3. Matthew Liberatore
Acquired in the Randy Arozarena trade, expectations were very high for Matthew Liberatore upon joining the Cardinals organization. Honestly, they were probably unfairly high.
Liberatore has had his struggles in Triple-A and especially in St. Louis, with his struggles to maintain velocity on his fastball being a major problem moving forward. On August 10th, pitching against the Tampa Bay Rays, he had his best outing of his career, spinning 8 innings of shutout baseball, allowing just 2 hits and striking out 7 batters. He followed that up with another bad start against the Oakland Athletics.
Liberatore is still just 23, and has time to turn things around as a starter for St. Louis. Right now though, his inconsistency will keep him from grabbing a rotation spot, and there are other names showing more promise at the moment.