Good Morning, Washington Nationals Fans,

Here are the latest headlines and analyses around the Washington Nationals and Major League Baseball for today, April 12.

Welcome to the Morning Briefing! Haden here. Let’s talk about James Wood!

Leading this Morning’s Briefing: James Wood is good at baseball

James Wood put on a show yesterday. He made a diving catch in center to start the day, then hit a left-on-left sweeper from one of the best pitching prospects in baseball for a home run. To add on, he hit three balls with an exit velocity over 108 for a single, double, and another home run. Sam Dykstra of MLB Pipeline compiled it all into this wonderful video.

The 21-year-old is hitting .441/.558/.794 in his first 43 Triple-A plate appearances. Oh, and he has only struck out seven times.

I have written ad nauseam about Wood and why I thought he should have broken camp with the team, even back in October. But at this point, the Nationals front office have put themselves in a pickle. The deadline to gain that coveted extra year of service time is here. But if Wood can rake against one of the best left-handed pitching prospects in baseball and a great setup man in a rehab game, what can he do against actual MLB pitching?

If Wood balls out, he could play himself into a runner-up, or even worse, a first-place finish on the Rookie of the Year ballot. If that happens, Wood regains that full year, nullifying any service time manipulation, ahem, I mean extra work he had to put in at Rochester.

But is there any reason for holding him down much longer? Thomas Nestico, a public analyst, compiled some of Wood’s advanced statistics on Twitter. Wood has destroyed the baseball, no doubt about it. His passive approach is helping him lay off junk outside of the zone, which is good, as he tends to swing and miss when he chases.

The one glaring red flag is his swing-and-miss on off-speed and breaking balls, but with the sample size, it is not something I am entirely worried about. There are 12 instances where he swung and missed on those pitch types, and two-thirds were out of the zone. That happens to pretty much every major league hitter.

So my question for you readers is, how long should the Nationals wait to call up Wood?

Nats Play in Oakland Today

The Nationals play the Oakland A’s today for the second part of their road trip. Jake Irvin will take on RHP Paul Blackburn at 9:40 pm ET and the game will be on MASN.

Down in the Minors

Featured Stories of the Day

Ohtani’s ex-interpreter allegedly stole $16 million via ESPN

MLB Avoids Worst-Case Gambling Scenario. But It’s Not Time to Relax via FanGraphs

Ohtani’s former interpreter, charged with bank fraud and stealing more than $16M via The Athletic

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