St. Louis Cardinals: 3 reasons why Matthew Liberatore needs to be called up

Nearly a month ago, my colleague Joshua Jacobs wrote about why LHP Matthew Liberatore needed to join the rotation in St. Louis. Since that day, the rotation has been inconsistent at best. Sans a few great outings from Miles Mikolas and Jordan Montgomery, it still looks like the Cardinals are sending out number three or number four starters on a consistent basis.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about other pitchers in the Cardinals' rotation - specifically Steven Matz and Jake Woodford. Both pitchers have been among the worst starters in baseball to this point, and it's hard to have faith in the Cardinals when those two take the mound. The Cardinals have considered skipping Matz's next start, and Adam Wainwright will surely take over for Woodford upon his return, but it really feels like a bigger shakeup may be needed here.

Luckily, the 5th-ranked organizational prospect, Matthew Liberatore is having an excellent start to his season in Memphis. While no one should expect Liberatore to be an ace or save the Cardinals season all on his own, there are a lot of reasons to be optimistic about his addition to the St. Louis rotation. This article will highlight three main reasons why Liberatore should be recalled from Memphis and get opportunities to stabilize the Cardinals' starting rotation.

Reason #1: Across the board, his advanced metrics in 2023 are much improved

Despite a relatively small sample size (33 2/3 innings pitched), Matthew Liberatore is putting up some of the best numbers of his entire career. Check out some areas where the southpaw has seen improvement this year (please note that Liberatore pitched 34.2 innings in St. Louis last year and 115.0 innings in Memphis):

• K/9 (Strikeouts per 9 innings pitched): The highest of his career at 12.03. This is a significant increase from last year. In Memphis, in 2022 Liberatore had a 9.08 K/9 and in St. Louis, he had just a 7.27 K/9. For reference, the two current Cardinals starting pitchers with the highest K/9 are Steven Matz and Jack Flaherty who are tied at 9.3.
• BB/9 (Walks per 9 innings pitched): The second lowest of his career at 3.21. This is a 31.23% decrease from last year in his time pitching in St. Louis. The Cardinals' Achilles heel the past couple of years has been walking batters and Liberatore has shown improved command and discipline of the strike zone.
• FIP (Fielding Independent Pitching): Check out Week 2 of my Redbird Roundup for a deeper dive into why FIP is one of the best benchmarks for pitchers. A pitcher's FIP tells us how well they perform on outcomes that they have control over (Home Runs, Hit-by-pitches, Unintentional Walks, and Strikeouts). Liberatore currently owns a 2.69 FIP (2.96 xFIP) which is far and away the best of his entire career. Last year in Memphis he had a 4.63 FIP and in St. Louis, he had a 5.02 FIP.

We can guess that Oli Marmol, John Mozeliak, and other decision-makers in St. Louis are aware of Liberatore's improvement in these key categories. The big question: when he is called back up to St. Louis will these metrics translate against Big League hitters in Big League parks?

Reason #2: His Velocity is up

Dating back to Spring Training, Cardinals Manager Oli Marmol has applauded the strides that Liberatore has made:

In the 2022 season, Liberatore averaged 93.7 MPH on his 4-seam Fastball and 92.8 MPH on his Sinker. On Saturday night for AAA Memphis, Liberatore's average 4-seam velocity was 94.4 MPH and his average Sinker velocity was 94.7 MPH. He has consistently hovered around the 94-95 MPH range while throwing some as high as 98 MPH.

Velocity alone is not the sole determinant of a pitcher's success. But his increased velocity supplemented with an already nasty off-speed arsenal sets him up well for Big League success. Time will tell if Liberatore can locate his fastball at the Major League level and not leave it up in the zone for hitters to mash.