The Cardinals’ continued Matthew Liberatore gamble has become impossible to defend

We are well past the point now of the St. Louis Cardinals needing to make a change with Matthew Liberatore's spot in the starting rotation, and Wednesday night's blow-up start against the Arizona Diamondbacks was further evidence of that.

After mostly cruising through the first three innings, Liberatore was tagged for six runs by the Diamondbacks' offense in the fourth inning, giving up two home runs and a double that inning as Arizona blew the game open. Sure, Liberatore was able to still give the Cardinals 5.1 innings, but for the fourth straight start, he put the Cardinals in a very difficult position with his outing.

Dating back to June 1st, 2025, Liberatore has made 34 starts for the club, posting a 5.29 ERA, the worst among qualified starters over that stretch, with the next closest starter being Zac Gallen and his 5.09 ERA. They are the only two qualified starters with an ERA north of 5.00 over that stretch. Liberatore showed some really encouraging signs early in the 2025 season, posting a 3.08 ERA over his first 11 starts, but he has not been the same since. There were glimmers of hope back in spring training, but those seem to have stayed in Jupiter.

Over that 34-start stretch, Liberatore has failed to give the Cardinals five innings of work (13) more times than he's given them more than five innings (12). Because of that, Liberatore doesn't even "qualify" for these leaderboards. If he did, he'd rank dead last in innings over that stretch as well, 18.2 innings fewer than the next fewest innings by a qualified starter (Andre Pallante), who has only started one more game than Liberatore.

The Cardinals don't have a good reason to not make a change with Matthew Liberatore

I'm not saying Liberatore can't ever figure things out, or that the Cardinals should just get rid of him. But this is a 34-start stretch over a 390-day stretch. This is a substantial sample size. He wasn't a good starter at the Major League level prior to 2025. The same issues continue to come back to bite Liberatore, and you could even argue that he's been regressing.

Why not send Liberatore to Memphis like the Cardinals have done with Nolan Gorman and Victor Scott II? If they are so worried about depth, they'd still have him available to go to if Hunter Dobbins doesn't perform or an injury happens.

KMOX's Bernie Miklasz asked Cardinals' manager Oliver Marmol if the Cardinals' patience and persistence with Andre Pallante, which has paid off this year, is a similar situation to Liberatore, and what gives them confidence that Liberatore can fix things. Here was Marmol's response:

"You can never predict with certainty that you can get it out of him. We are always going to give an opportunity beyond what the reaction of the fanbase is going to be. Trust me, if Chaim [Bloom] thought that the move was now, it would've already been done. There's a lot of thought that goes into this. As to when you do it, why you do it, inside knowledge of what we know. It's more than just is Libby, can he get past the fourth, fifth innings this next time out. We spend a lot of time on this man. Not only on trying to figure out and how to solve for him going deeper into games and being more effective, but what does that mean for organizationally, for our depth and everything else that goes along with it.

Yes, we are well aware of his last 27 outings. We are well aware that this is beyond just the start of this year. My job is to continue to go and continue to get the most out of him until I'm told not to. And at the moment, man, we're head down on that. Dusty [Blake]'s committed to it, Libbys committed to it, and I am as well. Doesn't mean there's not conversations as to what's best, but at the moment, and speaking to Chaim, this is the plan."

Miklasz then brought up how Pallante has found better success this year, asking Marmol to provide some kind of idea of why Liberatore may be able to get things on track as well. While I really appreciated Marmol's answer about how last year, no one would have bought any argument on what Pallante could do to turn things around, he really didn't give much of an answer as to why Liberatore will be the same.

He referenced a lot about his conversations with Bloom, the well-thought-out, in-depth process that they've brought to this topic, and believes they are doing the right thing right now. I understand that they can't always say everything that is going on. I do think it is fair for me and many of you to wonder what tangible evidence there is for why this can get better.

I really, really do appreciate how the Cardinals invite the questions and the differing opinions. One of the things I really enjoy about the current staff and leadership is that they'll provide a dialogue and thoughts on these topics. I'm all ears if they want to share something publicly or privately about this decision so I can better wrap my head around this. I genuinely mean that.

After Liberatore's outing last night, Marmol talked about how well Liberatore looked early in the game, but still needed to figure out why those big innings keep happening. He also cited how Liberatore going back out and getting a few more outs was an important silver lining. I don't disagree with either of those sentiments, but those don't feel like strong enough positives to outweigh the growing amount of evidence that a change is needed, not just for helping the team win ballgames now, but for Liberatore's development.

But as of right now, with the evidence in front of us, I cannot in good faith defend the decision. If I'm presented with other evidence, I would be more than happy to change that opinion.

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