The Cardinals’ season-opening rotation includes three seasoned pitchers: Sonny Gray, Erick Fedde, and Miles Mikolas. As they declined options on Kyle Gibson and Lance Lynn, the Cards acknowledged a desire to generate rotation opportunities for younger back-end arms.
St. Louis has a trio of controllable pitchers vying for the remaining few rotation spots. Last season, Andre Pallante had a 3.78 ERA and a 61.8% groundball rate in 121 1/3 innings. Former first-round pick Michael McGreevy made four appearances. He had a 1.96 ERA in his first 23 major league innings. The Cards employed left-hander Matthew Liberatore in relief down the stretch, but he isn’t guaranteed a spot in the bullpen next season.
According to Katie Woo of The Athletic, the Cardinals have been impressed with Liberatore’s performance this spring and are considering giving him another rotation opportunity. The 25-year-old southpaw has worked in relief for all four of his Spring Training appearances, but that isn’t particularly significant given that all pitchers are throwing in short stints as they get into game shape. Liberatore has pitched 9 2/3 innings of two-run ball, with five strikeouts and two walks.
Last season, Liberatore made 60 appearances, with all but six coming from the bullpen. The former top prospect gave up 4.40 earned runs per nine. His strikeout percentage of 21.2% was a career best, but it was still slightly lower than league average. Liberatore demonstrated strong control and received grounders at a rate of 42.2%, which was around average.
With one option available, Liberatore can return to Triple-A if the Cardinals want him to continue developing as a starter. It’s also feasible that he returns to the bullpen. McGreevy does not appear to be considering the latter outcome. Manager Oli Marmol stated over the weekend that the Cards were not interested in pushing the right-hander into relief to ensure he made the Opening Day roster.
“I don’t see him as a guy who will benefit at all by going to the ’pen and breaking with us in that type of role,” Marmol said (link via Derrick Goold of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch). “My preference would be for him to start. When you go into the offseason and a lot of the messaging is around opportunity, then you want to keep guys in the role that they see them being in long term. And for him, we see him as a starter.”
McGreevy has two minor-league possibilities. He’s likely to start the season in the Triple-A rotation. The UC Santa Barbara product spent the majority of last season at that level. He made 27 starts and pitched 150 innings of 4.02 ERA ball. McGreevy kept the ball on the ground at over 50%, with a slightly lower-than-average strikeout (21.6%) and walk (6.9%) rate. He could certainly hold his own in the back of a major league rotation, but the options allow St. Louis to keep him stretched out in the minors.
Assuming Pallante has a leg up on the fourth starter job, Liberatore and McGreevy will compete with experienced lefty Steven Matz for the final position. Matz isn’t a long-term asset, but the Cardinals would like to see him generate some trade value. He is owed $12 million in the final season of a four-year contract that hasn’t worked out. While the Cardinals are unlikely to receive a significant return, a strong first half could allow them to offload a portion of his deal around the deadline.
Matz’s back issues restricted him to 44 1/3 innings last season. He surrendered slightly more than five earned runs per nine innings and struck out 17.4% of the time. Matz has pitched nine innings of three-run ball in three exhibition games. He will be on the MLB roster in some capacity, but if he does not win the fifth starter position, he may work in long relief.
