Victor Scott II Gives the Cardinals a Crucial Building Block

Entering Wednesday’s action, the St. Louis Cardinals are 23-19 and riding an impressive nine-game winning streak. This hot stretch of play has shot them up the NL Central standings into the No. 2 spot, just a game and a half behind the Chicago Cubs.

After winning just 71 games in 2023 and 84 last year, the Cardinals have fallen out of favor in the Central, but they’re coming out of the gates strong in 2025. PECOTA projected they’d win 79 games this year, but so far they’ve looked a lot better than a 79-win team.

For years now, this is a team that’s looked great on paper but hasn’t been able to gel properly as a unit. The Cardinals as an organization have always been one of the best in the business at accumulating raw talent, but the follow-through just hasn’t been there. A nine-game win streak and some renewed swagger should help matters.

Six of the Cardinals’ regular starting-nine have a wRC+ north of 100 (which is league-average), with most of the usual suspects doing the vast majority of the damage. Brendan Donovan, Lars Nootbaar, Nolan Arenado, and Willson Contreras are leading the offensive charge; but further down the nightly lineup card, there’s a former top prospect who’s starting to come into his own at the big league level.

All stats taken prior to games on Wednesday, May 14

Getting to Know Victor Scott II

The Cardinals selected Victor Scott II in the fifth round of the 2022 MLB Draft after a decent-but-not-great collegiate career at West Virginia University. He was best known for his blazing speed and defensive prowess out in center field prior to his turning pro.

After a small 31-game cameo in Low-A in 2022, Scott broke out in a massive way in 2023. The speedy outfielder hit .303 with a .794 OPS and 94 stolen bases (!!!) across 132 minor league games in his first season. Along the way, he represented the Cardinals in the All-Star Futures Game and took home a minor league Gold Glove Award for his play in the grass.

He was a legitimate extra-base hit machine with some of the best baserunning instincts and raw speed in all of the minor leagues.

Naturally, this had many in the industry thinking Scott was headed straight for superstardom. But at just 22 years old with exactly one full season of games under his belt, the odds were still low that this level of production was going to be the new norm for him.

Still, he earned a non-roster spot in spring training of 2024 and received a surprise promotion to the big leagues after Dylan Carlson began the year on the injured list thanks to a late injury. Scott had exactly zero at-bats in Triple-A, but he was headed for The Show.

Sky-High Expectations Met With Underwhelming Results

To begin his big league career, Scott hit just .085 (5-for-65) prior to his first demotion to Triple-A. He came back up to the bigs later in the year, but he finished 2024 with a strikeout rate over 27% while walking in under 4% of his plate appearances.

Unfortunately, he didn’t exactly hit any better in the minors either. Scott made it into 82 games for the Memphis Redbirds but hit just .210 with a .294 OBP and .597 OPS. Yes, he still went 30-for-35 in stolen base attempts, but he was uncomfortable and overmatched at all levels for basically an entire season.

Sometimes, this is the product of teams getting too antsy and forcing their prospects to develop at a pace of play they simply weren’t ready for. Yet, the Cardinals stuck with their guy, and after he hit .349 in 16 spring training games this year, he made the Opening Day roster for the second year in a row.

It’s true that the hype surrounding him had died down significantly by the time he made this year’s season-opening roster, but he’s still so young and packed with upside. To open the new season, he’s done nothing but reward the Cardinals for having faith in him after his first go-round in the big leagues went so poorly.

Stability Out in Center Field

Alright, enough with the negativity. Scott may have faltered in his second full year as a pro, but he’s turned himself into a legitimate building block to open 2025. Barring some unforeseen injury or gigantic cold streak, he now appears to be here to stay.

Armed with some of the most ridiculous speed in the game, Scott has made it into 38 games to open the year for the Cardinals and he’s showing off all of his tools. The 24-year-old is hitting .288 with a .755 OPS, 11 steals in 12 attempts and already has put up 1.2 fWAR in a small amount of games.

Following his 0-for-1 outing against the Phillies on Monday, Scott had an impressive 11-game hitting streak come to a close. He hit .371 during that stretch with a pair of extra-base hits and a smooth .925 OPS.

Dating back to April 30 when his hit streak began, Scott has been one of the Cardinals’ best offensive options when it comes to generating runs. He’s led the team in batting average while walking nearly 12% of the time and swiping a pair of bases for good measure.

The sample size is still growing, yes, but Scott is young enough where he could be the Cardinals’ long-term answer in center field. They’ve needed a singular face out there to hold things down for years, as they’ve cycled through multiple players without finding a true long-term solution at the position. Nootbaar was the club’s last well above-average center fielder, but he’s a more comfortable fit in a corner spot.

Keeping Nootbaar in a corner spot helps Scott, who has 7 Defensive Runs Saved (T-3rd in MLB) and 6 Outs Above Average (T-4th in MLB), in center field. His 99th percentile ranking in OAA, 72nd in Arm Strength and 94th in Fielding Run Value do more than enough to prove that he’s an elite defensive center fielder.

Part of the Cardinals’ Next Wave

Over the next two to three seasons, the Cardinals are going to have a handful of old and expensive players come off of their books. By that time, Nootbaar and Donovan are both going to be on the wrong side of 30, and there’s going to be a new wave of talent taking over as the club’s top faces.

Masyn Winn, Ivan Herrera and Scott are going to headline the bunch, with Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker both also showing glimpses of hope over the past few years. We’ve already established that the Cardinals have a ton of young pitching talent that’ll come up once Erick Fedde, Steven Matz, and even Sonny Gray reach the open market, but the position players don’t get enough love.

Paul Goldschmidt has moved on, and Arenado and Contreras will hit free agency after the 2027 season, which will be here before you know it. Once the latter two come off the books, the Cardinals will be without any long-term deals for their hitters.

This will leave the door wide open for young players like Scott to get locked up for the foreseeable future. His career is still only just getting started, but he looks to be developing into a multifaceted talent you don’t come across everyday in baseball.

Closing Thoughts

The league is filled to the brim with uber-talented center fielders this year, so it’s no wonder why Scott has fallen under the radar a bit. Heck, he’s likely not even the best center fielder in his own division with that Pete Crow-Armstrong fella in Chicago looking like the best defender of all-time.

Still, he deserves to be praised for the impressive turnaround he’s undergone. Scott’s got blazing speed and some of the best instincts in the outfield of any defender in today’s game, which should amount in a stockpiling of WAR if he can continue to find ways to rack up base hits.