Penn State catcher Wood has eyes on MLB Draft
Matt Wood was still in middle school back on that Tuesday night in October 2013, when former Pirates catcher Russell Martin mashed two home runs in front of 40,000 screaming fans at PNC Park to help secure the organization’s first postseason win in 21 years. The Pine-Richland grad still remembers it vividly.
Martin was his favorite player. Not only did they share the same position, but Martin also embodied everything Wood viewed as the consummate teammate. He stuck up for his pitchers and played with passion, never afraid of a rough play at the plate if it ultimately led to an out. For the 10-ish Pirates games Wood caught in person each summer, his eyes were always peeled to No. 55 behind the plate.
“I wanted to be like him one day,” Wood told the Post-Gazette.
Almost a decade later, he’s on the brink of doing exactly that. Wood, a top-80 ranked prospect by D1Baseball, will likely hear his name called next month in the 2022 MLB Draft following a standout junior season at Penn State. Last week alone, he worked out for scouts from several major league clubs spanning multiple time zones. Although he declined to reveal which ones in particular, it’s safe to say that interest in the Gibsonia native is growing league-wide.
That shouldn’t come as a surprise. Wood was one of the best-hitting catchers in college baseball last season, slashing 395/.494/.681 with 11 home runs and 50 RBIs over 51 regular-season games to garner the Big Ten’s 2022 batting title.
He also led Penn State to its first Big Ten tournament win since 2008 — similar to what Martin once did for the Pirates — with a three-run homer in a 5-2 upset against Iowa. Lions pitchers threw a combined two-hitter with 15 strikeouts in that game, thanks in large part to Wood’s direction defensively behind the plate. The victory marked an important step in the right direction for the middling Penn State program, snapping a four-game postseason losing skid.
“Every team wants to win a regional and earn a trip to Omaha, but if you take the step that we did, to win a game in the Big Ten tournament and put some pressure on teams, we kind of put ourselves back on the map, especially in Pennsylvania,” said Wood. “We haven’t performed how we would’ve liked over the past few years, but to put together a season like this was a good step toward rejuvenating passion for Penn State baseball.”
Wood’s 2022 numbers were a sharp uptick from his sophomore campaign, which he credited to a full offseason’s worth of targeted strength training and a refined approach at the plate — transitioning from solely hitting for contact and base hits to instead making power more of a priority.
“I was looking to do a lot of damage,” he said. “Finding pitches that I liked and then driving them. Taking the same swing, but trusting myself enough that if I put my A swing on it, I could drive it pretty far. In the past, my approach was to just get on base. But I wanted to hit the ball hard. It was just about trusting myself.”
Wood won two WPIAL Class 6A titles while at Pine-Richland, first as a sophomore in 2017 and then again as a senior in 2019. He was part of a trio of Division I prospects from those Rams alongside his best friends Troy LaNeve (Vanderbilt) and Josh Johnson (Kent State). Back then, making the majors was just a distant dream for them. Now it’s increasingly becoming a reality.
“It’s always a cool experience when it’s kind of been a dream your whole life,” said Wood. “Just to go through the whole process has been really interesting, but at the same time, you’ve got to stay grounded and make sure you’re putting the work in as well. Sometimes, though, you have to take a step back and think about how awesome the experience is. I worked hard my whole life to put myself in this position.”
However, Wood’s journey is far from finished. It has only just begun.
“The goal isn’t to just get drafted,” he said. “It’s to be a big-leaguer. This is the first step in that process.”