{"id":723537,"date":"2026-06-08T18:45:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723537\/"},"modified":"2026-06-08T18:45:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-08T18:45:09","slug":"cardinals-to-option-victor-scott-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/723537\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardinals To Option Victor Scott II"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Cardinals are optioning center fielder Victor Scott II<\/a> to Triple-A Memphis today, as first reported by KMOV\u2019s Tamar Sher<\/a>. Fellow outfielder Nathan Church<\/a> will return from the 10-day IL today and take Scott\u2019s roster spot, per Jeff Jones of the Belleville News-Democrat<\/a>. Church will presumably see the bulk of action in center field.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s the first time that Scott, 25, has been optioned since the 2024 season. He spent all of 2025 in the majors and has been a regular player in 2026 despite nonexistent offensive output. He\u2019s hitting .194\/.276\/.258 (57 wRC+) through 184 turns at the plate thus far. Scott only has six extra-base hits (two homers, four doubles).<\/p>\n

Scott has swiped nine bases but been caught four times; that\u2019s already as many times as he was caught stealing in all of \u201925, when he swiped a total of 34 bags. His sprint 29.7 ft\/sec sprint speed is still elite, sitting in the 98th percentile of big leaguers, but it\u2019s down half a foot from last year\u2019s 30.2 ft\/sec, which tied him for tops in the game. Scott\u2019s 8.7% walk rate is almost average, and his 23.9% strikeout rate isn\u2019t egregious, but he has the sixth-worst hard-hit rate among the 235 players to tally at least 150 plate appearances this season.<\/p>\n

Defensively, Scott still grades out quite well, though not to the same extent as in 2025. Last year, he was credited with 12 Defensive Runs Saved and 16 Outs Above Average in 1087 innings. This year, through 471 innings in center, OAA has credited Scott as a positive but not elite defender (3), while DRS has dinged him at -2.<\/p>\n

If Scott stays in the minors for at least 20 days, this will burn the second of his three minor league option years. It\u2019s unlikely to impact his potential free-agent and arbitration timelines, as he\u2019s already less than three weeks from reaching two years of MLB service time. If Scott spends the rest of the season in Triple-A, he wouldn\u2019t reach two years of service, thus giving St. Louis an extra season of club control, but it feels likely that he\u2019ll be back at some point, whether because he hits his way onto the roster or because the Cardinals incur an injury in the big league outfield mix.<\/p>\n

Church, also 25, has struggled at the plate in his own right, but not to the same extent. He\u2019s taken 156 plate appearances and turned in a .247\/.282\/.390 slash (88 wRC+) with five homers, six doubles, a 3.8% walk rate and a 21.2% strikeout rate. He\u2019s also making hard contact at lower-than-average levels, but not quite at the same bottom-of-the-scale levels as Scott. Church also has the more productive Triple-A track record; he slashed .335\/.400\/.521 in 242 plate appearances there last year. Scott\u2019s only Triple-A work came back in 2024, when he hit .210\/.294\/.303 (58 wRC+) in 362 trips to the plate.<\/p>\n

The rest of the Cardinals\u2019 outfield mix seems largely set. Lars Nootbaar<\/a> is back after missing the first couple months of the season and should see regular action in left, plus occasional time in center. Jordan Walker<\/a>, in the midst of a full-fledged breakout, is entrenched in right field. (Nootbaar could play right field if the Cards give Walker a day off or a DH breather.) Nelson Velazquez<\/a>, Jose Fermin<\/a> and Bryan Torres<\/a> can all mix in occasionally. Fermin and Torres have minimal opportunities in an infield with Alec Burleson<\/a>, JJ Wetherholt<\/a>, Masyn Winn<\/a> and Nolan Gorman<\/a> getting regular work (though Gorman isn\u2019t hitting enough to justify regular at-bats for the remainder of the season).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Cardinals are optioning center fielder Victor Scott II to Triple-A Memphis today, as first reported by KMOV\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":723538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,224818,82,261327],"class_list":["post-723537","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-nathan-church","tag-sports","tag-victor-scott"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=723537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/723537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/723538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=723537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=723537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=723537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}