James

Wood

Wood is just 5-for-40 to start the year, but at least all five hits have gone for extra bases; he has two homers, three doubles and six RBI. The singles will come, too, of course. His current .143 BABIP is just a tad lower than his career mark of .355.

This after Wood hit .125/.222/.250 with a 35% strikeout rate this spring. The Nationals sent down fellow building block Dylan Crews this spring. They dropped former All-Star CJ Abrams to the sixth spot in the lineup. They haven’t, though, taken any actions with Wood. One imagines that will change if he keeps racking up strikeouts like this.

Brady House excepted, it’s been a horrific spring for Nationals hitters. the team as a whole ranks dead last with a .194 average, a .288 OBP and a .304 slugging. Of the 13 position players expected to be on the roster, Nasim Nuñez has the second-highest OPS at .701. Wood has hit .125/.222/.250 with one homer. He has six hits and 19 strikeouts in 54 plate appearances. His exit velocity numbers when he makes contact are just fine, so we’re not especially worried about him. But with his strikeout and groundball rates still up, there’s nothing to suggest he’s about to take a step forward at age 23.

Wood recorded batted balls with exit velocities of 107.9, 103.4 and 113.9 mph, respectively, before crushing an opposite-field blast in the seventh inning to close the night. He also tacked on a 107.2 mph double in the ninth, just for good measure. The 23-year-old fantasy standout has struggled this spring overall, hitting .100 (3-for-30) with 10 strikeouts in 12 games. He’s going to strike out roughly 30 percent of the time, even when he’s in a groove at the plate. The important thing to note is that he’s still making extremely loud contact this spring.

Two of those strikeouts were against Eury Pérez, so that’s easy to understand. Wood is just 2-for-20 in the early going. Interestingly, it seems like the Nationals are still undecided where they’re going to hit him. He batted second behind CJ Abrams today. Two days ago, he hit first with Abrams batting third. The day before that, he hit fourth with Abrams batting second. Wood mostly hit second last year, and it’s still probably the spot that makes the most sense for him. That Wood, Abrams, Daylen Lile and Luis García Jr. are all lefties and maybe the team’s four best hitters means there’s really no helping stacking left-handers at the top, with righty Dylan Crews perhaps hitting third between them.

Wood has not had a successful spring training, but he showed off his ability to put the ball into the gap and his underrated wheels with the two-run triple. The contact issues for Wood are significant and likely will make hitting for a high average — even with so much hard contact — a challenge, but there’s still enormous fantasy upside in his left-handed bat.

Wood led off the first inning with a base hit, then later gave the Nationals the lead with a solo blast off Brandon Eisert in the seventh before extending the team’s lead with a single to drive in a run in the eighth. The 23-year-old outfielder has hit .257/.351/.477 with 31 homers, 87 runs scored, 94 RBI, and 15 steals across 686 plate appearances.

Wood became the second-ever National to reach 30 homers and 15 stolen bases with the effort. The 23-year-old hit both roundtrippers to center, and both traveled well over 430 feet. As expected, there have been some ups and downs for Wood in his first full MLB season, but there’s been way more good than bad. He has a chance to be a special fantasy baseball player. This version is pretty dang good, too.

Wood smacked a one-out double off of Hurston Waldrep in the first inning but wound up getting stranded at third base. The 23-year-old slugger then tagged Dylan Lee for a 416-foot (102.7 mph EV) solo shot to lead off the eighth inning, pulling the Nationals to within a run at 3-2. On the season, he’s now slashing .255/.351/.465 with 28 homers, 90 RBI and 15 stolen bases (in 22 attempts) over 672 plate appearances.

Wood is back in Washington’s lineup after sitting out Monday’s series opener with tough lefty Chris Sale toeing the rubber for Atlanta. The 23-year-old fantasy star has struck out a staggering 215 times this season, which puts him just eight behind Mark Reynolds for the all-time single-season record, which was set back in 2009.