James Wood Promoted to Harrisburg (UPDATED)

Multiple online sources are reporting that James Wood—the Nats’ #1 prospect—has been promoted to Harrisburg. A corresponding move has not been not announced yet, and may not be until tomorrow or Tuesday.

Wood would have been travelling to western North Carolina with his teammates tomorrow and instead will join his teammates in either Reading this afternoon or Bowie on Tuesday. Likewise, if someone were to replace him from the Fredericksburg roster, he’ll have to travel down I-81 from Salem to Asheville.

The 20-y.o. was one of the key players returned in The Trade, two of which are on the Big Nats Roster already (C.J. Abrams, MacKenzie Gore). While it may seem like he’s been getting hot lately (and indeed two of his three best games in terms of total bases have come in the past week), his April and May splits are fairly similar – .297/.342/.531 vs. .291/.426/.616.

Occam’s Razor suggests that the Nats were for him to show more patience vs. more power, given that power has never been an issue whereas that .342 OBP in April (while still above-average) is quite the dip compared to what he had done in the Padres organization.

The key questions that remain unanswered as of this writing:

• Who will be promoted (or demoted *cough* Yasel Antuna *cough*) to take his place on the Blue Rocks Roster?
• Does this mean Robert Hassell will be moved up to AAA?
• If not, how will Wood handle making the (presumed) shift to RF?

We now return you to your trying to simulcast MASN with WJFK…

UPDATE:
The Harrisburg Senators have announced that Yasel Antuna has been sent to Wilmington and vice-versa for James Wood.