Michael Siani

Scott had the bat knocked out of his hands last year, finishing with a .179 average in 155 plate appearances with the Cardinals. He's looked much better this spring at the plate, hitting .366 with four home runs and seven RBI in 15 games. Scott appears to be the everyday centerfielder with Michael Siani set for a bench role. The 24-year-old stole 94 bases in 132 minor league games in 2023. If Scott's newfound hitting prowess translates to the regular season, he'll be a candidate to lead the league in stolen bases.

Scott had the bat knocked out of his hands with a .179 average in 155 plate appearances with the Cardinals in 2024. He was a new man in spring training, though, as he hit .366 with four home runs and seven RBI in 15 games. Scott appears to be the everyday centerfielder with Michael Siani set for a bench role. The 24-year-old stole 94 bases in 132 minor league games in 2023. If Scott's newfound hitting prowess translates to the regular season, he'll be a candidate to lead the league in stolen bases.

A 404-foot blast in a tough lefty-lefty matchup? That's pretty good. Scott has to be the Cardinals' Opening Day center fielder. He's hit .366/.469/.756 this spring, and while we don't want to get overly excited about that, he certainly projects better than Michael Siani.

Scott totaled eight homers and just 26 extra-base hits overall in 517 plate appearances between the majors and Triple-A last season, so this spring power outburst has been nice to see. He has six extra-base hits in a mere 46 plate appearances to date. There's just not going to be any way for the Cardinals to justify using Michael Siani over him in center.

Fermin has never homered in 140 major league plate appearances. He's never even had a barrel, though today's would have qualified. He homered eight times in 61 Triple-A games last year, and he has hit a ball as hard as 105.7 mph in the majors and 109.0 mph in Triple-A, so he's not entirely without power. Still, contact is the name of the game for the 25-year-old; he struck out just 9.2% of the time in Triple-A last year and has come in at 13.6% so far in the majors. Assuming that they follow through on demoting the loser of the center field battle between Victor Scott II and Michael Siani, there will be one spot on the Cardinals bench open for Fermin or Jose Barrero. Fermin is likely the better player of those two, though he might not get many chances to prove it.