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jj said:
I’m bullish on both Matz and Thompson next season, equally…
And that may prove down the road to be accurate, but the Cardinals clearly don’t see it that way or they probably wouldn’t have signed three expensive (for them) starting pitchers to fill the rotation from the outside.
With the age of the rotation, Thompson (or someone) is going to have to step in and take a number of starts during the season. It just may not be opening week.
They need rotation depth and do not appear to be looking for anything other than a reliever, so again, why trade important depth in Matz?
I said:
But I will always go with the highest odds scenario while others can hold out for highly unlikely possibilities.
Ny quipped:
Like the Carpenter signing?
In today’s STL world, nostalgia seems to have a special place – but only when inexpensive, too! 😉
Long term we need to develop rotation members that can push short term vet rentals out, especially those who cost a kings ransom to acquire in trade.
It is the long term approach today, and will be going forward. I’d like to know what Thompson looked like after 20 GS this season, and how that affects the 25′ rotation decisions.
I had noticed that Johan Oviedo made 32 starts last season. 1.373 WHIP. That is easily an SP 5 that can be counted as developed in house. We had to trade somebody for Q, but other teams seem to know who to pluck from our system better than we know to convince them to pluck somebody else.
Maybe we could have traded Liberatore or Thompson instead. But we didn’t, and now we still have them and just had to spend $11 M on an SP 5 instead of spending it on a 9th inning guy.
I get your angle, bling, but there is no assurance that they would have spent $11MM on a reliever. In fact, that feels kinda unlikely for them after Andrew Miller.
It’s just an unnecessary expenditure for the SP5 role. It’s pathetic the org doesn’t have an in-house near-minimum fighting for that role.
Matz contract is driving the FO decision to give him that opportunity. If not now, maybe he’s a deadline chip. Embrace the rebuild!
My point wasn’t really the 9th inning guy. It was that we did develop an SP5. But we chose to keep other guys instead. Guys who aren’t helping. The brass has to sort through a lot of starters and make decisions about who to keep and who to keep as starters. What are the chances those decisions will be good ones?
To reiterate the spring starting plans, Mo said on KMOX yesterday that coming into camp, the rotation depth after the starting five is Liberatore, Thompson and Rom, same as they said at WWU. The interviewer had tried to lead him into Thompson being first, but Mo said Liberatore was “front and center” and then added the other two as also being front and center.
He also said it is a big year for McGreevy and Graceffo. They are pretty close in his view. He was asked if Graceffo could be used in the pen. Mo said his fastball would play up in that role so he would be considered if they need help.
The @Cardinals don’t plan to start renovations on their spring training home until April 2025. John Mozeliak updates our listeners on that, as well as discussing contingency plans for the rotation, bullpen and bench on KMOX: https://t.co/gRkIdkaQeC
— Tom Ackerman (@Ackerman1120) January 29, 2024
You wouldn’t have to be Nostradamus to figure out those are the three choices. I guess the pecking order is something to talk about in January.
I felt it was worth clarifying as some seemed to think otherwise. Sometimes, it is tough to tell if people are talking about what they’d like to see rather than their understanding of what is really happening…
I will say that in the past, the Cards have said it is harder to take pitcher on a reliever plan and move him to starting, rather than vice-versa. Keeping that in mind, I could see a case in which they decide to keep all three (Liberatore, Thompson and Rom) starting (initially in Memphis) because of the likely need for fill in starters during the season.
Also, they seem to have the left side of the pen covered for now with Romero and King, making it less pressing to move any of the three lefty starters to relief. However the lefty relief depth is thin, making this kind of move more likely for at least one of them at some point.
Thompson looks to me like the more obvious starter long term unless Liberatore improves his fastball and shows he can maintain that fastball for 6 innings. That’s why I put Liberatore in the bullpen to start. But I understand the extreme apprehension towards making that choice with Liberatore. However, if several injuries don’t happen, there’s just not enough room for all of our starters at the higher levels.
Rom could go either way as well. I do think he ends up in the Jake Woodford limbo where one day he is one thing and the next day something else. Useful because he is flexible and answers the bell, but never really ever good enough to be Plan A.
jnevel said:
…But I understand the extreme apprehension towards making that choice with Liberatore. However, if several injuries don’t happen, there’s just not enough room for all of our starters at the higher levels…
I understand the sentiment. However, injuries don’t occur on a schedule and can’t be planned for. They need enough ready starters to get through the whole season, not just spring training.
On the not enough room point at the upper levels, I agree, but that is the cart, not the horse. The main objective is always the MLB team’s needs. Player development has to work around that, not the other way around. But it won’t be easy to keep the MLB reserve starters ready while also sorting through all the future rotation candidates. Still, it is a good problem to have.
I got sidetracked pondering the situation down another level at AA. What is going to happen is they will load up the rotation with guys they bubble wrapped through A level ball without ever finding out if they can tolerate a starters work load. Not even 100 innings, or barely. To get there they will send guys who have done the load down the exit ramp to the pen. Guys like Baker and Cornwell. Then, when their chosen ones stall out they will have nothing, just the same as has been happening.
I think AAA may go the same path loading up with the same nags who stumbled along last year.
The workload build up question is interesting. It would be very difficult for a guy to throw 120-130 innings if he is in a tandem or even a six-man, for example. Yet when they get to MLB, the team wants 180 innings.
Even in the current structure, across the entire system last year, only seven guys threw 120 innings and only four more were between 100 and 120. McGreevy was the only one with more than 138.
P.S. I am not sure who you are calling “nags”, but I don’t see any of those at AAA. Here are the top seven candidates as I see them.
Liberatore/Thompson/Rom – MLB experience
McGreevy/Graceffo – Triple-A year two
Kloffenstein/Robberse – trade acquisitions with a month so far at Triple-AP.S. There is no reason to be disrespectful about young men who are giving their all…
We know the org had to hire 3 starters because 0% of the guys they’ve been counting on have stepped up. Liberatore, McGreevy, whoever. It was total failure by all concerned. You can put lipstick on that if you want to.
The point I am making is I think they are going to keep on doing what they have and will keep on getting the same results.
Bling – You always have a way of coloring a set of circumstances into the worst possible characterization . . .
When I see what happened in AAA last season, I just see a bunch of really young guys who are still developing and who weren’t able to make the big leap last year. Sure, there was hope that 2-3 of them could have stepped up and made solid #4 or at least adequate #5 starters. And, that’s what did happen with Thompson and Liberatore. Graceffo got hurt. McGreevey wasn’t ready yet. Thomas stalled out. So we were expecting 2-3 and we got 2. Is that disappointing? Yeah, a little. But your characterization of “a total failure of all concerned” is clearly a different take. Maybe you had expected 3 of them to pitch like #2 starters? I’m not sure. But my expectations were clearly much lower.
I thought we had additional depth with Woodford and Hudson as well. I knew Woodford was more of a #6 or 7 but he was still depth. Hudson ended up being terrible for 2/3 of the year at AAA before he got back to his semi-adequate old self at the end of the year. We also had Pallante who had done reasonably well in his time as a starter in the previous season, but he never got stretched out. That meant less depth than I thought we had and as it turned out, less than we needed. But that wasn’t a total failure on those young pitchers at AAA. Just a poor re-signing of Wainwright combined with a little bad luck and not a real good plan.
They go into 2024 with all the same rotation questions as 2023. But there is more depth – especially depth with more upside. I’m still cautious because a lot of those guys really need another full season or 2 full seasons. But now it’s more like 3-6 should be able to step in and be at least solid #5 starters by sometime early in the season.
I knew I shouldn’t, but I went ahead and looked again at Liberatore’s splits by role last year. So bad as a starter and so promising as a reliever. From day one I would be grooming him for late inning leverage work. Start the season doing 7th and a curated share of 8th, and see what develps by later in the year. Instead, we will do what we did last year.
Its not that I think all these pitchers have no talent or potential. They are just in a system which cannot develop pitchers. They especially can’t finish pitchers, and they just acquired a bunch that need finishing. How is that supposed to work?
They go into 2024 with all the same rotation questions as 2023.
The 2023 rotation had 48 quality starts, which was 29.6% of the time, which ranked 24th in MLB. I see the 2024 rotation doing better than that which will give us a better chance to win games.
If Pallante finds a pitch to dominate right-handed hitters while neutralizing lefties, he becomes a starting candidate again I would think.
The Braves and Dodgers have had pitching prospects break through and become upper rotation arms.
Pallante, Liberatore, Thompson, and Graceffo could each find that next level of performance. A breakthrough by any single one would revamp the rotation and ignite a flame of enthusiasm, hope, and purpose.Liberatore’s splits by role last year. So bad as a starter and so promising as a reliever
Liberatore pitched like a lights out closer in Wainwright’s 200th win. I thought then that he had finally found his calling. In the first 90 seconds of his interview at Winter Warmup, he talked a bit about the possibility of relieving and it sounded to me like he wanted it. I think Thompson fully expects to be starting.
Forgive me, folks, but I think this requires repeating.
Matt Liberatore was excellent in Spring Training ’23, excellent across his first eight Triple-A starts (3.13 ERA in a league with a 5.00+ ERA), and then excellent again in his MLB season debut on May 17 when he twirled 5 shutout innings. (He needed 95 pitches to do so, which is an important detail.)
Then Ollie Marmol did something that MLB managers never do any more except in case of emergency. He brought back Liberatore on short rest to pitch an inning out of the bullpen. It took Matt 24 pitches to stagger through that inning, and he’s never been the same pitcher since.
He permitted 24 earned runs in his next 27 innings, including that indefensible relief appearance. And take a look at the eroding 4-seamer velocity from the Brooks Baseball website:
5/17 start 95.4 MPH
5/21 relief 96.0
5/26 start 95.2
6/6 94.1
6/12 93.8
6/18 93.5
6/25 93.9
7/1 93.1That’s 2.3 MPH lost in just six weeks. And he lost even more off his slider and curveball velocities. That’s a physical impairment, no question.
Every bad Liberatore start since his pointless, moronic relief appearance can be attributed directly to the boy manager. When a manager does something extremely unorthodox and it backfires this horrifically, he deserves every drop of available blame. The draft & development people gave Marmol a talented starter, and he fouled it up. Simple as that.
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I don’t know if Liberatore is ever going to get back to what he was prior to his inexcusable, bizarre and fateful relief outing. But he looked absolutely like a #2/3 MLB starter before that.
It’s not just Marmol, it’s the system that puts inexperienced staff in a position to ruin a pitcher. Matheny and Liliquist ran Matt Bowman out there 75 times one year and he was never the same. A very promising career right over a cliff.
blingboy
It’s not just Marmol, it’s the system that puts inexperienced staff in a position to ruin a pitcher. Matheny and Liliquist ran Matt Bowman out there 75 times one year and he was never the same. A very promising career right over a cliff.
That is completely different than Liberatore.
Bowman was not a promising prospect. He was a rule 5 draft pick from the Mets~! Do you care equally about the promising career of Ryan Fernandez?
BReed – This seems more anecdotal than anything. Liberatore averaged 93.4 MPH on his fastball in 2022, which is barely above those final starts you listed.
One thing is true though. He pitches way better when he can get his FB velocity up. That first start was likely adrenaline or something. If he can’t do that every 5 days, he should take his place in the bullpen, where he’s able to bring that velocity every time.
I’m not sure I can buy that one relief outing on short rest sunk Libby’s season. It seems more like a red herring. Guys throw side sessions between starts all the time. This was just a side session during a live game. Was it wise? Probably not. But I don’t think that explains Libby’s issues with velocity. That has to be more of a strength & endurance issue. The bullpen is where he belongs if he can’t hold his velocity due to his fastball shape being very hittable at 92/93/94. It would be decidedly admitting that the Cardinals lost the Arozarena trade. But still, Libby could be a very valuable bullpen piece. That’s a better outcome than if he keeps throwing as a fringe starter.
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