kagami on Farcaster

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how and why is james wood the biggest all-star snub this year? a few casts on how good wood is this year, why he should be starting the all-star game, and his future trajectory a mix of video, statcast and fangraphs data, and baseball savant to illustrate wood's bright future https://x.com/MLB/status/1936619887163478331

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let's start with a little background on james wood wood was drafted out of high school in the 2nd round by the padres. the padres later traded wood (in addition to more prospects) to the washington nationals for juan soto. wood made his debut for the nats in 2024 and in his first 162 games (a full baseball season) has produced a line similar to juan soto and bryce harper: - james wood: 31 hr / 105 rbi / 166 h / .859 ops - bryce harper: 31 hr / 77 rbi / 175 h / .873 ops - juan soto: 31 hr / 107 rbi / 171 h / .921 ops while wood debut season didn't qualify for minimum plate appearances for statcast to rank him, we can also see how well he stacks up against harper and soto in xwoba, avg exit velocity, barrel %, and hard hit %. - james wood: .348 xwoba / 92.8 mph / 10.6 barrel % / 52 hard hit % - bryce harper: .418 xwoba / 91.4 mph / 12.9 barrel % / 47.5 hard hit % - juan soto: .372 xwoba / 90.5 mph / 9.8 barrel % / 42.2 % hard hit % having similar counting stats to soto and harper is one thing. but wood also has the underlying metrics that are similar to harper and soto's rookie years. that's both really impressive and highly encouraging for his future.

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now, why don't we compare wood with elly de la cruz (edlc) and pete crow-armstrong (pca) i decided on these comps because they're both electric talents known for their speed / power combos. physically, edlc is similar to woods (tall, lanky, hyper-athletic). pca is positionally similar, though he plays in center field (cf), a more premium spot. - james wood: .348 xwoba / 92.8 mph / 10.6 barrel % / 52 hard hit % - pca: .347 xwoba / 89.7 mph / 13.3 barrel % / 42.7 hard hit % - edlc: .364 xwoba / 91.6 mph / 15.1 barrel % / 47 hard hit % a few more interesting areas to call out are bat speed, walk (bb) % and chase % - wood: 76 mph / 14.5 bb % / 23.2 chase % - pca: 72.2 mph / 4.3 bb % / 44.4 chase % - edlc: 74.6 mph / 10 bb % / 26.9 chase % james wood's metrics are arguably better and more encouraging than edlc and pca. while edlc and pca provide premium defense, wood likely has the best profile for generating the most damage on offense. the most encouraging part of wood's profile is that he's in the 96th percentile in mlb for walk rate and 78th percentile in chase rate. not only is he patient, he's also got a great eye.

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james wood is pretty exciting, right? so, he should be in the all-star game...right?? a note on all-star voting: like most sports, all-star voting is more a representation of team market size, fandom, and player popularity. production plays a small role in all-star games and baseball is no different. still, james wood not making the final ballot is a massive snub. on june 16, wood was only 9th in national league (nl) outfielder (of) voting. now, the latest ballot doesn't even include him. you can make a strong case for most players on the final ballot (pca, kyle tucker, ronald acuna, juan soto, and andy pages). the only player that sticks out is teoscar hernandez. a simple comparison: - james wood: 3.5 fwar / rank 3 in nl of war - teoscar hernandez: 0.6 fwar / rank 24 in nl of war if corbin carroll (3.5 fwar) or fernando tatis (3.4 fwar) replaced teoscar, this wouldn't be such a blatant snub. but teoscar hernandez (and many dodgers players) remain on the ballot over much better players.

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but maybe dodger fans are statistically fluent and see underlying metrics that suggest hernandez is an all-star? unless we're only comparing hernandez and james wood's baserunning value (1 run value vs 0 run value), there's zero case. and if we were making that comp, corbin carroll (5 run value) and fernando tatis (2 run value) would easily blow hernandez out of the water. https://x.com/fuzzyfromyt/status/1938608915744481383

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