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Cardinals draft West Virginia ‘baller’ JJ Wetherholt with their highest pick in decades

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Cardinals draft West Virginia ‘baller’ JJ Wetherholt with their highest pick in decades







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JJ Wetherholt, an infielder who played at West Virginia, talks with members of the media moments after the Cardinals selected with the seventh pick in the MLB draft on Sunday, July 13, 2024.  


Derrick Goold


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FORT WORTH, Texas — With a bolo tie purchased because he had come all this way to Texas and confidence to match its size, middle infielder JJ Wetherholt fielded his first question as a Cardinal with a smile.

“A baller,” he said when asked what they’re getting in him.

With their highest pick in decades, the Cardinals selected Wetherholt, an advanced hitter with high-average upside, with the seventh pick in the annual Major League Baseball draft. Wetherholt had been projected as a potential No. 1 pick and a likely top-three pick, but with the way the first-round played out he was available to the Cardinals at No. 7.

Wetherholt was the first player in attendance at Cowtown Coliseum for the draft to be selected, so he got to take the floor in a Cardinals jersey and wave to the crowd.

Wetherholt, 21, hit .331 with a .472 on-base percentage and a .589 slugging percentage for West Virginia. He was limited to 36 games because of a hamstring injury that did play a factor where teams slotted him on their draft. As a sophomore, he led the nation with a .449 average and Baseball America described him as the “top pure hitter” on Team USA’s national collegiate team.

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West Virginia’s J.J. Wetherholt runs to first against Youngstown State during an NCAA college baseball game Thursday, March 24, 2022, in Morgantown, W.Va. 




A Pittsburgh Pirates fan growing up, Wetherholt told the Post-Dispatch in a quick interview following the pick that it was time to “flip that script” and root for the Cardinals.

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Asked to describe his game, he called himself “a five-tool player” who can play anywhere on the field.

The No. 7 pick this year has an assigned slot value of $6,823,700. That is nearly 70% of the Cardinals’ total purse for this year’s draft and it sets the stage for one of their largest bonus offers ever to a first-round pick.

Teams can go below or above the slot assigned. Teams are assessed a fine if their total spending on draft bonuses goes above an assigned purse. The Cardinals are one of four teams that have gone beyond their bonus limit in each of the past 12 years and paid the tax. Their total spending for this year has been assigned a cap of $10,213,000 before they pay the overage tax.

The Cardinals landed the seventh pick after finishing with the fifth-worst record in the majors in 2023. That gave them the fifth-best odds of the first overall pack in the draft lottery. They actually slipped in the lottery, leapfrogged by division rival Cincinnati, which landed the No. 2 pick despite having a better record in 2023 than the Cardinals.

The Reds drafted Wake Forest ace Chase Burns, a pitcher who the Cardinals also had high views of entering this past collegiate season. Burns, a right-hander, went 10-1 with a 2.70 ERA in 16 starts and he struck out 191 batters in 100 innings.

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With the No. 1 pick, Cleveland selected infielder Travis Bazzana out of Oregon State. He was born and grew up in Australia before coming to Oregon to play college baseball, and in his junior year he hit .407 with a .911 slugging percentage. He hit 28 homers for the Beavers in 60 games and he reached base nearly 57% of the times he came to the plate.

In 2023, Pittsburgh selected pitcher Paul Skenes with the first pick, and a year later he’s set to start Tuesday’s All-Star Game for the National League.

Cardinals assistant general manager Randy Flores speaks with the media via Zoom on Sunday, July 14, 2024, after the Cardinals picked JJ Wetherholt seventh overall in the Major League Baseball draft.

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Ethan Erickson


In nine years with assistant general manager Randy Flores at the helm of the draft board, the Cardinals had not picked higher than 18th, let alone top.

The selection Sunday night was the Cardinals’ highest since 1998, when they took outfielder J. D. Drew with the fifth pick. Drew made his big-league debut later that season on the night Mark McGwire hit his 62nd homer of the summer, and the selection of Drew continued to pay off for the Cardinals for another 25 years.

He was the centerpiece of a 2003 trade with Atlanta that netted Adam Wainwright, who went on to become a World Series championship closer and a 200-game winner for the Cardinals.

The No. 7 pick in the draft has been fruitful in recent years with teams selecting aces Clayton Kershaw and Aaron Nola and also impact position players such as Troy Tulowitzki and Prince Fielder. The past three drafts have featured a pitcher selected seventh, and 12 of the past 15 drafts have seen a pitcher taken at No. 7.

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This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Sonny Gray builds momentum toward 2nd half. Cardinals offense has 2 days to do the same.

‘We need to nail it’: How Cardinals prepared for draft pick No. 7, their highest in generations

Emotionally charged Nolan Arenado delivers in a key spot as Cardinals sweep doubleheader

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AG Miyares urges Virginia schools to adopt stricter definition of antisemitism

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AG Miyares urges Virginia schools to adopt stricter definition of antisemitism


Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares urged all Virginia public schools to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism (IHRA definition) into their codes of conduct and anti-discrimination policies.

His office pointed to a 25 percent increase in reported hate crimes statewide in 2024, with crimes involving anti-Jewish bias rising 155 percent – the sharpest increase among all categories tracked by Virginia State Police in their most recent annual crime report.

READ MORE | Shots fired near Compass Creek Parkway in Loudoun County

In the letter addressed to superintendents and school boards sent Monday, Miyares states Jewish students “have been excluded, harassed, threatened, and even assaulted.” Miyares pointed to the U.S. Department of Education using the IHRA definition to enforce Title VI and to the Commonwealth’s 2023 adoption of the non-legally binding definition “as a tool and guide for training, education, recognizing, and combating antisemitic hate crimes or discrimination and for tracking and reporting antisemitic incidents in the Commonwealth.”

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“Thus, the law of the Commonwealth requires use of IHRA to ‘recognize’ the discriminatory motive behind antisemitic conduct and act upon such discrimination findings pursuant to the Virginia Human Rights Act,” Miyares wrote in the letter, adding: “As part of your compliance with Federal and Virginia law, you must implement the [HRA definition and its contemporary examples into your codes of conduct and discrimination policies to assess unprotected activity.”

7News has reached out to Northern Virginia school districts for their response to Miyares’ letter.



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Annandale teen and grandmother killed in Christmas day crash

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Annandale teen and grandmother killed in Christmas day crash


A Fairfax County family is demanding justice, saying the driver who caused a crash that killed a grandmother and a high school student is out free while they’re grieving an unimaginable loss.

The Vu family, from Annandale, was at a holiday dinner on Christmas day, but on their drive home, Virginia State police say another driver rear-ended the Vu family’s van on the Beltway in Fairfax County.

Duy Cao was driving the van — her 75-year-old mother, Su Nguyen, and her 15-year-old daughter, Annie Vu, were killed.

The family said according to Virginia State police, the driver who hit them was going more than 100 miles per hour.

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“I don’t know how to, how to live,” Cao said, sitting alongside her husband An Vu, as the couple
gasped through their grief and recover from their own injuries.

There were six people in their van, and everyone was rushed to the emergency room, including their son, Annie’s brother, 12-year-old Andy.

“When he came out of it, his first question was, you know, ‘Where is Annie?’” said Kathie Vu, Annie’s godmother.

She says Annie’s brother was just released from the hospital four days ago and is struggling to cope with losing his sister and grandmother.

“My mom, the best. My mom, she came here, 11-years-old. She takes care of my children,” Cao said.

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Nguyen was a devout catholic who helped raise the kids while their parents worked. Annie was a bright student at Annandale High School, where the principal says grief counselors have been made available for students.

At the beginning of this school year, Annie introduced herself to her classmates in her AP Seminar class at Annandale High School. Her principal shared with News4 what she wrote about herself. She told her classmates to count on her to always be hard-working, respectful and collaborative. She talked about her family and how her grandmother taught her to speak some Vietnamese. She hoped to major in biology at the University of Virginia saying, “although I don’t know what to do in the healthcare field, I’m sure I want to help others.”

“The other day, I heard my brother-in-law say, ‘There will be no more Christmas now.’ They’re always going to come into this time of year thinking about what happened,” Kathie Vu said.

The Vu family is demanding answers about the man who hit their car. Virginia State Police have not released his name nor any charges. The Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney says reckless driving charges were filed, but News4 hasn’t been able to confirm that via court records.

While News4 has not been able to confirm if reckless driving charges have actually been filed against the driver who allegedly caused this deadly crash, the prosecutor’s office says it is waiting for the results of a toxicology test. Once those results are back, it could determine what charges the driver might face.

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The family says that misdemeanor charge isn’t enough, they want him tried for involuntary manslaughter.

“I want everybody to pray for my mother-in-law and for my daughter so they can, you know, in heaven,” An Vu said.



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Former Oklahoma Sooners DB transferring to West Virginia

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Former Oklahoma Sooners DB transferring to West Virginia


The Oklahoma Sooners are fully in the swing of transfer portal season in early January, as they’re making additions to the roster and seeing former players land at their new schools. The portal officially opened on January 2nd, and it will be open until January 16th.

One of the latest players to find his new school is former OU defensive back Maliek Hawkins, who has committed to West Virginia. Hawkins is the son of former Oklahoma defensive back Mike Hawkins Sr., who played for the Sooners in 2002 and then played multiple years in the NFL. He’s the younger brother of former OU quarterback Michael Hawkins Jr., who started five games in Norman over the last two seasons. Both Hawkins brothers are now headed to Morgantown, with the older Hawkins hoping to win the starting QB job, and the younger Hawkins hoping to crack the rotation at cornerback.

Hawkins was a member of Oklahoma’s 2025 recruiting class, signing with the Sooners as a three-star recruit. He played in just one game during his true freshman season, and now arrives at WVU as a package deal with his older brother.

Despite the Sooners expecting to return starters Eli Bowen and Courtland Guillory at the CB spots in 2026, the portal exits of Hawkins, Devon Jordan, Gentry Williams, and Kendel Dolby have thinned the depth at that position. With Jacobe Johnson also expected to return, Oklahoma will be looking to add a key rotational cornerback or two in the transfer portal ahead of next year.

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Contact/Follow us @SoonersWire on X, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Oklahoma news, notes, and opinions. You can also follow Aaron on X@Aaron_Gelvin.





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