James Wood Is A Special Case

James Wooden, 22-year-old outfielder for the Washington Nationals, is mighty huge and mighty robust. I feel we have been very clear on this matter. Washington’s offense, up to now, is not a lot—they rank eighth-worst within the majors each by Statcast’s Weighted On-base Average and by Baseball Reference’s OPS+—however you can not blame this on Wooden, who’s ranked third within the Nationwide League in dwelling runs (7) and is tenth in runs batted in, and whose OPS Wednesday morning is a sturdy .902. Tuesday night time Wooden batted leadoff within the opening sport of a sequence towards the Baltimore Orioles, and had three hits, two doubles, and scored a pair of runs, and the Nationals gained for the third time in 4 video games.

One other space the place our file right here at Defector is unimpeachable: Now we have all the time been very up entrance about the truth that Wooden, when he hits the ball, tends to hit the dick off it. His common exit velocity this season is 94 miles per hour, per Statcast, in baseball’s sixth percentile and higher than such so-called strongmen as Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bryce Harper, Elly De La Cruz, and Juan Soto. Tuesday’s efficiency, although dingerless, was a showcase of energy: The three balls that Wooden put in play averaged 108.3 miles per hour off his bat. The 109-mph double he pounded off the wall within the fifth inning solely failed to succeed in the stands resulting from its screaming 21-degree launch angle. His second-inning single was hit at 107.6 miles per hour and stayed on the infield, however ate up Orioles shortstop Gunnar Henderson, permitting Wooden to beat the throw to first. Oh proper, Wooden can be quick as hell, rating in baseball’s 77th percentile by dash pace.

What kind of batter is James Wooden? Nicely, he is an enormous lefty with a selective method on the plate and titanic energy. That description might match Adam Dunn, or Joey Gallo, hulking pull-hitting sluggers, the kinds of batters who impressed the invention of the defensive shift. Take a look at this chart, which exhibits all of Wooden’s base hits previous to Tuesday’s sport, and you will note what appears like a normal spray sample from the bat of a lefty energy hitter.

Ah ha! Fooled your ass! Now you need to work as my butler within the afterlife! What I did was, I took Wooden’s spray chart and I used superior expertise to reverse it horizontally. Under you will see Wooden’s precise spray chart, plus three dots that I added myself to indicate his hits from Tuesday. Examine it to the reversed one above, think about that Wooden is, once more, a lefty, and spend a while contemplating how a lot weirder and fewer plausible the true chart is than the faked one.

Thomas Harrigan has a fun blog on MLB.com about Wooden socking mighty dingers in every single place, regardless of having a reasonably excessive ground-ball fee total. Here is one thing wild: 11 of the 19 balls that Wooden has hit within the air this season (after Tuesday) have been “barreled,” the best proportion to date of any hitter within the league. Neat! However get this: Wooden has additionally not but pulled a single ball within the air this common season, making him considered one of simply two certified batters within the majors for whom that field stays unchecked. Sit for a minute with that completely insane piece of knowledge.

It is come up in Nationals broadcasts a few occasions, that Wooden’s swing is timed as much as smoke fastballs into left-center. Nothing up to now in his quick baseball profession has ever satisfied him to maneuver him off this method, and it permits him to take the identical swing at each pitch; in these cases when he takes this identical mighty left-center rip at an off-speed or breaking pitch, his bat meets it in entrance of the plate and the ball goes to not left-center however to right-center, as within the case of the towering dinger he smoked off Dodgers reliever Justin Wrobleski, on a 79-mph curveball. These sorts of bombs have a extra acquainted, considerably extra satisfying look and form, ending within the basic lefty pose with the hitter watching the ball sail out of the left aspect of the tv display. The everyday Wooden blast would not essentially register as a sockdolager instantly; it is solely by watching his first 100 or so major-league video games that I’ve realized to face up any time he hits the ball within the air the opposite approach.

He hit one towards the Marlins on April 11 that is among the crazier dingers I’ve seen (the final clip on this little spotlight reel); it occurred so quick and at such an inconceivable mixture of angles that it took me a stable minute to know what had occurred:

That is not the deepest a part of Marlins Park, however Marlins Park is large, and is especially brutal for lefty hitters. This ball left Wooden’s bat at 111 mph and gained a most altitude of simply 60 toes. Maybe the key for lefty sluggers is to easily flip round an inside sinker and smoke it the opposite approach, on a murderously low trajectory, in order that it screams over the wall with sufficient tempo to penetrate the aspect of an M1 Abrams. Kevin Frandsen, on the Nationals tv broadcast, was diminished to giggles. The Miami dwelling broadcast was stunned by what they’d seen. “Good lord,” stated play-by-play announcer Kyle Sielaff, because the ball carried over the wall in left-center. “How many other guys in baseball are doing that?”

I’ve the reply: Nobody else in baseball is doing exactly what James Wooden is doing. Different guys are doing their very own issues, and doing nice. James Wooden is off in his personal peculiar class.