5 things that 5 key Cardinals need to improve on in 2026 to take the next step

LHP Matthew Liberatore - Striking out batters

Telling a pitcher to strike out more batters is the same as telling a beer vendor at the stadium to sell more beers. It's an essential part of each person's job. However, racking up more strikeouts should be Matthew Liberatore's primary goal next year.

Liberatore impressed in his first year as a full-time starting pitcher. He finished the year with a 4.21 ERA across 29 starts and 151.2 innings. The former first round draft picked hit career highs in innings pitched last year by a long shot. As the season wore on, fatigue began hitting Libby hard.

As you can see, there was a direct correlation between Liberatore's fastball velocity as his ERA last year. We can take this another step further by looking at his strikeout rates each month. His K rate peaked in September when he struck out 23.8% of batters he faced. He was decent in April and March with a 23.1% K rate. However, it dropped to just 11.1% in July, which was also one of his slowest months when it came to fastball velo.

With one full season under his belt, there's an expectation for a jump from the southpaw in 2026. He's entering his first season of arbitration, so the experience has been growing. Behind Dustin May and potentially Andre Pallante, Liberatore projects to be the club's most veteran starter next year. The hope is that he learned something in 2025 when it came to maintaining efficiency over the course of a full season. His September and October numbers are proof that he did eventually figure out how to maintain his stuff late in the year.

Libby was excellent at avoiding walks last year. His 6.2% walk rate placed him in the 82nd percentile. His 18.8% K rate, however, placed him in the twenty-second percentile in all of baseball. A 12.6% K-BB ratio placed him fifteenth out of 22 left-handed pitchers who threw at least 150 innings. A slight increase in strikeout rate should bode well for him, especially considering his strong walk rate.

Matthew Liberatore is looking to become a leading starting pitcher for the Cardinals in 2026. If he wants to take his game to the next level, he needs to strike out more batters. Hopefully he can take what he learned in 2025 when it comes to rest and recovery to prepare himself for each outing better. The club has plenty of young starting pitching depth to full from next year, so a skipped start here or there will bode well for Libby.