Name: James Wood
Age: 18
Position: OF/1B
Height: 6'6 Weight: 230
Bats: Left Throws: Right
School: IMG Travel Academy
Commitment: Mississippi St.
Arm: 91 MPH
60 Yard: 6.91 sec
Hit: 55
Power: 60
Run: 50
Arm: 60
Standing at 6’6” 230 pounds, hitting left-handed with tons of raw power and who has the tools to be a really special player, outfielder James Wood is one of the most projectable prospects in the 2021 MLB Draft.
Wood’s swing does need some work as he doesn’t use much of his lower half. Wood’s swing should improve once he’s solely focused on baseball. He’s a great athlete as he was also a standout basketball player in Maryland. During the 2020 summer circuit, Wood batted .298 with three doubles, five triples, three home runs, 23 RBIs and had a 1.139 OPS.
Wood is gifted with terrific speed especially with his size as Perfect Game has clocked him running a 6.70 60 yard dash. He covers a lot of ground defensively but projects to be a right fielder at the next level as he continues to fill in his very large frame.
After showcasing some of the most usable power in the 2021 prep class this summer, Wood is now trying to prove he has what it takes to handle center field.
“That’s one of the things that kind of gives me a chip on my shoulder,” Wood said. “A lot of times people do look at me and think ‘right fielder’ and don’t even think about center, so that’s just one of the things that I try to prove—that I can play center and I can play well.”
There aren’t many regular center fielders in the major leagues as tall as Wood is now. In the Integration Era (1947 onward), just five stood 6-foot-5 and played at least half of their career games in center field— Dexter Fowler, Bradley Zimmer, Kevin Mahar, Lewis Brinson, and Jerry Mallet. While four of those five played this century as the game continues to get bigger and more physical at up-the-middle positions, no players taller than 6-foot-5 meet that criteria.
That doesn’t stop scouts from praising Wood’s defensive prowess. If his speed holds up and his first-step jumps and routes remain crisp, there’s no reason he should have to move off the position.
But as Wood continues to make a name for himself, and as the crowds of evaluators and advisers watching him continue to grow, he’s trying to keep things simple and enjoy the game he grew up loving.
I don’t know if you’ve gotten this from what little I've said and written so far, but there is so much unknown about this upcoming Draft class, that this one is a hard one to answer. I scoured the internet using a selection of scouting directors and national scouts to get a sense of what they felt about it and got a lot of question marks back in return. A sampling:
“The overall unknown ... causes some uncertainty” -- especially as it pertains to the college class.
“Overall, I think there is uncertainty from both the high school and college players.”
One scouting director said he felt the top of last year’s class was better and more defined than this year, but that this class overall is deeper than a year ago. Another national scout basically said it can be whittled down to a ranking like this:
1. High school position players: above-average to good
2. College pitching: above-average to good
3. College bats: average, but hard to assess
4. High school pitching: down a bit
Some of that, as scouts have admitted, comes from familiarity bias. The high school guys were seen much more in the summer and fall. On the flip side, as one national crosschecker said, that provides a larger group than normal of college players waiting to make that jump into the first round and push some high school players down with a strong spring.
Highlight Reel:
https://youtu.be/pNrfFOeTyYU
Jonathan Mayo and Jim Callis of MLB.com did a mock draft for the top-10 the other day. I will caution, this can and almost certainly will change way more drastically than it did in previous years. There was not much for evaluators to use from 2020. Regardless, let’s take a look at who they are mocking James Wood to..
MLB.com believes that the Mets will take James Wood at #10 of the IMG Academy in Florida. Jim Callis was making this pick for the Mets on their podcast (the 23:30 mark for those who want to listen to it). Callis was raving about Wood’s 6’6″ frame and the very fact he is a “definite” center fielder.
Callis seemed to indicate that he has plus tools across the board. Wood has been climbing the ranking per Callis and Mayo. According to Mayo, Wood has risen a lot as of late and is going to go in the first half of the draft.
There was quite a bit of info on James Wood once I got past the search results for "James Woods". Perfect Game had this to say about him:
“Extra tall and long limbed athletic build, strong with the potential to get stronger. Left handed hitter, very easy and loose swing with outstanding extension, creates easy leverage at contact, lots of pull side carry and lift, has hand speed and some feel for the barrel for an extra tall hitter, huge potential.”
Baseball Factory was able to acquire some of the Statcast metrics of his swing.
His maximum barrel speed is already at 70 MPH. This essentially measures bat speed for us. To put that into perspective, the 90th percentile of D1 college players have a max barrel speed of 71.1 MPH.
Lookout Landing did us the favor of contextualizing the data for us.
Essentially, he is already producing exit velocities of 109 MPH. According to them, Wood had a max barrel speed of 74 MPH so perhaps the Baseball Factory info was a little older but regardless, both are very impressive. Remember that he’s just a teenager. He will get stronger and in turn, his bat speed will increase as well.
As of now, Wood is committed to Mississippi State but that probably will not stop him from getting drafted in the first round. Judging by all the early things I have been reading on Wood, he might not even be available even for the Mets to pick but everything is still very early though.
Mariners analysis:If he’s available with the 12th pick, the Mariners could take him even though he doesn’t necessarily fill a need in their farm system. Wood is a very talented player that might be the best available on the Mariners draft board if he isn’t selected yet. James Wood's lazy comp reminds me of an Aaron Judge.
My current Top 10
1. P - Kumar Rocker
2. P - Jack Leiter
3. SS/P - Jordan Lawlar(HS)
4. P - Jaden Hill
5. OF - Jud Fabian
6. SS - Marcelo Meyer(HS)
7. C - Adrian Del Castillo
8. SS/P - Brady House(HS)
9. OF - Ethan Wilson
10. 3B/1B - Alex Binelas
11. OF - James Wood(IMG)
12. C - Henry Davis
