JJ Wetherholt is in an unusual position. A third-year finance student at West Virginia University with an interest in math who once considered going to law school, Wetherholt is leaving college early, and says his parents couldn’t be more proud.
As prestigious and lucrative as a career in law or finance can be, neither holds a candle to professional baseball, and Wetherholt is one of the leading candidates for the top pick in this year’s draft. In addition to academic All-Big 12 and All-American honors, Wetherholt hit .373/.471/.632 with 29 homers, 56 stolen bases, and more walks than strikeouts in 143 career college games.
A compact, sinewy 5-foot-10, 190-pound second baseman with great bat speed from an open, left-handed stance, he’s a lock to become WVU’s highest draft pick ever. (The record is currently 11th overall, shared by Alek Manoah in 2019 and right-hander Chris Enochs in 1997.)
When he’s on, Wetherholt’s smooth swing allows him to hit the ball hard both to the pull side and the opposite field. He’s got good plate discipline and quick hands. Wetherholt says he learned a great deal from his hitting coaches and his older brother, but his greatest swing inspiration was Robinson Canó. Canó played 17 years in the big leagues, made eight All-Star teams, and hit 335 home runs.
Like Canó, Wetherholt leaves something to be desired defensively at second, though the West Virginia star is faster now than Canó ever was. He’s adamant that he can play shortstop, and it’s a good bet that whoever picks him will at least give him a chance to fail there.
In a draft class like last year’s, positional concerns like that might have relegated Wetherholt to the back half of the top 10, but in the absence of a Paul Skenes or Dylan Crews at the top of this year’s board, the 2024 class is a little more open. Wetherholt is one of at least five college players with a non-zero chance of going first overall.
Wetherholt had the opportunity to cement himself as the best player in this class, but he’s had an eventful 2024: A hamstring injury suffered the first week of the year cost him 24 games, or 40% of the Mountaineers’ season.
So instead of going to Omaha, Wetherholt went to Phoenix for a week of team interviews and media commitments as he prepares for the next step in his career. Wetherholt’s journey starts in Mars, Pennsylvania, a tiny suburb of Pittsburgh that unexpectedly became a bit of a baseball hotbed. Wetherholt played travel ball with Drake LaRoche and 2023 no. 6 overall pick Jacob Wilson when the latter two’s fathers played for the Pirates.
It’s there that Wetherholt got his nickname; his full name is Jonathan David but a youth coach started calling him JJ, after the children’s cartoon character Jay-Jay the Jet Plane, and the moniker stuck. He also learned how to hit left-handed from his brother, Brandon, who played Division II baseball at Gannon University.
Speaking from personal experience, I also taught my much more talented younger brother how to play baseball and remember vividly the moment when he was able to beat me consistently. I asked Wetherholt when that moment came for him and Brandon, and his admiration continued to shine through in his answer.
Talking to Wetherholt, it’s clear he understands that producing a big league ballplayer is a collaborative effort. Not only does the player himself have to have the talent and drive, he has to be surrounded by people who put him in a position to succeed, which is what Wetherholt had in his little baseball hotbed outside of Pittsburgh.
That includes Wetherholt’s own parents. He says they, “made a good living, but some of the money that they spent on me to play ball, they would have liked to have been able to keep.” He says it’s only since he got to college that he’s come to realize how much his parents’ support has helped him.
