In addition to meeting local St. Louis Cardinal fans, there was another reason Victor Scott II wanted to be part of Cardinal Caravan stop in Rolla earlier this month.

He wanted to visit family.

Scott was part of the Cardinal Caravan contingent that stopped at Rolla High School Saturday, Jan. 17.

However, he has been in St. James and Rolla many times over the years. Scott is the first cousin of St. James resident Will Marshall. Scott’s and Marshall’s mothers are sisters.

“I come here a lot,” Scott said at the Caravan stop. “I come through here visiting Will and his family a lot.”

Marshall said Scott likes to come after the baseball season ends. “He loves coming here and playing golf,” said Marshall, who works at the St. James Golf Course.

Is Scott a good golfer? Marshall just smiles. “He’s getting better,” Marshall said. “He’s a great athlete.”

Marshall said Scott’s goal on his golfing visits here is to beat Marshall’s sons - Trey and Jordan - on the course. That’s still a work in progress, the Marshalls say!

The Cardinal Caravan is an annual event the club uses to drum up interest in the upcoming season prior to the start of spring training. At the event Scott talked about 2025, his second season when he was the Cardinals’ primary centerfielder. It was his second year with the big-league club.

“I though it was a good start,” Scott said. “There is definitely more to come; more to work on. I’m working on things that got exposed last year.”

Scott is one of the key building blocks the Cardinals need to blossom if their current rebuilding program is to be successful. One of baseball’s fastest and most dangerous base stealers, Scott has had severe problems getting on base to take advantage of those gifts.

In his two seasons in St. Louis he batted .179 in 145 at-bats as a rookie in 2024 and .216 in 398 at-bats in 2025. His .080 ISO was the fifth-worst among all hitters last year. Despite that lack of offensive success, Scott was still able to steal 34 bases, score 54 runs, hit five homers and drive in 37 while usually batting at the bottom of the lineup in 2025.

But the old baseball adage goes, “You can’t steal first base,” and that’s been Scott’s off-season priority, using state-of-the-art analytics.

During the off-season Scott, age 24 from Atlanta, Ga., returned to his alma mater, the University of West Virginia, to train and research his game at the school’s Baseball Biomechanics and Performance Center, which includes high-tech data analysis performance tools such as Trackman for Baseball Pitch Design, motion capture systems and force plates.

“It’s been a pretty drawn-out process,” Scott said. “I went to West Virginia to do motion capture things and force plate testing, to see how my body was moving. We took that information and went to their (baseball) Biomechanics Center and gathered a plan. We worked on hip rotation and found a flaw in my swing.”

With the knowledge learned from the Biomechanics Center, Scott formulated a game plan with the biomechanics at West Virginia as well as Cardinal personnel to work on ways to improve his approach at the plate.

“I started swinging in December,” he said. “Not only hitting, but bunting as well. Being on base is my job - my calling card. A lot of it is instinctive, studying pitchers and catchers.”

The Cardinals desperately want Scott’s offense to catch up to the rest of his game, to get to at least an average rate at the plate so his great strengths can be utilized. He probably can’t stay in the lineup with his big-league offensive slash line to date.

Scott’s speed and defense are unquestioned.

A centerfield Gold Glove finalist in 2025, Scott ranked in the 99th percentile in baseball in Outs Above Average with 17, and his plus-21 fielding run value ranked fourth in the Majors.
He also ranked in the 100th percentile in sprint speed at 30.2 MPH. With a strong offensive showing at the High-A and Double-A levels in 2023, Scott led all Minor League Baseball in stolen bases with a eye-popping 94.

In addition to getting his offense right, Scott said he stays busy polishing his skills in the field.
“We work on defense every day,” Scott said. “Work on cone drills (Cardinal outfield coach) Jon Jay showed me; getting the ball out faster on balls in the gap.”

Although there has been plenty of negatives from fans about the current state of the team, shown primarily with a dramatic drop in game attendance as well as social media outrage, Scott feels the Cardinals have an impressive group of young, up-and-coming players who are growing together as a unit.

“I feel like we have players who feel good about their chances,” Scott said of 2026. “Everybody is attentive to details and to plans. There is optimism that says, ‘This is my opportunity; my moment.’ I’m ready to start this year.”