2024 in 'The Future' Guys

 

This year alone, we've finally seen what Paul Skenes, Jackson Holliday, Wyatt Langford, Jack Leiter, James Wood, Jackson Chourio and Rece Hinds look like in the majors. This is a generation of rookies that could very well define the remainder of the decade, and they've all shown up in the last three months. It's kind of wild to think about that.

I mean, I'm at the point with some of these guys, Wood and Hinds specifically at the moment, where the highlights are flying and I'm going 'should I be writing some of these down?'. Rece Hinds has hit 5 homers and 11 RBIs in six major league games, and...is he just gonna keep doing this at this rate? Is this one of the all-time icons of the sport or is he just really happy to be up in the majors? It's a thought I've had with Skenes, cause he's been incredible so far and I so badly want him to be the real deal and what everybody thought, and...I look at Jack Leiter and Jackson Holliday, and I know that sometimes it doesn't work that simply.

James Wood, so far, has been fine. In 13 MLB games...fine. He's hitting .245, he's got 6 RBIs and 1 home run. But at the same time, he's 21. Like, not everybody takes to the majors immediately, it takes time. Not everybody's Juan Soto. Look at Holliday again, clearly it didn't happen immediately. In Triple-A, Wood was hitting .353 with 37 RBIs and 10 home runs in 53 games. Clearly, in Triple-A he's above the median quality. But the majors he's still feeling out what the median quality is and figuring out how to surpass it. C.J. Abrams has probably been talking to him, he had a similar acclimation issue in 2022, that's kinda why he's in Washington in the first place. But now Abrams is the best hitter on the team, and he's an All-Star this year. Sometimes it just takes time. 

I think Wood is gonna work his way up to being on Wood's level, and we may not see his full force til either late this year or sometime next year. But I know it'll happen because it's obvious how powerful Wood is, just from what the Nats saw in him in the first place. 

And who knows, maybe people like Holliday, Leiter and Chourio just needed that struggle period and incubation time to really launch into their full potential. I know people aren't really optimistic about Holliday right now, but he could just be off this year, and 2025 could hold the opportunity he's been waiting for. Or there might even be a completely different rookie star of the 2020s that materializes soon enough and makes us all feel like fools for not noticing them to begin with. 

For now, all we can do is watch these rookies develop and see where they end up.