Projected as 1st-round MLB pick, Mars', WVU's JJ Wetherholt learned lessons on, off the field

Here’s the greatest lesson West Virginia’s JJ Wetherholt learned — or, more accurately, taught himself — on his way to becoming a projected top-10 choice in the MLB Draft:

There’s more to hitting a baseball than taking swings in the batting cage until your hands ache.

Yes, that fundamental part of the game matters. But, by all accounts, Wetherholt’s approach to baseball and life in general is just as responsible as his keen eye for the .449 batting average that led the nation in 2023.

“Since coming to (West Virginia), the biggest thing was finding out how to become a better player who’s not necessarily so baseball-focused,” said Wetherholt, a Mars graduate who likely will become the seventh WPIAL player chosen in the first round in the past 10 drafts, including former teammate Will Bednar (2021).

“In high school, for the most part, it was live in the cages, all that type of work. It’s still the case, but West Virginia did a great job of exposing us to information that could help us. It’s not just hitting. You have to make sure your body is in a good spot. I wanted to make sure I’m monitoring my body and how everything’s working.”

Coach Steve Sabins, a West Virginia assistant before ascending to the top job last month after Randy Mazey retired, gives most of the credit to Wetherholt and his “elite” work ethic.

“Players like him that play at that level, it’s right on the border of obsessive,” he said. “He works until nothing can be done. There’s nothing left to do for the day. He thinks about it, and he mulls it over and then he comes back to work the next day. It’s not only the passion to work. It’s that consistency day-in, day-out.”

West Virginia athletes use a wearable device called WHOOP that records a body’s ability to endure strain while quantifying calorie burn and heart rate, hours and quality of sleep and cognitive readiness, among other metrics.

Getting a good night’s sleep — in bed by 9 — was central to Wetherholt’s preparedness, starting in high school. He credits his mother, Holly, a learning support teacher in the Pine-Richland School District.

“She would take my phone and make sure I was in bed early, as soon as she would go up,” Wetherholt said. “She taught, so she was on a similar schedule. She made sure I’d go to bed, too.

“I tried to fight it for a while in high school. I just wanted to be a kid and didn’t really understand it. As I got into school and it started to be clear as to why it was so important, I ended up being super thankful for her trying to get it ingrained in me at a younger age.”

Diet matters, too, he said. Wetherholt tries to eat whole foods and drink lots of water while rejecting processed stuff.

“I have a pretty good feel for what’s healthy and what’s going to fuel my body and what’s not,” he said.

The baseball part of his preparedness started at the age of 6 when he was on a 7U Mars team with the sons of Pirates players Jack Wilson and Adam LaRoche. All three went on to play college baseball, and Jacob Wilson was the first-round draft choice (No. 6 overall) of the Oakland A’s last year.

That was 15 years ago, so Wetherholt doesn’t remember if the team brought home any trophies. “I’m sure we were good,” he said. “Most of the teams I’ve played on, honestly, since a young age were pretty solid.”

That includes West Virginia’s 2024 team that advanced to the NCAA Super Regionals for the first time in program history.

Wetherholt, a junior, missed 24 games with a hamstring strain, but he led the Mountaineers with a .331 batting average and 1.061 OPS. The inactivity didn’t sit well, but he said he used it as a learning tool.

“I hadn’t dealt with anything that extended my entire life,” he said. “Having to spectate a bunch of baseball games was tough, but it created a learning opportunity for me to find ways to be a better teammate inside the dugout, try to stay locked in and just get ready for when I came back. It was pretty frustrating at the start, but I think I handled it well and found a way to flip it to a positive.”

He said he returned to the lineup in early April, 80% recovered. He said he’s 100% now.

As a 5-foot-9 sophomore in 2023, he was named a first-team All-American by seven outlets and Big 12 Player of the Year. He also earned the Iron Mountaineer award.

Sabins, who recruited Wetherholt when he was 15, said the award goes to “the most physically fit, most explosive, the strongest (on the team).”

“It’s really rare for a young player to be the Iron Mountaineer just because it takes time to physically develop to be the best. There are people on the team who would be bigger, faster, stronger, more explosive, and he just basically dominated everybody. Some of that is the work ethic side, but it’s also the commitment to nutrition and sleep. People forget that the work ethic is doing the things that a lot of other people won’t do, like hydrating consistently, sleeping consistently, eating a clean diet, (employing) recovery modalities, taking vitamins, practicing mental health.

“All those things that are boring compared to crushing the weight room. He’s willing to do all those things. He’s going to do everything in his power to be great.”

How will all of this work measure up when the MLB Draft begins Sunday? Wetherholt, who is one of seven players invited to the proceedings in Dallas, has been projected as a top-five pick by several outlets.

Jonathan Mayo, a draft analyst for MLB.com, said he rated Wetherholt the No. 1 prospect in December. He’s No. 4 now. “It wasn’t so much because of the injury. Other guys just performed really well,” Mayo said.

The Pirates pick at No. 9, but Mayo said Wetherholt is expected to be off the board by then.

“The baseball draft is a fickle beast,” he said. “There is a very real chance he ends up going in that top spot. Then, there are a bunch of teams, sort of 5, 7, 8, who also would be interested.

“He’s as good a pure hitter as there is in the class. He doesn’t strike out a lot. It’s not just weak contact. He can drive the ball.”

Projecting college players, who use metal bats, to the big leagues can be problematic. But Wetherholt played with a wooden bat the summer before his freshman season at WVU and later in the prestigious Cape Cod League and with Team USA.

“JJ, as a high school kid playing with all college kids with a wood bat, hit .400,” Sabins said. “We had guys who were three-year starters in the Big 12 hitting .182, and here was this snot-nosed freshman who had never swung a wood bat and was relatively undersized and under-strengthened hitting .400. (WVU coaches) said, ‘This might be something different here.’ ”

Said Mayo: “The way he goes about it, it doesn’t matter whether he’s got a metal bat or a tree trunk. He’s going to hit.”

Wetherholt has played every infield position with the exception of first base.

“He’s definitely a shortstop. He’s got all the tools needed to do that,” Sabins said. “He’ll be the face of a franchise just because he’s the right kid, the right character, the right personality. He’s kind of everything you want as far as an organization goes.”

Only days away from starting a pro career, Wetherholt is close to fulfilling a dream that he said took root at “a really young age.”

“It was a dream, and it wasn’t just a dream that I would dream on,” he said. “It was a dream I wanted to make happen.”