There are three players in this story. The first is Victor Scott. The second is the fanbase’s opinion of Victor Scott. And then there’s my opinion of Scott, inextricably linked to the fanbase’s opinion. There are certain players who come along where I react to the fanbase’s opinion of a player. If I feel the fanbase is particularly hard on a player for reasons that I may even understand, and I certainly do with Scott, then I tend to root for that player more than normal.
Scott is a weirder case than normal for me though. The first player this happened to was Lance Lynn, and I believe it was 2013 and it was definitely before advanced stats were widely accepted, because boy were his advanced stats good that year. But he had a 4.83 ERA in June, 4.84 ERA in July, and a 5.84 ERA in August and he became known for “Lynnings.” A blowout inning essentially. And I just remember digging my heels in and defending Lynn on Twitter, because most people seemed to want Joe Kelly in the rotation instead.
The next year, that player became Peter Bourjos, so I’m not going to pretend I have a 100 percent success rate with this. But my point is that entirely due to the fanbase at large jumping on a player I felt deserved their spot in the rotation, I became a huge Lance Lynn fan. I was never that big of a Joe Kelly fan because of this. So it can go both ways.
I share that backstory because I feel like my opinion on Victor Scott has changed based on how the fanbase is reacting to Victor Scott. In none of the players where this situation has happened has that player both simultaneously been both Lance Lynn and Joe Kelly at various stages of their Cardinal tenure. This is also a unique situation because the Lynn situation was exclusively limited to Twitter and people I interacted with in real life, not this site. This site did not need to be shown advanced stats.
But with Scott, I’m going to be honest. VEB comments are primarily what I’m reacting against, even though I do suspect the fanbase at large does tend to share the majority opinion here. How you guys feel about Scott has impacted how I feel about Scott.
It started back in 2023, when I ran my top 20 prospect series that you guys voted on and you guys neglected to put Scott on the top 20. I did my put Scott on my top 20, something I tried to remind people whenever I could because of what happened in the following year. This is what I wrote about Scott:
“I don’t know why this guy isn’t getting more love to be honest. He is (as far as we know) an elite runner and elite defender. The runner part is most likely true. He stole 13 bases to 3 caught stealing and hit 4 triples. At least in the sample shown in Low A, he has an incredible plate approach. He had 24 walks to 26 strikeouts in 142 PAs. The bat is the only question mark – probably the most important part admittedly, but still. As long as his plate approach doesn’t completely go to shit to compensate for hitting…. I don’t think he even needs to be that good of a hitter to look like an MLBer.”
And then the next year, he was voted as the #3 prospect in the system. And I did not really hide that I thought he was too high on that list. The dynamic had shifted. The fanbase was higher on Victor Scott than I was. And nothing had actually changed. Remove the first sentence and I could have written the exact same thing when putting him on my top 20 and it would have been just as true.
And this was more or less the situation for the next two years, when I felt the need to write an article saying that Victor Scott should not make the Opening Day roster in 2025. And then Victor Scott had a much better year than I expected and I think a worse year than the people who wanted him to make the Opening Day roster expected. And that is more or less where the situation is now. Yes, the slow start has exacerbated the concerns about Scott, but it felt like people were done with Scott after last year before this slow start ever happened.
First things first, in my defense of Scott, and I know some of you are going to say you can’t do this. I throw out 2024 completely. He had no business being in the major leagues and I fully believe his experience in the majors impacted his AAA performance. I also believe his AAA performance would look better if he finished the year in Memphis and not the majors. He got called back up to the majors in early August and finished the year with an 85 wRC+.
And fair enough if you think AAA should count. I’ll concede that. I absolutely do not think his MLB performance should not count though. I’ll give you a current day comparable situation. Imagine if the Cardinals called up Jurrangelo Cjintje right now to start in the major leagues. And they gave him 10 starts. And he didn’t show anything in those 10 starts to show he belonged. In 2028, when discussing Cjintje, we would pretend these starts didn’t exist, because we all knew he wasn’t ready. That’s why I think it’s disingenuous to use his career stats when saying why Victor Scott doesn’t belong. 2024 shouldn’t be included.
Because of finishing the year with an 85 wRC+ and because of a great spring training, fans were still high on Scott entering last year. As an aside, between Scott, Nelson Velasquez, and Jordan Walker (and Joshua Baez, I mean there’s so many examples) this year, please for the love of god ignore spring training results people! I know it’s still going to happen, but just remember those players when Rainiel Rodriguez hits 5 homers in spring next year.
Which brings us to this year. Scott has had a genuinely slow start and the things that are supposed to carry his game have not been there either. I can’t deny that. I don’t think those things will continue. I don’t think most people reading this do either to be honest. He has merely been a +2 OAA in CF, which says something about his standard that what would be a +6 in a season is considered a huge disappointment. And he hasn’t really been stealing bases either.
By the way, I want to address the fact that he didn’t attempt to steal Saturday in the 9th. It was the pitcher. Tony Santillan appears to be elite at preventing stolen bases. Most people don’t even try, like Scott. Since 2021, he has had 10 net bases prevented, and baserunners have attempted a steal just 0.4% of stolen base opportunities, which is the 26th best mark since he entered the league. Unless I’m reading this wrong, literally one baserunner has successfully stolen off him, and six baserunners have either been picked off or caught stealing.
Yes, stealing in that situation is great, but you just can’t get caught. That’s why getting caught stealing is a bigger penalty than stealing a base. If you as a baserunner can’t get a good read on the pitcher, you can’t steal. Santillan is apparently hard to read. I was actually really annoyed with the broadcast for mentioning that nobody has stolen a base off Santillan this year and then spent the rest of the inning confused he wasn’t stealing. Can you not read between the lines here? Some of the stolen base discussion, not specifically about Scott, annoys me because the pitcher is never really taken into account.
*This is a really fun stat, so I’ll share two Cardinals starters on opposite extremes. Pallante is AWFUL at holding runners on, with -16 net bases prevented, which ranks 478th out of 546 pitchers since 2021. Michael McGreevy however has been elite, with +6 net bases prevented and 0.2% attempted steals since he entered the league.
Sorry, went off on a tangent. There aren’t that many stats I can share to show that Scott still deserves chances, but there aren’t zero. Scott is exceptional about not chasing pitches out of the zone. He hasn’t walked that much this year, but I think he’ll walk more than he has. He’s walked just 6.8% of the time, but he walked 9.1% of the time last year and has a 8% projection. If he continues to not chase pitches, he’ll walk more.
It’s not super encouraging, but most of his x stats suggest he’s been unlucky. Not tremendously so, but when we’re talking about the difference between a 53 wRC+ and a 70 wRC+, that certainly changes your perception of a hitter. He’s got a .221 xBA when his current batting average is .197. He is 27th percentile in average exit velocity, which is a lot better than his results thus far.
I also think we should still believe his defense is elite. He is 98th percentile in sprint speed, so he certainly hasn’t lost a step. And despite the fact that he has a rep for having a weak arm…. he doesn’t. I guess he’s had some weak throws that are noticeable, but he straight up does not have a weak arm. His throws are thrown at an average speed of 87.4 mph, which is 75th percentile. He is not particularly good at using that arm strength to throw out runners, granted, although it hasn’t cost him this year. His extra bases prevented is 0, which is tied with Jordan Walker along with about 50 other outfielders.
All I’m saying is that giving a player like Victor Scott opportunities is exactly what this season is for. He’s 25-years-old, I do not understand giving up on the idea that he could be good enough to start in CF, especially when he did it last season. I know his hitting wasn’t impressive and 1.7 fWAR doesn’t pop off the page, but he did that in 463 PAs, not 600 PAs. That’s an average player.
Plus, he’s been so much better lately, I kind of feel like it’s gone unnoticed just because his stats were so awful in that first month, that it’ll be a while before his stats don’t look terrible. Obviously, I am arbitrarily choosing the best time period to make Scott’s stats look good, but in his last 49 PAs, Scott has a 94 wRC+. It came with a 20% k rate, .313 BABIP, and .116 ISO. It might be too little, too late given Lars Nootbaar is coming back soon, but I just have felt the same criticism despite better play.
At the very least, if all you take from this article is that Victor Scott is playing better lately, then it’ll have been worth it to write it for me. I think that deserves to be acknowledged.
