ST. LOUIS – Victor Scott II has run – both figuratively and literally – with the opportunity to seize the St. Louis Cardinals’ starting centerfielder job in his second-big league season. And he hasn’t looked back.
Scott, a 24-year-old MLB sophomore, has appeared in all but four of the Cardinals’ 38 games this season and it’s getting harder to keep him out of the lineup. Nearly one-quarter of the way through the 2025 season, Scott leads all teammates with a 1.6 Wins Above Replacement (WAR) rating. That’s tied for 27th best in all of baseball.
Scott’s stellar season to date includes a .289 batting average, two home runs, 18 runs scored and 15 RBI on offense. He’s been just as strong (if not better) on defense, one of few players ranking in the Top 10 for both Outs Above Average (6) and Runs Prevented (5), according to MLB Statcast.
That said, it’s his speed that undeniably sets him apart from other big-league ballplayers.
Just two years removed from swiping 94 bases in the minor leagues, Scott has successfully stolen 11 bases in 12 tries this season, including 10 consecutive successful attempts to begin his season. His speed also shows up in other ways, such as beating out ground balls for infield singles, stretching hits and chasing down fly balls for improbable outs.
Speed is Scott’s calling card, and he appreciates how it can make even the smallest of differences on a game’s outcome.
“Just coming to the field every day knowing I can impact the game like that is special,” said Scott on Wednesday, following the Cardinals’ 5-0 win and three-game sweep of the Pittsburgh Pirates. “Because not all the time is the bat going to be hot. Not all the time are you going to be able to hit the ball over the wall. To be able to get on base and impact the game in that way is just special to me.”
“He might be the fastest baseball player I’ve ever seen in person,” added teammate and close friend Jordan Walker.
How fast is Victor Scott II?
During the third inning of Wednesday’s win over the Pirates, Scott drew a one-out walk and catalyzed a key hit-and-run play. Lars Nootbaar lined a ball into shallow right field, and Scott was already rounding second base by the time it landed.
Scott hustled hard, and he never stopped until he reached home plate on a slide, beating out a strong throw from Pittsburgh right fielder Bryan Reynolds and giving the Cardinals an early 1-0 lead they would not relinquish.
According to MLB.com’s John Denton, Scott covered the distance from first to home (270 feet) in just 9.28 seconds. That was the sixth-fastest first-to-home time tracked by Statcast this season.
Let’s do some math to break it down…
Each base in an MLB game is 90 feet apart. So Scott covered 270 feet in 9.28 seconds.
One mile equals 5,280 feet. If Scott maintained that pace over a full mile, he’d covered it in 181.47 seconds, or just over three minutes.
Ultimately, that converts to an average speed on that play of 19.83 miles per hour.
For comparison, a 2024 study from Runner’s Blueprint, measuring results from the 2018 World Masters Athletics Championships, found that the top sprinters across different groups average a top speed of 18.23 miles per hour. Scott’s burst Wednesday from first-to-home even exceeds that elite mark.
Of course, that kind of top speed is only sustainable in short bursts. Usain Bolt, widely regarded as the fastest man in history, once reached a peak of 27.8 mph in the 100-meter dash.
That’s most likely out of Scott’s reach, but hitting the 20 mph threshold on any given day isn’t out of question.
According to Statcast, Scott has the third-best sprint speed in Major League Baseball this year, trailing only Bobby Witt Jr. and Byron Buxton. Statcast uses a feet-per-second metric to determine a player’s foot speed, specifically their fastest one-second window on qualifying individual plays.
If Scott could replicate his Statcast spring speed up to a full-hour effort, ignoring inevitable variables like fatigue, physics and base rounding, his sprint speed converts to 20.59 miles per hour, or just under three minutes per mile.
So just how fast is Victor Scott II?
Expect him to clock just under 20 mph on routine bursts and above that mark on elite sprints. In a league that demands blazing speed, Victor Scott isn’t just keeping the pace. He’s redefining it.
Scott and the St. Louis Cardinals, now 19-19 and three games back of the NL Central-leading Chicago Cubs, begin a nine-game road trip Friday against the Washington Nationals.