3 Cardinals hot hitting performances to buy, 2 to sell a week into the 2025 season

Buy: Victor Scott II

Coming into spring training, I was someone who felt like the Cardinals should be very patient with Victor Scott II, and I believed it would likely be best for him to start the year with Memphis to make sure he's ready whenever he's finally called upon to start again in St. Louis.

After a really strong spring training, I still thought it made sense to start him in Triple-A, but I totally understood if the Cardinals believed he was ready to go this year. My one caveat with Scott was that if the Cardinals kept him in St. Louis, he would have to start every day. Making him the backup center fielder to Michael Siani or splitting their playing time up would be a terrible decision in my eyes.

So far, the Cardinals have stuck with Scott as their everyday center fielder, starting him in all six games and only moving him to a corner outfield spot when Siani comes in as a defensive replacement for Jordan Walker. And while things were really bad last year offensively for Scott during his first stint with St. Louis, Scott has been off to a strong start in 2025.

In 26 plate appearances, Scott is slashing .348/.385/.522 with one home run, one double, two walks, and five runs batted in while stealing four bases and scoring four runs as well. He's putting the ball in play far more often as well (posting a 19.2% strikeout rate as compared to a 27.1% strikeout rate in 2025).

Something so many of us have noticed with the 2025 Cardinals so far compared to last year's team is the comfort in their approach. As a team, the Cardinals are seeing the sixth most pitches per plate appearance in all of baseball, and Scott is actually 76th among all hitters in baseball so far in pitches per at-bat. He's forcing opposing pitches to give him pitches to hit, he's hitting the ball with authority when he gets the pitch he likes, and he's finding ways to slap the ball for a single, lay down a bunt for a hit, or take a walk when pitchers are doing a good job of not making mistakes.

Scott is a real weapon for the Cardinals at the bottom of their order, and whenever he has been on base, he makes things really difficult for the opposing pitchers. Last year, Scott only managed to steal five bags for St. Louis since he really never got on base enough to make pitchers work. This year, he's got those four stolen bases in just six games, and if he can keep getting on base, he will be among the league leaders in steals come season's end.

Scott doesn't need to be a prolific hitter to be valuable in 2025, but he really does look like he's made significant strides in that area. I don't think it's a hot take to say we should not "buy" into Scott being a 50% above league-average hitter this year, but I think we can buy into Scott being a much better hitter than he was last year when he was 60% below league-average.