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Matthew Liberatore
You may have forgotten this happened with how up and down the 2024 season was for the Cardinals, but before Andre Pallante secured a rotation spot with St. Louis, the club relied on Matthew Liberatore to fill that rotation void. Well, kind of.
Some days, the Cardinals treated Liberatore like a reliever. On other days, he was in their rotation. Sometimes Liberatore was given a long leash to pitch deep into games (even without being given time to stretch out as a starter), other times, Liberatore was yanked from games and clearly not trusted. Liberatore was given random spot starts on short notice, and then thrown back into the bullpen not knowing if he'd start again or go back to his reliever role.
I understand why the Cardinals still wanted to see what Liberatore had as a starter this year. His stuff is good, and whenever he is able to be consistent with it, he has what it takes to be a very impactful starting pitcher. But the way the Cardinals handled his usage this year was just weird, and honestly, it probably would have gone on longer if Pallante had not grabbed the bull by the horns.
I am not someone who thinks the Cardinals have to abandon the potential of Liberatore starting for them, but they cannot make Liberatore go through what they did to him again in 2025. If Liberatore does not earn a rotation spot this spring, then he either needs to be sent to Memphis to keep starting games and see what happens, or they need to commit to him as a bullpen arm. If a late scratch to their starter happens and they need Liberatore as an opener in an emergency, that is fine. But no more jerking Liberatore around to cover for their own roster construction issues.
Depending on how many of their veteran starters they keep this offseason, the Cardinals should have plenty of options for their rotation, so I do not understand why they'd even need to consider messing with Liberatore as they did this year. But hey, we've seen them do it before, so not sure we should rule out that kind of odd behavior again.