Cardinals pitchers seeing early returns from pitching revamp

The St. Louis Cardinals are in the middle of a mostly unprecedented situation for the organization. After missing the postseason for three consecutive seasons and the team seemingly stuck in neutral, the DeWitt family invested in the future by bringing in Chaim Bloom to assist in a transition to the next great Cardinal team. While Bloom was on staff before taking over in full as the President of Baseball of Operations, the organization invested financial resources into the player development system as opposed to the major league roster.

Richard Fitts and Matthew Liberatore are getting noticed for their improved stuff.

One of Bloom's main focuses was to modernize the St. Louis player development plan, and that began with plenty of behind-the-scenes work, like bringing back scouts and trainers and investing money into technology. Technology like Rapsodo and other data-tracking apps have been popping up all over major league baseball clubhouses for the past decade, but the Cardinals have always relied on their tried and true method of developing from the draft with a hands-on approach.

While we have to always remind ourselves that it is still Spring Training, there is enough measurable data available to read through to determine what to believe or what may be a flash in the pan. One of these measures is proStuff+, something I looked at previously when noting that starter Andre Pallante's value checks in well below league average. On the positive side, both Richard Fitts and Matthew Liberatore found themselves on the leaderboards for their stuff.

When Fitts made his Cardinals debut this spring, he grabbed the attention of many fans on social media as he regularly hit 97mph or more during his start. He also demonstrated a few solid breaking pitches, and that performance sent him up to the top of Pitch Profiler's proStuff+ leaderboard, while FanGraphs' Eno Sarris used his own Stuff+ ranking to applaud Fitts' first spring outing.

Also mentioned in Sarris' ranking is staff veteran Matthew Liberatore, who could be ticketed to be the Cardinals' Opening Day starter. Sarris calculations put Liberatore's stuff as fifth-best at that point in spring, and he has seen a noticeable uptick in fastball velocity and additional secondary pitches. Through five spring innings, Liberatore has seven strikeouts against just one walk as he builds his workload up to maintain his effectiveness through a full season. After hitting a wall near the end of last season, Liberatore comes into this season with a clearly defined role for the first time since joining the Cardinals organization, and he appears ready to take on that leadership position.

The starting rotation is going to be a conversation point not just through the spring, but also into the regular season. On paper, the Cardinals have seven starters with major league experience and a few to a handful looking to knock on the door for a promotion to Busch Stadium. While Liberatore's spot at the top of the rotation is guaranteed, Fitts will need his stuff to continue showing out and force the organization's hand to make a difficult decision and include him in the starting five.