Through the first 12 games of Cardinals baseball for 2025, the best thing I’ve seen from the team so far is the inspired, dynamic play from second-year outfielder Victor Scott.
After being overwhelmed by his rush-job opportunity with the Cardinals in 2024, Scott matured in a hurry. Locked in and confident, he went out and earned the starting center field job in spring training.
It wasn’t supposed to go that way. The Cardinals tentatively planned to put Scott at Triple-A Memphis at the start of the season to get him more experience, but Scott had his own plans. He gave the Cardinals no choice. He excelled. He was impressive from start to finish. He ripped the Cardinals’ Memphis plan to shreds.
There’s so much to love here. Going into the home weekend series against Philadelphia, Scott is batting .286 with a .354 on-base percentage and .452 slug for an OPS of .807. Per wRC+, Scott has performed 27 percent above league average offensively so far. And he’s 5-for-5 in stolen-base attempts.
They’re just surface-level stats. Scott is impressive in other ways that demonstrate his intelligence and maturity as a young player still assimilating to the majors.
— Defense: Scott’s range rates among the top four percent of major-league fielders. He has two Outs Above Average, second among Cardinals to shortstop Masyn Winn’s 3 OAA.
— Speed: And of course, V-Scott is fast – dashing from base to base with an average sprint speed that scores in the top one percent of MLB runners. That exceptional speed – and his keen instincts – have given Scott a Base Running Value (via Statcast) that places him among the top eight percent of MLB players.
— Quality at-bats: Keep in mind that Scott, 24, came into the season with only 155 MLB plate appearances and he wasn’t ready for the majors a year ago. And now, just a short time later, Scott looks completely different in his approach.
Here’s why:
• Scott is seeing 4.3 pitches per plate appearance, one of the highest averages on the team. He’s working those counts instead of being overly aggressive and hacking at pitches.
• Scott has the lowest called-strike rate and lowest swing-and-miss rate among Cardinals. That’s a very good combination for a developing big-league hitter.
• Scott’s chase rate on pitches out of the strike zone is below the overall MLB chase rate of 31.7 percent.
• In a related note, Scott has crafted a terrific 14.3 percent walk rate. As an overwhelmed rookie last season, Scott walked in only 3.9 percent of his plate appearances.
• Scott’s percentage of swinging at strikes – 81.6 percent – is the best by a Cardinal so far. And keying in on strikes makes for effective hitting. This season, when Scott swings and connects on pitches in the strike zone, he’s 10-for-29 (.345) with a .552 slugging percentage, four extra-base hits, and a hard-hit rate of 43 percent.
• Handling pressure: We’re still in the sliver-sample-size portion of the season. But the results matter, anyway. And when Scott has gone to the plate in a high-leverage situation, he’s cracked two hits in five at-bats (.400) with a triple and three RBIs.
Scott has abundant natural talent. And what I hoped to see was Scott putting his skills to work to enhance every phase of the game.
I wanted to see Scott make quick progress in developing as a strong all-around player. And he’s done that over the first two weeks of the season. It’s too soon to make any serious declarations here, but it’s impressive to watch Scott sync all parts of his game.
According to FanGraphs…
• Scott is STL’s best baserunner.
• He’s their third-best offensive player, based on a metric that includes baserunning.
• He’s rated No. 3 defensively for St. Louis behind Masyn Winn and Nolan Arenado.
Tuesday at Pittsburgh, Scott struck one of the Cardinals’ biggest early-season hits, driving a two-run triple off Pirates ace Paul Skenes to lift STL to a 3-0 lead. The Cards proceeded to a 5-3 victory.
It was another positive game for the player who came up with the “Youngry” description that fits the Cardinals’ team profile.
The Cardinals drafted Scott out of West Virginia in the fifth round of the 2022 draft. Kudos to Randy Flores, who runs the STL draft.
Scott drew media attention during the series in Pittsburgh. Gold and Blue Nation – which covers West Virginia U. sports – asked Cards president John Mozeliak about Scott’s bold emergence after hitting only .179 with a .502 OPS for St. Louis last season.
“What we’re seeing out of him now is much more comfortable. He understands what the day-to-day routine looks like,” Mozeliak said in an interview with Gold and Blue Nation. “His preparation this offseason was amazing. He really did a good job to work on the things he needed to work on, came into camp, looked great, and he hasn’t really looked back since.”
Scott’s talent gives him a foundation for success, but he obviously doesn’t take that gift for granted. He’s inspired by the goal of becoming a great player. Scott has worked extremely hard. He fully embraced the teachings of coaches Jon Jay (fielding) and Brant Brown (hitting).
“You kind of understand how to go about your business through the process of being up here for the first time,” Scott told Gold and Blue Nation. “This time around, it’s a little different mindset, of ‘I want to stay here.’ So it’s just a completely different person, essentially.
“Before, you’re kind of wide-eyed and open to everything; everything is so new to you. But now it’s not so new. So, the objective is just to continue going about my business, continue going about my work [just] how I’ve been doing. Results will always come from that. And always focus on that process.”
Youngry does it.
Thanks for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful weekend!
—Bernie
Bernie was a 2023 inductee into the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame and has won multiple national awards for column writing. You can access all of his writing and videos here on SportsHubSTL, catch him weekdays on the “Gashouse Gang” on KMOX (1120-AM, 104.1-FM) and watch him discuss baseball with Katie Woo of The Athletic twice a week on the “Cardinal Territory” YouTube channel.