Everything to Know about Nationals Shortstop CJ Abrams

CJ Abrams is Major League Baseball’s next big thing, and we’re lucky enough to have his otherworldly talent displayed daily on the diamond in Navy Yard.

Versace embroidered Sangallo shirt, mohairblend formal pants, and Medusa ’95 loafers, versace.com; necklace and Rolex GMT Grand Master II Root Beer watch, Abrams’ own.

CJ Abrams (@cj_abrams) stands tall at the plate, barely crouching, like a slightly tilted light pole in a windstorm. His bat rests in his hands, cocked at a 45-degree angle. It’s the bottom of the ninth inning at Nationals Park in early May this season, and the home team trails the mighty, young and cocky Baltimore Orioles by a run. There are two outs.

The showdown doesn’t mean much in the larger picture of major league baseball’s marathon season that comes to a crescendo after Halloween with the World Series. But don’t tell these scrappy Nats, a mix of youngsters and well-traveled vets trying to hang by a baseball’s thread to their careers. And don’t tell Abrams, the Nationals (@nationals) 23-year-old shortstop.

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The O’s lefty pitcher delivers a waist-high fastball. Abrams’ front foot lifts from the batter’s box dirt a few inches, shifting his weight to his back hip like a recoiled cobra before it strikes. His bat’s barrel tumbles through the strike zone and hits the ball with a ferocious whip—a base knock through the infield hole between first and second base. The home crowd stands in unison, cheering like it’s 2019 during the team’s magical playoff march. Abrams runs to first base in long, smooth strides—the tying run scores from third base.

He’s a momentary hero.

There have been many of these moments at the plate and in the field for Abrams since the middle of last season when Nationals manager Dave Martinez moved his young shortstop to the leadoff spot in the batting order. It was a vote of confidence for the infielder, but it was also recognition that Abrams is destined to be the team’s next great quiet leader—a la Ryan Zimmerman—and superstar.

Abrams quickly fell into the role, swiping 47 bases and hitting 18 home runs last year. This season, he jacked seven homers in the season’s first month alone. Washington Post columnist Barry Svrluga led a chorus among baseball’s local and national media suggesting the Nats better think about a long-term contract for their budding phenom because, one day soon, he will be in the same conversation as MLB’s elite players like Mookie Betts, Ronald Acuna Jr. and Bryce Harper (the Nat who escaped to Philly).

A pro baseball player’s origin story is usually familiar: hours on the diamond, followed by early success in travel ball, high school and college, where he gets the can’t-miss label. For Abrams, palpable chatter about his potential began when he starred at Blessed Trinity Catholic High School. He played for the U-18 Pan-American Championships in 2018. As a senior in 2019, he was the Georgia Gatorade Baseball Player of the Year, akin to being the best winemaker in Napa; the competition is stiff bbecause everyone is talented.

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When I ask Abrams about this progression, he casts it aside as someone who understands that, in baseball, what matters most is how many hits or double plays you tallied the night before. Your resume is 10 to 20 games old. Everything else is noise. He knows this well as someone who came to the Nationals in a package of players with little or no big-league experience from the Padres in the megatrade for Juan Soto two summers ago. (Abrams says he never feels pressure to live up to the expectations of the trade.)

So, for someone like Abrams, who has progressed past potential and sits on superstardom’s front porch, it’s most comforting to think back to childhood and the ritual of playing with his dad. “My earliest baseball memories begin with him. We played multiple times a day,” says Abrams, who grew up 45 minutes north of Atlanta in Roswell. “When I was 4, he would pitch to me, and one of the balls was blue—the only one I really ever wanted to hit. And I finally hit a home run with that ball. I was so happy, and it was something I never forgot.”

He also never forgot a nickname, The Alien, that he uses as a talisman of power and intrigue. “I’ve been called an alien since I was born,” Abrams laughs. “I had huge hands, and my coaches always called me an alien for being this fast, little skinny guy. It’s something that stuck.” He wears a chain with a sparkling alien pendant, and his game bats are customized with an alien on the knob.

Since MLB changed its rules last year, stealing bases is more prevalent, and for Abrams and his tremendous speed, it’s an art form. The secret? “The night before you face an opposing pitcher, you have to do your homework to see his tendencies on the mound. You have to read his move to first base.” The cat-and-mouse chess match plays out on the field the next night.

Studying the game’s metrics is a small part of game prep. The rest includes muscle memory—fielding grounders on the infield and taking hundreds of swings in a batting cage below the stadium—and tweaking when the currents of baseball shift and a player’s success suddenly vanishes for long stretches. There’s a fine line between being locked in at the plate and going hitless for a weekend series that bleeds into a Monday. Suddenly, a player is zero for 15 and scuffling.

I look at Abrams on the field, ranging to his right to make acrobatic plays at shortstop and notice he’s a zen player—someone who inherently understands that baseball, unlike football, hockey or basketball, requires equilibrium. Mighty fits of movement mixed with calculated stillness, all in perfect balance, define the sport.

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There’s also an X factor: having fun. Earlier generations saw Bill “The Spaceman” Lee in Boston, Ozzie Smith in St. Louis and Ken Griffey Jr. in Seattle play with utter joy. Is Abrams having the time of his life? He smiles: “I just go out there and play. I always have fun with my teammates,” says the shortstop, who’s close with second baseman Luis Garcia Jr. and utility specialist Ildamaro Vargas. “I’m simply trying to get better every day.”

The everyday grind can be daunting: 162 games without many breaks. After games, Abrams says he celebrates a win with his teammates, showers, eats and gets to bed. Rinse, repeat, move on to the next city and face the next nasty pitcher. It helps to have a manager like Martinez, a former big leaguer who understands the grind. His mantra of “go 1-0 today” helped the Nats win a World Series in 2019, and it buoys this current squad in the final stages of rebuilding.

“Dave believes in staying present. He’s big on that,” says Abrams. “You just take care of the task at hand, day by day.” The parallels between baseball and life are endless.

DC baseball fans are watching Abrams’ progression to stardom unfold as the season rolls into the dog days. For his part, Abrams—the cosmic kid from Roswell—says he loves where he’s landed. “I love DC. It’s chill, and more than anything, it’s home.”

I ask Abrams if he allows himself to peek into the future. Does he look at the Nationals farm system and see the likes of James Wood (who’s 20 and projected to be the next Aaron Judge, only with blazing speed), Dylan Crews (drafted second from LSU last year and voted the best position player in college baseball) and Brady House (a 21-year-old third baseman who has torn up minor league pitching) playing with him at Nats Park soon?

He pauses and grins. “I want World Series rings—plural.” Last year, a comment like this might have sounded like an alien uttered it. But the words now ring as down-to-earth as the man who says it out loud for the world to hear.