MLB · RF · Washington Nationals
James Wood
B/T L/R · 6' 6" · 234 lb · born Rockville, MD, USA · age 23 · draft 2021 rd 2 · played RF 81, DH 24, LF 17 · MLB debut 2024-07-01
Injured 10-Day · Left oblique strain. (roster status, as of )
536 plate appearances scored this season His season card →
The Line of the Day
2-4, 2 HR, 3 RBI, 1 BB — Sun, Jul 26 · day game vs. Arizona Diamondbacks The scorecard →
The card rack
FlagshipJames Wood [Refractor] #132 · 2025 Topps Chrome · 386 recent sales 7N ▲0%
Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-27 · paid links
The rookieJames Wood #29 · 2025 Bowman Chrome Red Rookie Redemption · 454 recent sales 7N ▲0.9%
Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-08-27 · paid links
Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of August 27, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean
Scout’s note
At 23, Wood already hits the ball harder than 98% of qualified major-league hitters — an EV95 of 112.07 that dwarfs the league median of 105.9 — and still his results trail the physics by more than 97% of the sample, a luck gap of -0.068. He ranks No. 3 on the breakout board, which is remarkable only because his stat line already looks excellent: .265 with 30 home runs, 73 RBI, and a .928 OPS in his first 114 games this season, good for 10th in the league in home runs. A second-round pick from Rockville in 2021, Wood debuted last July and already has 70 home runs and 208 RBI in 350 career games. The engine says the power is understating itself, which is the scariest sentence you can write about a 6-foot-6, 23-year-old outfielder already among the league leaders.
We wrote about Wood here — The Overnight: 1-for-2, HR, 3 BB, 4 RBI (July 6, 2026) · 2-for-4, HR, 2 BB, K (July 1, 2026) · 3-for-5, HR, 4 RBI, 2 R (May 19, 2026)
Current signals
The read: Wood is hitting the ball harder than 98% of the 373 qualified MLB hitters in our sample (EV95 112.1; league median 105.8), while his results on contact run further below the physics than 98% of them. Loud bat, quieter stat line — the breakout shape; he ranks No. 3 of 20 on the breakout board.
OWED — his contact has outrun his line. Where he sits in the league →
- EV95 (mph)
- 112.07
- Luck gap (park-adj)
- -0.0687
- Overlay score
- 0.9135
- Sprint (ft/s)
- 27.2
- Age
- 23
Where he stands
throughAgainst the 373 qualified major-league hitters — 100+ balls in play this season, the same field the boards are chosen out of. Right is better on every row.
- EV95112.198
- Deserved (xVal)0.58299
- Got (aVal)0.50898
- Luck gap (park-adjusted)flipped-0.06998
today · 30 days ago, against the 330 men who qualified then · the tick is the midpoint · the number at the right is the percentile, the number beside it the measurement itself.
What he’s paid
Pre-arbitrationA market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of .
- 2026 salary
- $0.81Mest
- Tax hit
- $0.81M
- Service time
- 1 yr 91 d
- Options left
- 3 / 3
The deal 1 year $0.8M (2026)
On the sheet: 1 y/$806,900 (26) · agent Boras Corp.
After this season, as the sheet has it
| Season | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash | Arb 1 | Arb 2 | Arb 3 |
| Tax hit | — | — | — |
Regime read from his service time, not from the sheet — it does not project him past this season. Super Two eligibility is the top 22% of a class and can move this line in a way service time alone cannot see.
Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, Washington Nationals.
A second set of books
The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of . We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.
- Tax AAV
- $0.81M
- Guaranteed
- $0.81M
- Term
- 1 yr
- His class
- Pre-Arb
What the sheet prices each season at
| Season | 2026 | 2027 | 2028 | 2029 | 2030 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Salary | Minimum | Minimum | Arb 1 | Arb 2 | Arb 3 |
A base salary under his own reading, and never subtracted from the cash figure above: a signing bonus lands in one and not the other, so the two disagree on most men without either being wrong. And the sheet does not mark which future seasons are GUARANTEED — a club option and a projected arbitration award are both just a number here, so read past the end of the deal as his forecast rather than as money owed.
Two sources, read a month apart, put this guarantee at the same dollar. That is the check, and it passed.
The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.
What we said about him
Filed before the fact, with a metric, a threshold and a deadline, and never edited afterwards. This is the call we have on him. The whole record →
WAR added since we filed (FanGraphs) — +2.0 from a baseline of 4.2 (frozen at filing), by .
NO LIVE GRADE47 balls in play since we filedNo live grade. This resolves on FanGraphs WAR, refetched when the window closes. We do not carry a live FanGraphs feed — and MLB's own WAR is a different calculation, so we will not substitute it and pretend.
A progress reading, not a forecast.
Nothing here has been graded yet — not because we have been wrong, but because no window has closed. The first one closes , and it will be counted either way.
A call is filed with a metric, a threshold and a window, timestamped, and never edited afterwards. Corrections are appended and the original stands. Hits, misses and open calls are all counted at the ledger.
On the record
Tap card to enlarge
James Wood cards on eBay →Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
Collect James Wood
If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:
James Wood cards on eBay →Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
Not financial advice. We take positions only after publication — never before. Misses stay on the record.
Umpire favor
+4.3 net runs over 65 graded games — the zone was kind to him on balance.
The line
| Year | Team | Lvl | G | AB | R | H | HR | RBI | SB | BB | SO | AVG | OPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 | Washington Nationals | MLB | 79 | 295 | 43 | 78 | 9 | 41 | 14 | 39 | 97 | .264 | .781 |
| 2025 | Washington Nationals | MLB | 157 | 598 | 87 | 153 | 31 | 94 | 15 | 85 | 221 | .256 | .825 |
| 2026 | Washington Nationals | MLB | 114 | 437 | 100 | 116 | 30 | 73 | 17 | 90 | 153 | .265 | .928 |
| MLB CAREER | 350 | 1330 | 230 | 347 | 70 | 208 | 46 | 214 | 471 | .261 | .849 | ||
Bio & season lines: MLB StatsAPI · refreshed nightly · abbreviations →