Former Cardinals and Marlins first baseman/outfielder Xavier Scruggs will return for a second season with the NC Dinos of the Korea Baseball Organization, the team announced Wednesday (h/t: Dan Kurtz of MyKBO.net, on Twitter). Scruggs will earn a $1.3MM salary for the upcoming 2018 campaign, per the announcement.
Scruggs, 30, never carved out much of a role for himself in the big leagues, hitting just .227/.292/.303 in limited opportunities between the Cardinals and Marlins organizations — the only two MLB clubs with which he was ever affiliated. In all, Scruggs received just 130 plate appearances in the Major Leagues despite a strong body of work in Triple-A, where he slashed .271/.371/.485 in 1369 trips to the plate. Scruggs’ final season in Triple-A saw him turn in a huge .290/.408/.565 slash with 21 homers in 93 games — a performance that generated interest overseas.
The Dinos invested $1MM in Scruggs last offseason and were rewarded enormously for that show of faith. In 518 plate appearances, Scruggs posted a .300/.402/.595 batting line while drilling 35 homers and 24 doubles. The KBO, of course, is an extremely hitter-friendly environment, but Scruggs’ huge output still placed him among the league’s most productive hitters; Scruggs tied for third in the KBO in homers and ranked seventh in OPS, per Kurtz.
Scruggs is hardly the first hitter to take a strong Triple-A track record but limited MLB success and find stardom overseas. The man he effectively replaced on the Dinos’ roster, Eric Thames, is perhaps the poster boy for parlaying a strong run in the KBO or Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball into a big league opportunity. It’s not yet clear if or when Scruggs hopes to return to pro ball in North America, but if he can further improve his discipline and continue to post gaudy numbers in the KBO, it’s possible he could follow in Thames’ footsteps and draw free-agent interest from MLB clubs in future offseasons.
I think the problem with Scruggs is that he’s basically a dime a dozen player. There are just so many players like him in this league and if he can’t his average at a decent level, he’d have a tough time staying in the bigs. It’s a little bit of a shame because I sort of liked him in St. Louis’ system. Best of luck to him!
The main problem for Scruggs in terms of returning to MLB is that he’s already 30 years old, and it looks like he’s agreed to give the NC Dinos an option for 2019 for an as yet unreported amount in exchange for $200,000 buy out.. I don’t see any MLB team being particularly interested if Scruggs wants to return at age 32. Stay in Asia and make the big money there..
Yeah, even if Scruggs lights up the KBO in 2018 he’ll still be sitting in the union hall next winter with all the other unemployed first basemen with limited skill sets waiting for an invitation to spring training.
Chris carter ought to take a tour to the KBO. He’d pop out an easy 40 hrs.
I think he would pop nearly 60. If he has 40 homer power here, think of what he could do over there.
You’re probably right. As long as he didn’t strike out 200 times on the off speed stuff. He’d probably get about 2 mil if he went over there and played. Don’t know if he’ll ever see that again here.
If he strikes out 20% of the time instead of 32% (and if his FB% and HR/FB stay the same), we would have seen him hit 55 HRs in 2016. Now, if he then raises his HR/FB ratio to the insane heights that Aaron Judge reached in 2017, well.. now he hits 77. Carter could easily post video game numbers in the KBO. Chris, what are you waiting for??
Chris Carter to the Rockies would be fun to see
He is… the X FACTOR!
Gettin Scruffy’ wid it! Nah nah nah nah nah nah
34? To old
The last paragraph isn’t written as well is it could be. When you say he is “hardly the first” to parlay triple A success into overseas stardom, you make it sound like you are going to talk about someone else who has done that. And then you indeed talk about Eric Thames, who has probably done that, but skip over that and only talk about him doing well overseas then coming back. It would read a lot better if you add half a sentence talking about Thames killing it in triple A then migrating to Korea, to justify the “hardly the first” thing.
plus the fact that scruggs number aren’t gaudy
997 OPS? Pretty good
Scruggs’ biggest problem is that he was blocked in both the Cardinals and Marlins organizations. Glad he found a niche overseas.
Thanks a lot, Steve. I just went on an hour long KBO stat binge because of this post. It’s so good to know that Dustin Nippert, Hector Noesi, Darin Ruf, Roger Bernadina, Alexi Ogando, etc are alive.
… and don’t forget those hot Korean ladies. Hard to give them up.
Ive always liked this guys name, Xavier Scruggs XD
$1.3 million in Korea, or a minor-league contract and begging for opportunities in the U.S.
Gee, that sounds like such a tough decision.