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JUPITER, Fla. — Although the speed and aggressiveness with which he played and produced all spring gave no indication, Victor Scott II felt all week as if he had a burden pressing into his shoulders. It was there as he hit his team-leading fourth homer of spring, as he raised his on-base percentage to .460, as he took an assertive run at being the Cardinals’ everyday center fielder and as he walked into a meeting with the manager on Sunday morning to find out how he did.

“To be honest, it felt like I had an anvil on my back this whole week,� Scott said. “The weight. The anxiety of everything. Just sitting here and not really (knowing). Tossing and turning. Just anxious.�

All of that lifted with words he heard from Oliver Marmol.

Racing against headwinds all spring, Scott won the starting center field job.

“It’s go time,� he said.

With a series of decisions finalized and announced Sunday morning, the Cardinals did more than determine their 26-player roster for Thursday’s opening-day game at Busch Stadium against Minnesota. The team oriented its compass for the season with some choices that sided with youth, patience, and even volatility over incumbency and known quantity.

In addition to Scott starting in center field and getting a long run in the role, lefty Matthew Liberatore pitched his way into the starting rotation and the Cardinals moved veteran Steven Matz aside to make it possible. Matz will open the year in the bullpen before making a start April 16th as the Cardinals shift into a modified six-man rotation for a long stretch of consecutive games. The Cardinals could have taken the path of least resistance and sided with a veteran for every spot in the rotation. Instead, they turned into their planned “youth movement� and they insist it’s a commitment.

“This isn’t a tryout,� Marmol said. “Hey, you have a couple of starts, let’s see how it goes. You’re going to start. Don’t look over your shoulder. Go be a starter. And we’ll evaluate as we go. This isn’t, ‘Man, he’s gotten beat up two times in a row. What are you guys thinking? He’s going back to the ’pen.’ Let’s nip that today. He’s going to start. And we’re going to give him a long runway to figure out what he can do.�

Ditto in center, where Scott has been one of the most impressive players in camp.

“You can’t tell someone, hey, go work on this and then when they do it you don’t reward it,� Marmol said. “He earned it. Go start. … He’s got to go. Let him play. You’re the center fielder and you’ve got to go play. This isn’t a hey, you’ve got two weeks to show what you’re capable of doing. It’s not.�

The decisions have a downstream impact elsewhere that Marmol will navigate.

With Scott in center, the returning starter Michael Siani will be on the bench as a late-game defensive replacement. Luken Baker made the team as the right-handed bopper off the bench. Siani’s placement means utility fielder Jose Fermin will begin the season in Class AAA Memphis and the Cardinals do not have an assigned backup shortstop for Masyn Winn. Marmol said the team expects Winn to play “quite a bit of baseball,� and if the second-year shortstop needs a break it will be Brendan Donovan at short.

Otherwise, Donovan will start at second base or left field. With Willson Contreras and Alec Burleson splitting shifts between first base and designated hitter, the choices elsewhere start to reduce the available at-bats for Nolan Gorman.

‘It’s not perfect’

Entering spring, starting Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker were advertised as priorities for the Cardinals and their “transition� year. Nolan Arenado remaining with the team at third put Gorman’s playing time at second base or DH.

“It’s not perfect,� Marmol said. “I’m going to do my absolute best to give everybody the necessary at-bats for us to know what we have at the end of the year.�

Scott will make his second consecutive opening-day start in center, but this time he seized it — not had to be yanked into it. A year ago, an injury to Dylan Carlson opened up center for Scott, and he struggled in his first tour of the majors. By the end of April he was hitting .085 (5 for 59) and on his way back to the minors. Scott didn’t find traction there either, and a year after stealing 94 bases with a .369 on-base percentage, the fleet-footed outfielder had difficulty getting on base, .294 OBP in Class AAA and .219 in majors.

He reworked his swing to be more athletic, more fluid in the box, and he reviewed video of other speedy hitters. He did not need to look at his swings as he still felt them.

“A lot of the failures I had I took to heart,� Scott said. “Just to look at myself internally and say, ‘How can I get better? What are the things I need to work on? And how can I further my game?’ That was the product that you saw this spring training, and you all will see during the year. A different player.�

After a strong spring that included a 2.29 ERA and a 0.97 WHIP in 19⅔ innings, Matz’s move to the bullpen is part of creating what Marmol called a “safety net� for innings. Matz and Kyle Leahy give the Cardinals a left-right combo of long relievers, respectively. That will help the Cardinals through the opening weeks of games as starters go fewer innings, and then when the schedule clogs with few off days, Matz becomes a starter without having to dip into the thinned depth at Class AAA Memphis.

Michael McGreevy, one of the most impressive pitchers of spring, was optioned out Sunday to lead the Triple-A Redbirds rotation. He’ll be the first call when a starter is needed.

Getting going

The Cardinals announced Sonny Gray as their opening day starting pitcher, and Erick Fedde is on turn for the second game of the season. Andre Pallante will start the final exhibition game, Monday in Memphis, and the in the regular season on Sunday against the Twins. Miles Mikolas will remain in Florida this week and ready to start a week from Monday vs. Angels with Liberatore getting the fifth game.

Liberatore did not start a game all spring until Saturday.

What he did was earn the role through a strong 16â…” innings overall that included as many hits allowed (nine) as strikeouts (nine), a 1.62 ERA, and the punctuation of his spring with fastballs at 96.8 mph on Saturday. Liberatore found his footing as a reliever last season, and Marmol has talked openly about how valuable the lefty is as a setup option for Helsley. Liberatore wanted to expand the effectiveness of his pitches, harness a cutter and a changeup to show right-handed batters another look, and prove himself as a starter.

He wrote often in a journal all offseason about seizing that role.

“I put in a lot of work trying to come in and win a job,� the lefty said.

Liberatore came to personify the tug-of-war the Cardinals had entering a spring in which they were advertising the future and yet had a roster with just enough veterans to compete now. A team fixated contending might put Liberatore in the bullpen as a surefire, known factor. But a team with an eye on the horizon would choose to see what the lefty became with more innings to see if his future was in the rotation.

Marmol said all spring that decision would have to be made “with a lot of other people in the room� — meaning the front office.

The messaging all winter from the Cardinals was about opening opportunities for younger players and then got performances all spring from Scott, Liberatore, and McGreevy, specifically. The decisions for summer would test the team’s consistency with its goal.

“I think that is part of the culture,� Marmol said. “You go out, spend your offseason working on things that matter. You come in make the most of every opportunity. And you get rewarded for it. That creates a culture of working your (tail) off. That’s the way I view it.�

Transactions to finalize the roster came before the Grapefruit League finale Sunday at Roger Dean Stadium. The Cardinals optioned Fermin and McGreevy to Class AAA and reassigned Jose Barrero to Memphis. Barrero will be the de facto backup shortstop if the Cardinals need a long-term fill-in for Winn. Zack Thompson, who tore a lat muscle early in camp, will go on the injured list Monday.

That completes the active roster before the Cardinals leave for Memphis on Monday morning, play against their affiliate there that night then jet to St. Louis.

Set to go where siding with some youth takes them.

“We’re about to find out,� Marmol said. “At the end of 2025, we have to have real clarity on what we have and what we don’t have. And this is a part of that.�