clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

Comping Xavier Scruggs

The Cardinals have a slugging 1Bman in Springfield who has hit 19 HRs this year already in his 2nd year in Springfield despite the fact that the Cardinals have a minor league veteran ahead of him at Memphis. Let's look at some MLB player comparisons for Scruggs to see what kind of player he could be.

Xavier Scruggs is in his age-25 season playing in the hitter friendly Texas League, but looking at how much he strikes out and how much power he has from the right side of the plate, I thought that we should look at the major league comparable players for Mr. Scruggs.

Here's the criteria:

Righthanded

AB / SO <= 3.0. (This means that the player strikes out more than 1 ever 3 at bats, or about once per game)

BA between .230 and .270

OBP around .340

Slugging > .400

Here's a few of the players I got back:

Wily Mo Pena

Kyle Blanks

Pat Burrell

Mark Reynolds

Craig Wilson

Mike Napoli

Obviously, with that criteria, I was going to get back players who had great seasons as Scruggs has had a very good minor league career so far. Every single one of the players in this list made their debuts in the majors before age 25, so they are all different players, but all had at least 1 season that matched up with the criteria. Wily Mo and Kyle Blanks both have had up and down careers, although Blanks is attempting to match the play from his rookie year again this year. Pat Burrell had a strong and remarkably consistent 12 year career.

The X-Man as he's known has already proven himself enough in Springfield and at age 25 if the Cardinals would like him to have a late-blooming career like David Freese, Allen Craig, Jon Jay or Daniel Descalso, they should move him up to Memphis. Brock Peterson is having a great year for Memphis, but he is a non-prospect and should be moved to another position for Scruggs who is more of a prospect. Scruggs does have some headway in St. Louis with both Craig and Matt Adams ahead of him, but players with Scruggs' power potential are very valuable regardless of their age. Move him up!