The Washington Nationals offense had a great year. The N has been ranked near the top of most major offensive categories all season. Even after trading Luis Garcia Jr., who was leading the NL in slugging at the time of the trade, at the trade deadline the offense did not see the fall off many expected.
One of the major reasons for the offense overperforming was James Wood. He finished top three in every major offensive category for the Washington Nationals this season. He set new career highs in WAR, OBP, and was selected to his second All-Star game of his career. If you take his stats at face value everything looks great but once you dig a little deeper, you begin to see some patterns are forming that are cause for concern.
James Wood's second half struggles continued for the Nationals
Wood's second half this season was once again a major disappointment. This marks the second straight year where Wood has put up video game like numbers in the first half of the season and been non-existent following the All-Star game.
Last year you could blame the Home Run Derby as why struggled. A ton of players have participated in the Derby and struggled after. You could also say it was his first full season in the big leagues and he got tired.
Where you lose me with those excuses is just how bad Wood was during the second half last season. He hit .223/.301/.388 with only seven home runs and 105 strikeouts. He almost broke the single season record for the most strikeouts in a season as he finished with 221.
This season Wood got hurt on August 4th with a left oblique strain and was out for about a month limiting him to only 38 games in the second half this season, but there hasn’t really been much inspiring play from him in those games. This season's second half struggles can be summed up in two words: Power Outage.
Unexpected power outage
He has hit only two home runs since the All-Star break with both of those coming on July 26. His slugging percentage has fallen off a cliff as he has only mounted a .326 slugging percentage since the start of the second half. When compared to his .575 slug in the first half you really begin to see a problem.
When comparing the first halves of the 2025 and 2026 seasons to the second halves of those seasons the power discussion becomes glaringly obvious. He has 52 total homers over those two seasons in the first half compared to only NINE in the second half.
I wrote a previous article detailing how I believe Wood needed to have a strong final month of the season for his confidence and so fans would not spend all winter discussing the idea that his second half failures are becoming a trend and unfortunately for everyone, he has done nothing to curtail those thoughts.
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