Victor Scott II - 3/13/24

The Cardinals' latest top outfield prospect is on the brink of a major league callup

Prospect Spotlight 🔦

Victor Scott II – Age: 23 – B/T: L/L, 5’10” 190 – Cardinals (Double-A)

• Born: 2/12/2001 in Atlanta, GA

• Draft: 2022, St. Louis Cardinals, Round: 5, Overall Pick: 157

• College: West Virginia University

Last week, we introduced minor league sprint speed leaderboards to the site, giving readers our best estimates of how fast we think each player in the minor leagues was last year. At the top of the list was Victor Scott II, who has an estimated 29.5 ft/sec sprint speed — a rate that would put him near the top of MLB leaderboards. In 2023, he swiped 112 bags between High-A, Double-A, and the Arizona Fall League. Not just a one dimensional speed demon, Scott has shown a feel for hitting along with plus-plus defense in center field. Cardinals fans are looking for reasons to be optimistic after a dismal 2023 season, and the development of their fifth round pick from 2022 is certainly one reason to be excited for the team moving forward. Scott is firmly on the brink of a call-up, so let’s take a look and see how he may contribute to the big league squad this year.

With someone like Scott, who was drafted in the later rounds before ascending as a top 100 prospect, it’s sometimes informative to look at the college career to see if there were any hidden signs of a breakout. Candidly speaking, while he was clearly an above-average player at West Virginia, there weren’t clear signs he would have moved this quickly. As a junior, he slashed .278 / .397 / .454 with 6 homers, 35 walks, 53 strikeouts, and 38 stolen bases in 250 plate appearances. This was a marked improvement from his sophomore to junior year — his on-base percentage went from .359 to .397 and his slugging percentage increased from .368 to .454, but save for the stolen base totals, it’s not a super impressive line.

In particular, the high number of strikeout rates were concerning. During both his sophomore and junior year, he posted strikeout rates in the low 20s, which is a decent number for a college hitter, but for someone like Scott who has limited power and relies more on putting the ball in play, it’s on the higher side. For context, Enrique Bradfield, who had a similar profile of a speedster center fielder, posted strikeout rates in the low 10% range while at Vanderbilt. Low in-game power coupled with pedestrian strikeout rates isn't the most enticing profile, despite the plus-plus speed and defense, so Scott probably went where he belonged in the draft based on the data available at the time. 

In a 20-game sample on the Cape in 2022 (using a wood bat) Scott hit just .171 / .368 / .308. It would have seemed likely he would also struggle in his first taste of pro ball using wood bats, but he held his own in Low-A Palm Beach after the draft. In that 31-game sample, he hit .222 / .358 / .389 with 24 walks and 26 strikeouts. Not Earth shattering, but it was nice to see the walks almost match the strikeouts, something he didn’t really do in college and was something to pay attention to when he started his first professional season.