James Wood If They’d Let Him

We haven't had a good philosophical whinge about the intentional walk in a while, mostly because we all have lives to attend to, but in the aftermath of Sunday's Nationals-Angels game (and speaking of philosophical whinges, can any Nats-Halos game truly ever matter enough to have an aftermath?) we can re-engage this mostly frivolous time-suck over extra cold-and-frothies. What else is a summer heat wave for if not that?

James Wood is today's protagonist, the young and sprightly centerpiece of the Washington Baseball Consortium in this, another mostly abandoned zinc mine of a season. A Judge-level mass of coiled talent nearly a year to the day since his promotion from the minor leagues, he was known mostly as a key component in the trade that sent Juan Soto to San Diego but has now reached full fright stage, as proven by his Sunday afternoon's work—a single, a grounder to second, and four intentional walks, the first time a hitter has been so overtly feared since Barry Bonds ate the planet in 2004.

That year, Bonds won his final MVP trophy despite being intentionally walked a record 120 times, a year after being intentionally walked 61 times and two years after being walked 68 times, just to name the bronze and silver medalists in that bedamned category. Bonds was without debate the most frightening single force in sports those days, as voted by the only people who matter—the managers whose jobs depended on not letting him hit fly balls to Europe.

And with those walks came debates on whether the intentional walk was good for the game, given that when you include the 112 not-quite-so-overtly-intentional walks he received, he was not allowed to thrill and/or repel the nation in nearly 40 percent of his plate appearances. Every sport has its star-neutralizing tactics, but baseball is the only one that allows you to prevent anyone from even trying.

So James Wood? Well, he is the most noticeable Nat, an upright refrigerator of a man who is if you mash up all his statistics is probably the fourth-most effective everyday player in baseball this year, behind Aaron Judge, Shohei Ohtani, and our lord and savior Big Dumper (known on his birth certificate as Caleb John Dumpington Raleigh). Given his place in the midst of the Washington order after C.J. Abrams (another part of that Soto deal) and before Luis (Not The Dodgers Reliever) Garcia, one might find the idea of habitually walking Wood that often to be a risky strategy.

Then again, it's the Nationals, and eventually you realize, as Angels interim manager Ray Montgomery did Sunday, that the reward ought to outweigh the risk. Even if Sunday it didn't.

Wood got full at-bats his first two times up, but as the game tightened and then reached bonus innings, Montgomery decided to let the other Nats beat him—which they did. The strategy itself worked, as Garcia and his replacement Amed Rosario made outs directly behind him in the fifth, seventh, ninth, and 11th innings. On the other hand, the decisions came too late, as Washington scored in each of those innings and won, 7-4, to maintain their tenuous grip on 13th place in the National League.

So, what if you as a paying fan (or a freeloading weasel, your choice) went to Anaheim Stadium specifically to see James Wood? You are confronted by two questions: first, what happened to you as a child, and second, do you feel cheated? Can this somehow be equated to being robbed of seeing Bonds at the height of his powers just because some middle-aged bastard trying to keep his job decided to get all snotty about trying not to lose? Is this like fouling Stephen Curry on every possession before he can get off a shot because two free throws is always better than a three-point jumper from the lady's lap in row eight? Is this anti-fun?

Well, yes. And too bad. We hate to frame it in this way, but Wood is not yet The Guy You Pay To See, in large part because he is playing for The Team You Would Pay To Avoid. Baseball survived its de-Bondsification of the early aughts, and is surviving its pigbrained decision to gimmick the Hall of Fame against him. Wood may become that guy in time—getting him out of the capital might help in this regard. But the four intentional walks Sunday only put him at eight for the season, and if he is indeed that scary, Montgomery should have walked him in the first and fourth as well.

So we have no crisis of entertainment yet. Wood is much fun, but would be more so if his team weren't 14 games under .500. The onus to protect Wood is on the Nationals, not the rest of baseball. Maybe if they could find a third MLB-caliber hitter, he could be walked more often and we could have that spirited debate on why baseball hates James Wood. Who isn't up for that?