With sky-high expectations, the focus for JJ Wetherholt is on the game and not the outside noise

For West Virginia’s JJ Wetherholt, the expectations are at an all-time high.

However, as the attention turns to him and as people are expecting great things, head coach Randy Mazey wants his star shortstop to focus on one thing — the game itself.

This spring is bringing a new sense of excitement to West Virginia baseball. Fresh off a 40-win season and a regional appearance, the Mountaineers are poised to try and follow that up with another successful season this year. However far they go this season though will be determined by the play of JJ Wetherholt.

“The sky is the limit for that kid. He. can accomplish a lot at this level, a lot at the next level, and the level after that and after that. He’s super capable,” West Virginia head coach Randy Mazey said.

“His big deal this year obviously is going be to just play baseball. He’s surrounded by so much hype. And everybody wants to talk to him, and wants his autograph and wants to know how he feels and why’d you come back and why’d you do this. If he can just take his mind back to when he’s 12 years-old, and just go to the field to enjoy playing baseball and see the ball and hit the ball and not worry about all the stuff around him, then he’ll continue to strive because he’s a really good player.”

Wetherholt led the country in batting last year, hitting .449. From not being listed on the Preseason All-Big 12 Team this time last year, to being the Big 12 Player of the Year, as well as the unanimous selection to repeat with that award, Mazey is recognizing what Wetherholt is going through.

“If he just plays like he’s capable of , he’ll still be JJ. But it’s not easy. It’s not easy for him to go through what he’s going through. Baseball is a lot easier for him than the stuff other than baseball. he just needs to play. And I’ve got all the faith in the world that he’ll do that,” Mazey said. “He’s a super mature kid. There’s not a box that he doesn’t check that is the right way to handle things. I feel certain that he’ll be able to do that.”

One thing that Mazey didn’t have to deal with this offseason was the possibility that Wetherholt would enter the transfer portal and leave WVU. Wetherholt said the thought never crossed his mind, while Mazey said that tells you what kind of a person Wetherholt is.

“It says not only a lot about JJ the person and his loyalty, it says a lot about our program too. He obviously wants to play in a good program and feels like we can accomplish a lot of things here,” Mazey said. “If we didn’t have a good program, he probably would’ve left. It says a lot about West Virginia baseball and JJ Wetherholt and the loyalty he has and the program we have.”

Wetherholt last season finished as a First Team All-American. He’s projected to repeat in that category by many publications as well as be one of the top selections in this year’s upcoming MLB Draft.

Mazey said with all of that talk and with how successful Wetherholt was last season, his focus needs to be on just exceeding his own expectations.

“What we talk about a lot is not just him but all the players, their goals don’t need to be, I need to hit .300 or I need to win 10 games. Your goals just need to be to exceed your expectations,” Mazey said.

“If he’s trying to go out and hit .500 this year, he’s going to be disappointed, nobody’s ever done that. He just needs to be realistic. If he hits .420 this year, that’s a great year. You can look at it two ways — it wasn’t as good as last year, but who wouldn’t want to hit. 420. It’s just all the mentality he takes going into it. Nobody’s ever been perfect at baseball. he’s going to make outs, he’s going to strikeout at times, he’s going to make errors. If he treats that like it’s the end of the world, then it has a chance to snowball on you. If he understands, thats part of baseball, then he’ll be fine, he just needs to be JJ.”

In addition to the nation’s best batting average last season, Wetherholt had 16 home runs, 60 RBIs, 36 stolen bases, and struck out in less than 10 percent of his at-bats.

Wetherholt’s numbers earned him a spot on this year’s Golden Spikes Award Watchlist. The Mountaineer shortstop was a semifinalist for the award last season.

“In his position in our sport, there’s going to be failure. If you’re the best football player out there and throw for 400 yards every game, you can have a good game every game in football and win the Heisman. If you’re the best college basketball player, you can have a good game every game. In baseball, you can’t. It’s more about coaching him through the bad days more so than the good days,” Mazey said.

“If he lets it get to him if he goes 0-for-4 and lines out to the right fielder twice, if he thinks, ‘oh my goodness, how many scouts saw me do that’ — if that gets into his head, it can snowball on you. You have to be stronger in this game mentally than you do physically. I haven’t talked to JJ once about stealing second base or hitting or anything like that. But I’ve talked to him a lot about how you’re going to handle it if you make an error.”

Wetherholt said with the expectations at such a high, he’s tried to find ways to better himself mentally and physically and to help block out some of the noise.

“The offseason definitely looked a little bit different, just trying to focus on ways to drown out some of the hype, noise, whatever you want to call it. That was a little bit different,” Wetherholt said.

Wetherholt certainly recognizes how good of a season he had statistically in 2023, but knows there is still ways he can get better.

“The biggest thing is obviously, the stats area could be hard to improve on, but there’s other areas you can get better. For me, it’s physically, mentally, just finding ways to get better,” Wetherholt said. “Trying to stay healthier in all aspects, working on a little bit better mechanics, things like that. Just stuff that makes me feel like I am a better player.”

Wetherholt will begin his 2024 season with expectations that are rightfully deserved. His focus has been on the process over the product itself, something he hopes will help him this season.

“You never know, maybe the results don’t replicate exactly how it went last year, but to me, I feel like I got better throughout the summer and the fall. I’m definitely excited, looking forward to it. Just focusing on the process of trying to find ways to get better,” Wetherholt said.