James Wood's Nationals debut keeps the line of young, potential superstars in D.C. moving (2024)

WASHINGTON — This was not James Wood’s thing.

Twenty or so cameras, reporters, iPhones, all taking down his every word and live-tweeting or Instagram storying them out to the world in a nanosecond. But there was no escaping it for the Olney, Md., native on Monday, as Wood, the Washington Nationals’ top prospect — rated third among all prospects by Fangraphs and MLB.com, ranked No. 5 in all of MLB by The Athletic’s Keith Law — made his major-league debut against the New York Mets.

“I guess with time, I’ll get more comfortable with it,” he said before the game, outside the Nats’ clubhouse. That did not ring true. It could take a good long while for the 21-year-old to truly come to grips with what is in front of him. He’s beyond quiet.

But he’s the next face of the franchise.

Wood was 90 feet from scoring the game-winning run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth Monday night against the Mets but was left there when New York right fielder Tyrone Taylor snagged Jacob Young’s liner. The Mets then immolated Hunter Harvey and Jordan Weems in the top of the 10th for six runs en route to a wild 9-7 win, taking the starch out of the 26,719 who wanted a magical ending.

But, if this works out the way Mike Rizzo and company hope, Wood is going to be a superstar, playing in Washington for a good long while. The next decade or so patrolling left field and hitting 30 or more bombs a year will be fine. The city’s been waiting, its patience waning, for its pro sports teams to get back on their feet. To call it bleak around here since the Nats and Caps and Mystics all won championships within a year and a half of one another in 2018 and 2019 is an understatement.

CJ Abrams and MacKenzie Gore, both already bearing fruit for the big club from the Juan Soto trade in 2022, could be All-Stars soon. Josiah Gray, rehabbing an elbow strain, already is an All-Star. But none of those players, all high-profile prospects, had 10,000 T-shirts with their faces on them given out to fans before their debuts here. None of them had autographed baseballs and bats available in the team store. Nor did they have more than 50 family members and friends able to make a short commute to see their debut.

james wood is Coachable™️ pic.twitter.com/Grp6Jxevst

— Washington Nationals (@Nationals) July 2, 2024

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But, while still too slow for any D.C. fan with an active thyroid, young stars — potentially, superstars — are coming back to town.

Wood is 21. The Wizards just drafted 19-year-old French center Alex Sarr second overall in the NBA Draft, hoping he’ll be a linchpin of a rebuilt franchise in the next four to five years. The Caps hope that forward prospect Ryan Leonard, their 2023 first-round pick (eighth overall), will be a primary anchor for them in the post-Alexander Ovechkin years.

And the Commanders, of course, took LSU quarterback Jayden Daniels second in this year’s NFL draft, giving them their best chance at a franchise QB since the halcyon first two months or so of Robert Griffin III’s rookie season of 2012.

The Commanders are trying to be relevant again after 30 years in the wilderness. Make that 40 years for the Wizards. The Capitals are trying to thread the tiniest of needles, maxing out the remaining years of Ovechkin’s talent as he chases Wayne Gretzky’s record for all-time goals scored. The Mystics are in rebuild mode after franchise forward Elena Delle Donne decided to sit out this season.

Wood joins Abrams, 23, Gore, 25, outfielder Dylan Crews, 22 and now at Triple A less than a year after being taken second by Washington in the 2023 MLB draft, as potential breakout, All-Star-level players who should anchor the Nationals’ next good-to-great teams by the end of the decade. Bright lights follow all three of them. Maybe 25-year-old Cade Cavalli, coming off of Tommy John surgery in 2023, soon joins the fun.

(Here, I ask: Why haven’t the Nats yet locked up Abrams with a Braves-type long-term extension? Again, I always hear from a segment of the baseball population that no one is worth X million in free agency. So, how about keeping CJ from hitting free agency any time soon, the way Atlanta has done with its emerging star players, time and time again over the past few years — and the way Washington did last year with catcher Keibert Ruiz?)

Wood is out of central casting — 6-foot-7, a local, with power and speed, having raked at Triple-A Rochester (.353/.463/.595; 10 homers and 34 RBIs in 51 games) after running through Double A and High A last season. He’s not intimidating; he’s almost painfully reticent. It’s like he was embarrassed that he had to work on cutting down on his strikeouts at Rochester. But, he did. And the Nationals have made it clear since they got Wood into their system: They wouldn’t bring him up until he’s ready. But once he came up, he would be up, hopefully, for good.

He’s up.

“I don’t want him to feel like he’s the face of anything; I just want him to go out and play baseball,” manager Davey Martinez said pregame. And, sure, this is what a manager is supposed to do for his young guy: protect him from the pressure of feeling he has to live up to all the expectations. But Martinez knows full well that going 1-0 every day, especially in the fall, requires people who don’t flinch in big moments.

People like Soto, who seemed, at 20, to revel in the kind of high-pressure situations — his team down two in the eighth inning of the National League wild-card game; his team down one in the eighth inning of the fifth and deciding game of the NL Division Series; his team facing elimination in Game 6 of the World Series, on the road — most who pick up a bat and glove can’t handle.

You can understand Wood not wanting to try and live up to those kinds of comparisons, along with the attendant pressure of having to be the man on a team that doesn’t really have a vocal, Jayson Werth-like leader among its young talent.

“I try not to really look at it that way,” he said. “I just kind of try to be myself, and wherever that takes me, I’m OK with that.”

But, do you remember how giddy this town was after RGIII’s debut against the Saints? How everything seemed so possible after he led the team to a red-hot stretch run in 2012 and an unexpected NFC East title? Daniels, the 2024 Heisman winner, has similar wattage. It was telling that, after the Commanders drafted him, he named Tom Brady and Peyton Manning as role models.

“You never see anything, off-the-field issues, about them,” he said at his introductory presser in April. “They carry themselves to a high standard. I want to be in their shoes one day. Hopefully, I can get there. But I’ve got my own dreams, my own road to take.”

Doesn’t 2017 feel like a billion years ago? But that year, the city was chock-full of full-fledged superstars.

Bryce Harper was 24 and in the midst of a fifth All-Star season for the Nats, who won 97 games and the NL East. John Wall was 26, a third-team All-NBA selection and led the Wizards to the seventh game of the Eastern Conference semifinals. Ovechkin was starting a season that would culminate with the Caps’ Stanley Cup, his lone Conn Smythe Trophy and seventh Maurice Richard Trophy. Delle Donne had just gotten to D.C. and immediately led the Mystics to the WNBA semifinals; two years later, she was the league’s regular-season MVP, and the Stics won the whole thing.

Since then … pfffft.

But, now, Wood is here. Daniels is here. Sarr is here. Leonard opted to play hockey at Boston College this past season, but he’s on the way. And more may be coming behind him.

The Wiz are built to be bad next season so that they have the best chance at the highest possible picks in the loaded 2025 NBA Draft. If the Wiz have any luck with the ping-pong balls in next year’s NBA Draft Lottery, they might have a shot at Moby Dick, aka, Cooper Flagg, the Duke commit and seemingly can’t-miss superstar. The same goes for the Mystics, about halfway through a desultory, injury-plagued season — but one which, with any lottery luck, might net them UConn’s Paige Bueckers or Stanford’s Kiki Iriafen at the top of the 2025 WNBA Draft.

For the next few months, though, just enjoy Wood and Daniels and Sarr and all the other young guns that now call D.C. home, the reward for so many years watching terrible teams around here the past few years. Enjoy their good, their bad, their breathtaking moments and their terrible slumps. It will be hard, no matter how good or bad they’re doing, to take your eyes off of them.

(Top photo: Rafael Suanes / USA Today)

David Aldridge is a senior columnist for The Athletic. He has worked for nearly 30 years covering the NBA and other sports for Turner, ESPN, and the Washington Post. In 2016, he received the Curt Gowdy Media Award from the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the Legacy Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. He lives in Washington, D.C. Follow David on Twitter @davidaldridgedc