St. Louis broke one of the unwritten rules in baseball – at least, an unwritten rule in baseball these days. Cardinals General Manager Mike Girsch, less than three years into his tenure at the helm, worked out a deal with the Rays – a club notorious for pulling one over on the opposition, time and time again. Prior to the start of the 2020 season, Girsch and Co. shipped out unproven outfielder Randy Arozarena, declining first baseman / outfielder Jose Martinez, and a 2020 supplemental first rounder for southpaw Matthew Liberatore, minor league backstop Edgardo Rodriguez, and a 2020 supplemental second round pick (which would eventually turn into dynamic right-hander Tink Hence).
While Arozarena has established himself as a rock solid, energetic better-than-average starting outfielder, Liberatore’s languished in the upper minors in 2021, 2022 (sans a 34-inning big league cup of coffee), and – once again – in 2023.
And to put it bluntly: history is not on the side of the Cardinals or Liberatore, either. At least, so it seems…
Since 2006, thirteen 21-year-old hurlers eclipsed the 100-inning threshold in a season (with one organization) in Triple-A: Noah Syndergaard, Mike Montgomery, Martin Pérez, Julio Teheran, Shelby Miller, Bryse Wilson, Nick Adenhart, Matt Wisler, Tyler Skaggs, Kolby Allard, Cesar Jimenez, Ryan Feierabend, and – of course – Matthew Liberatore.
And here’s the list of hurlers to reach that threshold the following season in Triple-A: Matthew Liberatore.
Here’s the kicker, though: six of those hurlers tossed at least 100 innings in the big leagues during their age-22 (Syndergaard, Pérez, Teheran, Miller, Wisler, and Skaggs). Liberatore, on the other hand, took a step back in his return to the minors’ highest level as he handed more walks and looked way too hittable. Unsurprisingly, the former first rounder found himself back in Triple-A for a third stint at the start of this season.
And he’s been nothing short of brilliant through his first four games of the year as he’s leading the level in punch outs with 30, tied for third in innings pitched (27.2), and fourth in xFIP (3.02).
Heading into the year I ranked the 6-foot-4, 200-pound lefty as the club’s fifth best prospect, mentioning a few key notes I gathered from a couple of his starts in 2022:
- “Liberatore was throwing significantly harder (in 2022) than 2021. Instead of sitting 92- to 94-mph, the big, thick-bodied southpaw was consistently sitting 94- to 95-mph and touching 96 mph on occasion.”
Perhaps, more importantly, though, I noted his pitch usage could improve:
- “And his curveball, which he doesn’t throw as often as he should, is his best offspeed weapon.”
During his 34.2-inning debut with St. Louis last season, Liberatore twirled his dandy of a curveball just 23.2% of the time – despite getting some impressive results. It spins at an impressive 2700 RPMs, but also generated a whiff % slightly north of 35%. Plus, it mirrors his heater incredibly well too (courtesy of Baseball Savant).
This season the big lefty is still sitting in the mid-90s but he’s throwing his curveball more frequently – at least thus far in the minor leagues.
Through his four starts, the stats on the curveball are pretty absurd: opponents own a whiff rate near 50% for the year. Though, to be fair, his April 18th game against Indianapolis buoyed the numbers a bit (13 swings, 10 whiffs). But it’s definitely working for him this year.
And he’s throwing it more frequently (at least compared to his MLB time). Liberatore’s throwing his deuce slightly more than 29% of the time (compared to 23% with St. Louis). The uptick appears to have come at the cost of his changeup – which I wrote the following about:
- “His changeup is a solid-average offering but doesn’t show a whole lot of velocity separation, ranging about 7- to 8-mph slower. And it appears that he slows down when he’s throwing it as well.”
It looked – at least to my naked eye – that Liberatore was telegraphing his changeup by slowing his body down. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that big leaguers sluggers batted .455 and slugged .818 against it last year. This year he’s thrown just 25 changeups – or about 6.8% of the time. He’s probably better suited as a fastball / curveball / slider guy unless the change-of-pace improves.
Liberatore’s never going to be a command guy. He’s always been more of a strike-thrower than anything else. But as I mentioned before, there’s some Danny Duffy-type potential here. And I think he’s ready to slide into the Cardinals’ long term rotation plans.
