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<\/p>\nOn Friday afternoon, James Wood will tap his bat along the dirt on his way into the batter\u2019s box. He will hear applause, which will represent a fan base\u2019s expectations for him to thrive as the fulcrum of an offense and the face of a franchise.<\/p>\n
They will hope, in the home opener against the Los Angeles Dodgers, that he looks like the All-Star he was in the first half last year. He will hope, in one way or another, that there is limited baggage from a second-half swoon that may have been caused, in part, by physical issues that he mostly kept hidden from the public.<\/p>\n
And he will have to decide, now and over the course of the season, what to divulge to his team.<\/p>\n
The answer, so far, has been everything.<\/p>\n
Most players play through something to help their team win as often as possible. Most coaching staffs want their players to be forthcoming for the very same reason. The Washington Nationals are trying to bridge that gap with their players to maximize the roster and keep players healthy.<\/p>\n
How does that happen?<\/p>\n
\u201cI mean, I just think it\u2019s kind of a two-way street,\u201d Wood said. \u201cI feel like, as players, we would appreciate it if they were kind of honest and straightforward with us. So I feel like it\u2019s only fair that we\u2019re the same way with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Last year, Wood missed time in spring training with left quad tendonitis. Though he recovered at the start of the season \u2014 then excelled, and did not have a day off until mid-July \u2014 Wood told The Athletic that he played through some knee and quadriceps issues.<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like I was playing 100 percent or close to it pretty much every day,\u201d Wood said. \u201cIt was just kind of more of a nagging thing. \u2026 One series I\u2019d feel great, and the next, not so great. So it was just kind of a series-by-series, or week-by-week thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wood has never directly pinned his sluggish second half on that detail. He participated in the Home Run Derby, which can affect a player\u2019s timing. He said that teams pitched to him differently in the second half, and he began to struggle against outside pitches. He returns to D.C. healthy, yet in a small-sample slump, hitting .111 with one homer, 12 strikeouts and a .496 OPS.<\/p>\n
But this year, he feels more equipped to handle these slumps. That\u2019s in part because he has been through them before. It\u2019s also because he no longer has to worry about his lower half and what to tell anyone about how it feels.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n An All-Star in 2025, James Wood posted a .915 OPS in the first half of the season, slugging 24 home runs. (Griffin Quinn \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
That began with early engagement from the organization.<\/p>\n
After he took the job in October, one of manager Blake Butera\u2019s first calls went to Wood. Bench coach Michael Johns visited the slugger when he trained at IMG Academy. When Wood went back north to D.C., he found himself sweating next to team trainer Harvey Sharman.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was kind of killing me this offseason,\u201d Wood said with a big smile. \u201cEvery version of split squat you can imagine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t just like, \u2018Hey, yeah, we trust you, we\u2019ll see in four months,\u2019\u201d Butera said. \u201cWe went and saw him and talked to him about all of that stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis year compared to last year, I feel like I\u2019m in a much better spot,\u201d Wood said.<\/p>\n
This, the Nationals have stressed, is part of a team-wide goal of improving transparency and increasing accountability.<\/p>\n
Early on in his tenure, Butera told players he wanted them to run the ship. He wanted his coaching staff to be honest, even when it was difficult. So far, they\u2019ve done just that.<\/p>\n
Pitchers have said that pitching coach Simon Mathews is blunt with his feedback, offering a \u201check yeah\u201d or \u201check no,\u201d depending upon the results. Daylen Lile said that first base coach Corey Ray is always on him about his prep step and reaction time. The staff has also been forthcoming that there will be a lot of movement between Triple-A Rochester and Washington, a complicated conversation they feel is necessary to have.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t be accountable if you don\u2019t have trust,\u201d starter Trevor Williams said. \u201cIf you\u2019re not feeling 100 percent, you can be like, \u2018Hey guys, I can\u2019t give you 100 percent today. You deserve 100 percent today, so let\u2019s take a day so I can give you 100 percent tomorrow.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
It will take time for the staff to earn everyone\u2019s confidence. But the Nationals have quickly earned Wood\u2019s ear. This spring, Butera realized quickly that he would not have to worry about Wood\u2019s candor. If he woke up on the wrong side of the bed, he would let Butera know. If he needed six innings, rather than nine, he\u2019d tell that to the staff.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s just someone that, when you ask him how they\u2019re feeling or what they need, you just get that feeling like he\u2019s not holding anything back,\u201d Butera said. \u201cLike he\u2019s not afraid to tell you (something) whether it\u2019s good or bad.\u201d<\/p>\n
Beyond trust and communication, Butera also reasoned that Wood\u2019s transparent nature comes from the circumstances of his situation. He is established in the big leagues, meaning he no longer has to fight for playing time and can instead fight to be the best player he can be. And, obviously, he has had a chance to reflect on the second half, and how talking through his issues can help him get through them.<\/p>\n
\u201cI told him, \u2018I need you to give me the truth,\u2019\u201d Butera said. \u201cBecause on days where you\u2019re not feeling great, we can get you a DH day. We can get you a day off early. The goal is for when August, September rolls around, that you feel like you\u2019re hitting your stride. \u2026 We want to play October baseball, and I want you to be like, \u2018Hell, yeah, I feel good.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t manage his workload accurately or correctly unless he\u2019s given us honest feedback. So that was a big part of the conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even now, with his legs at 100 percent, Wood has also been the first to concede that this is not how he wants to start his season. He is focused on shortening up his swing and taking advantage of good pitches to hit. Though his six hardest-hit baseballs this season have been on pitches over the middle or inner third of the plate<\/a>, he is swinging at more pitches over the outer third than he did in 2025 and has swung at just 5 of 11 pitches down the very middle of the plate, the second-lowest rate of anyone who has seen at least 10 \u201cmeatballs.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n In short, he sees them as minor items \u2014 adjustments that may be easier to make this year with another year under his belt, and, this season, a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like that\u2019s why it was important to try and get ahead of it as well as we could, so that during the season you\u2019re not really playing catch-up,\u201d Wood said. \u201cBecause at that point, that\u2019s really kind of all it is. You can\u2019t really take back the wear that you put on it.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI just think he\u2019s at a place now where he knows what he needs,\u201d Butera said. \u201cHe\u2019s confident in himself. He\u2019s not trying to hide anything. I think that will happen more and more with more guys. But right now, with James, it happened pretty quickly.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday afternoon, James Wood will tap his bat along the dirt on his way into the batter\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561985,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,99,2331],"class_list":["post-561984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-sports","tag-washington-nationals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=561984"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/561984\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/561985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=561984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=561984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=561984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}