damage-per-hit ratio.

That’s not the case here, as evidenced by Wood’s 52.4% ground ball rate this season. In fact, he shares something in common with Soto in that they both tend to make a lot of contact in low flights. Take a look at this comparison between Wood and Soto’s seasonal numbers:

Now, let’s look at the data another way by comparing their launch angles on the most hit balls, or in this case, batted balls that hit 95 mph:

• Wood: 5.1 degrees

• Soto: 13.6 degrees

Bottom line: Soto is more inclined to lift hard-hit balls, usually within the 10- to 25-degree line box; Meanwhile, wood is more likely to impact balls falling into the ground ball box.

Of course, that didn’t stop Wood from hitting his share of home runs (he averaged nearly 30 in 162 games). It will be interesting to see if the Nationals try to get him to bounce the ball more often. While his current approach has been effective for him throughout his professional career, there is always a strong temptation to maximize the swings of players with elite power — especially when the advantage may entail a few 40-plus home run seasons.

3. Some elimination concerns

It’s easy to forget now, but there were valid reasons why Wood fell to the second round in his draft year, as well as why the Padres were willing to part with him as part of a larger package. The main flaw in his game is his tendency to hit too much. Wood, a disciplined hitter willing to make deep counts, tends to swing and miss a lot (as is often the case with hitters his size), resulting in sometimes frightening strikeout rates. So far this season, Wood has had some swing-and-miss issues with pitches in and above the zone in the middle of the plate:

Wood entered Monday with a 70.8% contact rate, compared to the big league average of 75.6% among qualified hitters. It’s worth noting that his contact rate on in-zone swings is 83%, or even in line with the MLB average of 83.2%. Now again, Wood is comparing those numbers to Triple-A arms rather than their big league counterparts; this, in turn, suggests that your contact rates may drop following a promotion for The Show.

The good news is that Wood’s combination of power and patience should give him a wide berth in that regard. He will be fine if he can keep his K rate on the positive side of 30%.

4. Better against righties

Another thing to monitor about Wood’s game is his performance against left-handed pitchers. This season, he’s batting .212/.297/.515 without the platoon advantage, as opposed to .388/.488/.602 with it. In 2023, he had a .792 OPS against lefties, and that was accompanied by a 6.00 strikeout-to-walk ratio — a great mark for a pitcher, but terrible for a potential middle hitter.

That’s not to say Wood will require pairing with a right-handed sock.

The reality is that many left-handed hitters struggle with same-handed pitching. Lefties as a whole this season are hitting .231/.302/.357 in the majors when tasked with lefties – that’s nearly 20 OPS points worse than righties’ performance against other righties. As such, there is every reason to think that Wood should be (and continue to be) an everyday player by the time he reaches the majors.

5. Implications on length of service

Note that we use “implications” and not “manipulation”. The Nationals were justified in starting Wood at Triple-A, and we don’t think they overstepped their bounds by keeping him there thus far. The timing of Wood’s promotion will get more interesting from here, as we’re almost at the next relevant service time milestone: the rough Super Two cap.

For those who don’t know, almost all MLB players receive three years of arbitration eligibility once they pass the three-year service time mark. (Officiation is important because it is the first time in a player’s career that he can earn more than the league minimum.) A select group receive four years of arbitration – those in the top 22% of service time among two and three years of service. Because that additional year of arbitration cuts into a team’s cost savings, you used to see clubs make a point of manipulating the service time of their top prospects to avoid that designation. The newest Collective Bargaining Agreement has seemingly curbed this behavior, incentivizing teams with extra draft picks if they have a player on their Opening Day roster and win prizes.

In recent years, the Super Two cutoff has generally fallen between two years and 115 days and two years and 130 days of service. A player can earn up to 172 days of service time in a single season, meaning the Nationals would need to keep Wood in the minors for at least 60 days to feel confident he would lose the Super Two designation in the future. That leaves the Nationals a few weeks away from achieving that, whether by design or accident (and we think the latter).

In other words, the Nationals have some incentive to move Wood down a bit, even if they feel he’s ready for big league action. That doesn’t mean they should or will – it would be refreshing if they didn’t – but it’s something to keep in mind when figuring out your arrival date.