StL 2024 Game #62 thread – Wednesday, June 5 at Astros

[RBK]

The problem for Liberatore is regression: his peripherals were actually better than Hudson’s in their first full seasons at AAA (but his ERA was worse). But in subsequent years, Liberatore’s peripherals have declined notably, especially his BB% and K/BB. Have no idea what is driving that, but he showed more promise in terms of underlying metrics at age 21 than he does at age 24.

[Brian Walton]

Yes, that is concerning. The hope was that he would catch up with the curve with more Triple-A experience, but that hasn’t happened.

[RBK]

Liberatore at AAA:

Year/age/WHIP/H9/BB9/K9/K-to-BB
2021: 21/1.25/8.9/2.4/8.9/3.73
2022: 22/1.38/9.2/3.2/9.1/2.83
2023: 23/1.485/8.1/5.3/11.7/2.21

At a 10K-foot level, it looks like they’ve been successful in their goal of pumping up his velocity and K-rate, but in the process he’s become a worse pitcher.

[jj-cf-stl]

RBK, which pitches does Libby use vs righties? You happen to know?

We keep looking at these hopefuls by season, and for me it’s about their splits, and which pitches are effective or not.

Libby has to get righties out better, they’re everywhere!

[RBK]

He predominantly uses FB (4-seam primary, 2-seam secondary) (40%) and SL or CU (38%) against RHH, not a lot of CBs (11%). I wish he had a better CH, would be useful against RHHs–he throws it about 10% of the time vs. RHH, and gets decent results, but it’s not one of his better pitches.

Also, his mix skews more heavily to the hard stuff (FB/SL/CU) out of the bullpen, CB usage drops significantly vs RH (not surprising).

This year, RHH are hammering both of his FBs, but doing less well against the SL, CU, CB, and CH. Biggest problem with his FB isn’t so much the velocity (he’s right around 95 MPH), but the fact that it’s pretty straight. And his command is suspect: his BB% is 23rd percentile and he misses location a lot in the zone.

[jj-cf-stl]

Hat-tip. The #’s confirms a lot of what I’ve been thinking too.

Does he come inside hard to righties much by the numbers?
I’d also like if he stayed in hard w/a backfoot slider. Righties look too comfortable and are doing some good damage with arms extended.

[RBK]

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to attach a .jpg or .gif image on here (if someone does, pls let me know how), so I’ll just narrate it: Statcast shows that he’s he’s up and away a lot to RHH with both the 4-seam and the 2-seam. The pitch he’s more consistently in on the hands with is the slider.

[bicyclemike]

Yep, the results certainly show Libby as not ready for prime time as a starter. I look at the physical tools and the fact that Libby is a lefty, and it just seems like his ceiling, or potential, is so much greater than Pallante I don’t understand why they even bother with starting him over Libby.

But I have more patience than the ballclub’s management on this. And I am not blaming them – the numbers make it an argument I won’t win in lobbying for him to start.

[Brian Walton]

RBK said:

Unfortunately, I don’t know how to attach a .jpg or .gif image on here (if someone does, pls let me know how.)

Refer to the gray bar just above where you type your comment. Click on the word “IMG” in the middle and paste the URL of the image into the pop up box that appears. Hit OK and the necessary code is generated for you. Finish entering your comment and hit the red SUBMIT box at the lower right like always. It is that easy!

Looking forward to seeing the data.

[RBK]

Thanks, Brian. Unfortunately, there isn’t a URL for the image, it’s a .GIF. I was trying to figure out how to attach it to my post, but not sure that can be done. At any rate, I’ll just link to the web page below.

Unfortunately, Statcast doesn’t break these charts down into RHH/LHH, but given the distribution of hitters overall, safe to say this is roughly reflective of what the RHH split looks like. Scroll down to “Statcast Pitch Arsenal” and you will see the heat maps for pitch location.

https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/savant-player/matthew-liberatore-669461?stats=statcast-r-pitching-mlb

[RBK]

Correction: you can toggle for RHH-only below the heat maps. Not surprisingly, the RHH FB split is slightly more skewed high-and-away than the overall map.

[jj-cf-stl]

I’d start busting bats RBK, as a game plan. Inside w/fastballs and backfoot sliders. Hard. Put them on their heels.

At that point the batters have to be early, and if the CU doesn’t play up then, you don’t have one.

Thanks for the info.

[Author]

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