Victor Scott, Too Much Regression Coming?
I’m sure everyone who has sauntered over to Victor Scott II’s page immediately looked at his 2023 stolen bases totals. First, there are the 44 steals in AA. And they need to be added to the 50 steals in High-A. Yes, those 94 steals are now in play with Scott being named the Cardinals starting center fielder. So should roto managers get ready to pay for the young speedster?
There was some fantasy love for the 23-year-old speedster throughout draft season. Before March 1st, he was being drafted at an average spot of 586th in NFBC drafts. When Spring Training started and it was obvious Tommy Edman was not going to be ready for the season’s start, his ADP (average draft position) jumped to 440. And then the news came out yesterday that he was making the team because of Dylan Carlson’s injury and in the 47 Tuesday drafts, his ADP jumped to 254. It should possibly be higher.
There are many reasons why Scott could succeed or fail this season, but I’m just going to focus on how far we should expect his stolen bases to decline. The biggest issue is that since 2006, I could only find three instances, minors or majors, where a player stole over 94 combined bases in a season, two by Billy Hamilton and one by Delino DeShields.
On top of there being few instances of players stealing 90+ bases, the rules recently changed in the minors (and majors) limiting pickoff throws and increasing base sizes. For those reasons, I examined anyone from 2006 (my minor league data goes back to here) to 2019 with a minimum of 70 SB in a season. Also, I compared the results from 2022 to 2023 for 30 SB to 39 SB, 40 SB to 49 SB, and 50 SB or more. Here are the results:
| Time frame | SB | SB/600 PA | % Drop | %Drop/600 PA | Change in Success Rate | Opportunity Change | PA | %Change in PA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2006 to 2019 | -26.9 | -19.6 | 62% | 75% | -4.1% | -1.2% | -100 | 82% |
| 2022 to 2023 | ||||||||
| >= 50 SB | -20.6 | -17.1 | 69% | 78% | -5.0% | -2.2% | -53 | 90% |
| 40 SB to 49 SB | -14.8 | -11.4 | 68% | 81% | -3.4% | -0.7% | -83 | 83% |
| 30 SB to 39 SB | -8.5 | -11.0 | 75% | 81% | -5.5% | -0.7% | -44 | 90% |
The overall stolen bases dropped as expected with the percentage decline between 62% to 75%. But the answer can be narrowed down even more since stolen bases consist of three variables: speed, desire, and opportunity.
The players in question might have experienced an injury-free season in year one and as a whole, the drop saw their plate appearances from 10% to nearly 20% in season two. Once the two seasons had their stats normalized to 600 PA, the stolen base drop was between 19% and 25%. Scott was able to accumulate 618 PA in 2023. There is a good chance he won’t hit that number again.
I don’t have a great measure of speed over the entire timeframe but the players in question saw their success on the bases drop. Maybe the players slowed down. Maybe teams found ways to counter the player on the bases.
Running the above numbers for Scott, he will likely see his plate appearances down by ~15% so say from 618 PA to 525 PA. If he maintained the same stolen base rate, he’d be down to 80 SB. Next, the total needs to be cut by ~20% or from 80 SB down to 64 SB.
Now, 64 SB is nothing to sneeze at, but it’s not approaching 100 SB. Still, by overriding the Steamer Prorated 34 SB to 64 SB Scott becomes the 37th (!) overall rated player by my evaluations (54 R/8 HR/54 RBI/.253 AVG/64 SB). Very few leagues are still drafting, but for the few drafts left, Scott could provide a decent amount of stolen bases if he remains in the majors as the Cardinals come off the IL. Expect the FAAB bidding to be enthusiastic for the leagues he’s available in this weekend, especially if he steals a few bases in these first few games.
Jeff, one of the authors of the fantasy baseball guide,The Process, writes for RotoGraphs, The Hardball Times, Rotowire, Baseball America, and BaseballHQ. He has been nominated for two SABR Analytics Research Award for Contemporary Analysis and won it in 2013 in tandem with Bill Petti. He has won four FSWA Awards including on for his Mining the News series. He's won Tout Wars three times, LABR twice, and got his first NFBC Main Event win in 2021. Follow him on Twitter @jeffwzimmerman.
Controversial opinion: I don’t think anyone is predicting him as a lock for 90 SB, and 64 SB is still a “steal” with the 256th pick, even at the 150th pick.
Draft him and hope he turns out better than Jorge Mateo.
How r u defining oppty channge? One thing u typically see with huge MiLB base stealers, especially below AAA, is huge OBP. Scott ran a .365 or so, while his proj is close to .300 – almost all of that diff is lost SB opp and its way, way more than 2%.
cant steal first base
The photo choice is kind of the counterargument.
The issue with Scott isn’t whether he will give you a lot of SBs when he plays, it’s whether he loses PT or is sent down when the other guys come back.
And whether he can get on base enough. Right now he’s projected for a .305 OBP with zero power, i.e. pitchers are going to throw him strikes and dare him to hit it.
Players who offer speed and nothing else aren’t new – there have been guys for years who will give you 30 SBs in 300-400 PAs. They’re a fantasy staple. Whereas guys like Hamilton or Ruiz (2023 version), who are given enough PT to get to 60 steals despite being useless otherwise are quite rare. My guess is that Scott turns out more like the former than the latter, simply because of scarcity if nothing else.
His CF defense could go a long way to earning him that full bushel of PT – he’s not “useless otherwise” if he’s throwing down in CF. Not necessarily in 2024 but in keeper / dynasty leagues I think he’s a good bet to be a premier rabbit for a while, with room for OBP improvement based on his minor league numbers.
For 2024? I understand the flyer if you need speed. Rookie projections aren’t reliable, especially for a guy with no AAA experience at all. Odds are he underwhelms with the bat and is down within a month, but in the scenario where it works out he could be a league-winner, especially for teams that need speed in their build coming out of the draft.
Projected 2024 BABIPs also seem low for a burner, though the other side of that is contact quality, which is a bit of a mystery without AAA numbers.
Yes that’s the big problem with spending a lot to get him. Edman and Nootbaar are out and even then he still didn’t make the team until Carlson got hurt. Nootbaar will be back first and he might get sent down at that point; I suspect they’d rather have Scott playing every day in AAA and let Siani be the guy riding the bench in the majors.
For me, it comes down to how many PA he will actually get. Once Edman and Carlson return, will he even stay in the majors? He would need to steal at-bats from someone with experience and I am not sold he will. Don’t forget Donovan, Nootbaar, and Burleson as more OF depth on the team. Perhaps if he can learn to take a walk it will help. We will see, but I’m watching from the sidelines and letting someone else waste the FAAB.
Agreed. The Cardinals have so many outfielders and IFs for that matter. Scott is still kind of raw and needs full time PT to get better and he is not going to get that over the regular guys short of some insane start. And while lots of SBs are sexy to fantasy guys, MLB teams now know guys like Lars Nootbar are more valuable than Vince Coleman. Expect him to go down as soon as there are alternatives. We might see him again later this year, but 2025 is more likely if he plays well in the minors later on.
If you get him as a last pick, or past pick 20, he is essentially free money. If it works out boom. If not, drop him.
I’m struggling to comprehend a couple of things:
1) “% Change in PA” really means “Year2/Year1 % of PA,” right? As written, it indicates 82%-90% increases in PA, which is basically impossible.
2) Related, “the drop saw their plate appearances from 10% to nearly 20% in season two.” This should be “their plate appearances *declined by* 10% to nearly 20% in season two,” right?