Wetherholt

MORGANTOWN — The Major League Baseball scouts will descend on Morgantown this late winter and early spring, with stop watches and radar guns in hand. They’ll be many in number and they’ll quickly end lowkey conversations with their fellow talent hunters, when West Virginia University second baseman JJ Wetherholt comes to the plate.

Wetherholt led the nation in batting last season as a sophomore when he hit a crisp .449 and tossed in 16 homers, 24 doubles, 67 runs scored, 60 RBIs and 36 stolen bases for good measure.

This season, as a junior, he’s eligible for the annual Major League draft of free agents. Much speculation is sold to the public about the best players in the country. And much of that speculation says in bold print that Weatherholt will be the first player taken this spring.

Wetherholt was a first-team All American last season. He was also a first-team Academic All-American voted the Big 12 Player of the Year.

The 2023 Mountaineers actually tied for first place in the final regular season standings of the now enlarged Big 12 Conference standings.

Central Florida, Brigham Young, Houston and Cincinnati have joined the league and are ready for the 2024 baseball season.

The Mountaineers are scheduled to open their season on Feb. 16 against the Stetson Hatters in Deland, Fla. The first home game at fan-friendly Monongalia County stadium is on Feb. 28 versus Canisius.

Last summer, Wetherholt was supposed to play for Chatham in the luminous Cape Cod Summer League in Massachusetts, but an injury hobbled him and limited his shortened stint to only 28 at-bats, where he had nine hits and a .321 batting average.

The Mars, Pa. native bats lefthanded and has a wealth of physical and mental skills that could allow him to play other defensive positions if whichever team drafts him sees fit to move him around.

Last season’s explosion of the offensive statistics wasn’t totally expected because Wetherholt had batted .309 as a freshman in 2022.

But then he began to routinely have multi-hit games and his speed, base running ability, baseball acumen and power had the whole country taking notice.

West Virginia did not win its Regional in the NCAA postseason, but it had gotten that far as an at-large selection into the national tournament.

When the year’s honors and accolades were announced, Wetherholt became a unanimous first-team All-American in the balloting of seven organizations and publications. He had begun the season with a 13-game hitting streak and was the season-long leader of a team that finished with an overall record of 40-20.

In the NCAA Regional held in Lexington, the Moutaineers went 1-2, beating Ball State but losing to Indiana and host Kentucky. In a 10-0 loss to Kentucky that eliminated the Mountaineers, Wetherholt went 3-for-4.

The scouts will be in attendance. Attention will be leveled on Wetherholt wherever he plays this season. And then comes the draft and all its media attention and focus. Among the scanned topics and questions will be what his signing bonus will be and when he can be expected to arrive in the big leagues.

Wetherholt has already accomplished much. What does this season hold for him and the baseball-playing Mountaineers?