DataBaseball
2026
James Wood headshot

Players · W · RF · 2026 regular season

James Wood

Washington NationalsNational League EastRF
Age
24
B/T
L/R
Height
6' 6"
Weight
234 lb
Number
#29
Born
September 17, 2002 in Rockville, MD, United States
MLB debut
July 1, 2024
Drafted
2021, round 2
High school
IMG Academy

Compare with…vs Pete Crow-Armstrongvs Luis García Jr.vs Seiya Suzuki

dbWAR
10.5
Regular season, 3 season(s)
PA
623
AVG
.265
OBP
.388
SLG
.503
wRC+
141
100 = avg

James Wood is a right fielder for the Washington Nationals. In 2026 he hit 30 home runs and knocked in 77 RBIs, notching 136 hits across 623 plate appearances in 135 games. His batting average was .265, 8.7% higher than the league average of .244. He reached base at a .388 clip and slugged .503, for an OPS of .891, 24.0% higher than the league mark of .719 — the second best on his team, and 8th of 465 among MLB batters with 100+ plate appearances. He averaged 95.4 mph off the bat, hit 59.1% of balls in play at 95 mph or better, barrelled 17.2% of them and made contact on 69.9% of his swings. Adjusted for his ballpark and league, his 141 wRC+ puts his offence 41% above average. That comes to 5.0 dbWAR — +34.7 runs with the bat, -1.6 for the ballpark, +1.6 on the bases, +0.9 on double plays, -6.9 for the position he plays, against replacement level. It includes no fielding: defensive runs are proprietary and are not estimated here, so the figure credits playing a demanding position but not playing it well.

League context

Percentile among qualified batters, 2026 regular season.

wRC+141
wOBA.386
ISO.238
BB%16.4%
WAR5.0

How the WAR is built

Runs above replacement, 2026. These terms sum to +47.9 runs, divided by runs-per-win to give WAR. There is no fielding term.

Batting+34.7Ballpark-1.6Baserunning+1.6Double plays+0.9Position-6.9Replacement+19.3
BattingBallparkBaserunningDouble playsPositionReplacement

WAR by season

5.02.50.0242526

Batting Regular season

Standard and advanced, by season. Regular-season games only.

Trend
2026WSH135623136307721102179.265.388.503.238.34416.4%28.7%.386+34.71415.0
2025WSH15768915331941585221.256.350.475.219.35012.3%32.1%.355+23.01283.6
2024WSH7933678941143997.264.354.427.163.36511.6%28.9%.345+9.11241.9

Platoon splits

How he hits left- and right-handed pitching.

Batting by the hand the pitcher throws with, 2026. Counted from play-by-play, so totals can differ from the box-score season line by a plate appearance or two.
SplitPAABHHRBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBAK%
vs LHP2171944992271.253.332.459.34432.7%
vs RHP406319872180108.273.419.530.40926.6%

Spray chart

Where every ball he put in play landed, 2026.

Loading 337 batted balls…

Contact quality

How hard and at what angle he hits it, over 337 tracked batted balls in 2026. Percentiles are against qualified batters.

Barrel rate
17.2%
58 barrels
Exit velocity
95.4
mph average
Max exit velo
116.3
mph, hardest hit
Hard hit
59.1%
95 mph or better
Sweet spot
38.8%
8–32° launch
Launch angle
8.6°
average
Barrel rate17.2%
Exit velocity95.4 mph
Hard hit rate59.1%
Contact rate69.9%

A barrel is a batted ball whose exit velocity and launch angle have historically produced at least a .500 average and 1.500 slugging — 98 mph within 26–30°, widening to 8–50° by 116 mph. Reconstructed from Statcast's published anchor points, which reproduces them exactly; the interior is within a degree. Sweet spot (8–32°) is an exact definition.

Hot and cold zones

Batting average by pitch location, 2026.

.200.222.051.081.15020 AB.40030 AB.47621 AB.25547 AB.52872 AB.25547 AB.20050 AB.32156 AB.17634 AB
Below averageLeague averageAbove average
Batting average by location of the pitch that ended each plate appearance, catcher's view. The bordered square is the strike zone; the outer band is chase territory. Cells with fewer than 8 at-bats are left grey rather than shown as signal. League average on the same attribution is .243.

Situational hitting

How James Wood hits by base state, outs, score and late-game pressure — each read against his own season line.

Split by
By who is on base when he comes up. The season line is repeated as the baseline.
SituationPAABHHRRBIBBSOAVGOBPSLGwOBA
All situations623——————.265.388.503.386
Bases empty39733793212358115.276.385.513.393
Runner on first9678204111729.256.396.500.396
Runners on226176439544464.244.394.483.373
RISP13098235432735.235.392.469.354

Runners on includes runners in scoring position, which is the convention every reference uses. Counted from play-by-play, 2026.

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Similar players

Nearest 2026 seasons by discipline, contact, power and speed, on rate statistics rather than totals.

Jake BauersMIL
wRC+
145
HR
26
AVG
.266
WAR
4.4
Very close
Endy RodríguezPIT
wRC+
132
HR
7
AVG
.267
WAR
1.4
Close
Nick KurtzATH
wRC+
130
HR
21
AVG
.256
WAR
3.0
Close
Shohei OhtaniLAD
wRC+
143
HR
30
AVG
.275
WAR
3.8
Close
How these are computed

wOBA uses linear weights measured from this season's own play-by-play rather than published constants, and wRC+ is park-adjusted against that same league. dbWAR is our own open implementation — not fWAR or bWAR — and the full derivation, including its simplifications, is on the methodology page.