Xavier Scruggs no longer with ESPN

Xavier Scruggs is out at ESPN.

The baseball analyst and former Cardinals and Marlins first baseman announced the news on social media this week, five years after the network gave him his first shot in broadcasting during the pandemic.

“I was let go by ESPN recently, and it hurt more than I thought it would,” Scruggs revealed on his personal social media earlier this week. “It meant something to me. ESPN gave me my first shot in broadcasting, back in 2020… Since then, it’s been five years of learning, growing, continuing to show up, but also building real relationships, because when the lights go off, that’s what stays. The producers, the hosts, the teammates, and really all the people behind the scenes, those are the connections that shaped me.”

Awful Announcing’s understanding is that Scruggs’ contract ended and was not renewed.

Scruggs joined ESPN in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the KBO was one of the only leagues playing live baseball, and he was one of a handful of people in American media who actually spent time in the league. He had spent two seasons with the NC Dinos — hitting 61 home runs and driving in 208 runs — after his big-league career with the Cardinals and Marlins ended in 2016, making him an invaluable voice during a stretch when ESPN was airing KBO games at odd hours just to have some sort of live events when sports broadcasting had essentially ground to a halt

Over the next five years, he became a regular contributor to Baseball Tonight, called Little League World Series games, worked Monday Night Baseball and Wednesday Night Baseball as an analyst, launched The Bigs — the first MLB player-to-player podcast — in 2021, and served as a pregame host for Apple TV+’s Friday Night Baseball.

His departure is part of a broader reshaping of ESPN’s baseball operation, which has been underway since the network reached a new three-year, $550 million deal with MLB that fundamentally changed the look of its coverage. ESPN surrendered Sunday Night Baseball — a package it had held since 1990 — to NBC, replacing it with 30 midweek exclusive games concentrated in the summer months and the rights to distribute MLB.tv.

The talent reshaping has followed, with David Cone being among the first affected. The former Cy Young winner had spent four years as part of ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball crew alongside Karl Ravech and Eduardo Perez, but his 60-game commitment to YES Network calling Yankees games made the new midweek package untenable. When Sunday nights went to NBC, there was no longer a schedule that worked for both sides. David Ross was brought in for a new multi-year deal in March, returning to ESPN, where he had worked as an analyst from 2017-19, before Chicago hired him to replace Joe Maddon and manage the Cubs.

ESPN has yet to announce its full MLB talent lineup, but is expected to do so before its first 2026 game on Jackie Robinson Day (April 15).

As for Scruggs, he still has his role at MLB Network and co-hosts The Leadoff Spot on SiriusXM’s MLB Network Radio, and indicated more baseball coverage on other platforms is coming.