What if Libby's ERA remains higher than Mikolas' 2024?

[Carp4Cy]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

[Strummer Jones]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

1.) It won't.

2.) Yes, it IS more acceptable. Because there's a puncher's chance that he'll learn from it and improve it. He's still fairly young. Mikolas is what he is. Nobody's going to even think that Mikolas' best is still to come.

[ramfandan]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

Good question. My take right now is that they would like to see him get more starting opportunities. His command was pretty decent but his downfall was allowing hits when he had 2 strikes on several batters. That's the time you want to get batters to chase a pitch outside the zone and his 2 strike pitches caught too much of the plate .

Since this is a season where they say they want to give a 'runway' on the young guys to see what they do or do not have for the long term , I am guessing he will get longer leash in the starting role before they would pull the plug on that. ,, but what do I know

[Carp4Cy]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

1.) It won't.

2.) Yes, it IS more acceptable. Because there's a puncher's chance that he'll learn from it and improve it. He's still fairly young. Mikolas is what he is. Nobody's going to even think that Mikolas' best is still to come.

He has 26 career starts. That's basically a full season of starts already. He has a 5.86 ERA as a starter and a 3.89 ERA as a reliever (and much better than that in 2024 as a reliever). I'm not sure this is playing to his strengths.

[rockondlouie]

Libby

26 career GS
5.86 ERA
1.57 WHiP

One day soon the Cardinals are going to have to accept that he's a quality MRP, not a starter.

[Ronnie Dobbs]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

[renostl]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

Usually the goal is to win games vs worrying about what even the minimum wage
guys make.

ERA's are slippery, especially after just 2 starts. IMO, he could have gone more in both games
he could have received better D, and Roycroft didn't help his era.
The other side is, perhaps taking him out saved him.

Not totally related, but my mind remembers defense being judged more critically.
Diving that didn't have to happen. DP's not turned even though that doesn't effect
era.

C, 2B, 1B, cOF haven't been good, perhaps Pozo helps at C.

[An Old Friend]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

I don't know why people devalue this so much when talking about him as a starting pitcher prospect. He's not even in his arb years, either. Plenty of time to evaluate!

[renostl]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

I don't know why people devalue this so much when talking about him as a starting pitcher prospect. He's not even in his arb years, either. Plenty of time to evaluate!

He was often getting rocked by RHB.
.296/.366/.509 is pretty rough regardless.

To me hard knocks aren't ALL bad. He got motivated to
work on easy, readily apparent flaws. Out of HS, got here early
especially considering 2020. We get to see what goes forward with
a still young guy.
Waino didn't get GS until he was 25. Sometimes it takes awhile, more for LHP with height. He didn't go through a pitching academy before MLB.

[Strummer Jones]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

1.) It won't.

2.) Yes, it IS more acceptable. Because there's a puncher's chance that he'll learn from it and improve it. He's still fairly young. Mikolas is what he is. Nobody's going to even think that Mikolas' best is still to come.

He has 26 career starts. That's basically a full season of starts already. He has a 5.86 ERA as a starter and a 3.89 ERA as a reliever (and much better than that in 2024 as a reliever). I'm not sure this is playing to his strengths.

And I see and understand the logic in your argument, but I don't think it's that simple. How many of those starts were "Hey, I know you're in the bullpen, but NOT TODAY!!" And how many of them were emergency starts up from Memphis? I'll argue that I don't think these starts are equal.

Further, I still don't think you can fully argue that you know who a pitcher is after one whole season of starts early on in their career.

-Randy Johnson's first full season of starts--a similar number to Liberatore's, 26 to 28--were pretty uninspiring. Randy had a WHIP around 1.5, and an ERA near 5.
-Tom Glavine's first three years was ho-hum at best.
-Greg Maddux's first full year SUCKED. It was Mikolas bad. And his WHIP was ATROCIOUS.
-Chris Carpenter was pretty mediocre for a long time. He didn't get good until he became a free agent and came here.
-Bartolo Colon's first season was pretty meh.
-Jon Lester through a similar number of starts was pretty mediocre

And I'm sure there are many more. I'm not saying that Libby's the next Glavine or Unit or anything, but baseball history is littered with guys who don't figure it out right away. And I'm 100% certain there are many more that never figured it out. And there's even some who came up, pitched well, and cratered after.

Here's what I see. Liberatore's often had problems maintaining his velo deep into starts. That's a more than fair criticism to make. And this time last year, I would've been right with you in saying that Liberatore's not cut out to be a starter, based on that information alone. We've also seen and criticized Liberatore for falling apart when things got bad. That's fair criticism, too, and criticism I've leveled at Liberatore.

That said, we also have new information. Lib got rocked in the first couple innings yesterday. But then he recovered and pitched pretty well until Oli yanked him and Roycroft allowed a conga-line of runners to score, including one of Libby's. His velo looked pretty good throughout the game, and he carved up his share of batters. Bottom line, he kept us in the game. If Roycroft does his job, and the bats add on one more run, are we having this discussion?

Here's what's different for me. Being able to hold the velo over several innings is good. Being able to take a rough inning and turn around and pitch clean is a thing we see out of Liberatore now. Being able to pitch into/past the sixth in both of his starts and keep the team in the game (and what more do you want out of a fifth starter?) is something he can do now. His underlying stats also suggest that he's due for positive regression. His k/9 is right in line with last year's, and overall better than his career marks. His FiP is in the 2's, suggesting that he's been unlucky. And he's walked nobody through 2 starts--and that's been a particular bug-a-boo with our guys this year.

There's a lot of flaws on this team, but Matt Liberatore ain't one of them.

[renostl]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

1.) It won't.

2.) Yes, it IS more acceptable. Because there's a puncher's chance that he'll learn from it and improve it. He's still fairly young. Mikolas is what he is. Nobody's going to even think that Mikolas' best is still to come.

He has 26 career starts. That's basically a full season of starts already. He has a 5.86 ERA as a starter and a 3.89 ERA as a reliever (and much better than that in 2024 as a reliever). I'm not sure this is playing to his strengths.

And I see and understand the logic in your argument, but I don't think it's that simple. How many of those starts were "Hey, I know you're in the bullpen, but NOT TODAY!!" And how many of them were emergency starts up from Memphis? I'll argue that I don't think these starts are equal.

Further, I still don't think you can fully argue that you know who a pitcher is after one whole season of starts early on in their career.

-Randy Johnson's first full season of starts--a similar number to Liberatore's, 26 to 28--were pretty uninspiring. Randy had a WHIP around 1.5, and an ERA near 5.
-Tom Glavine's first three years was ho-hum at best.
-Greg Maddux's first full year SUCKED. It was Mikolas bad. And his WHIP was ATROCIOUS.
-Chris Carpenter was pretty mediocre for a long time. He didn't get good until he became a free agent and came here.
-Bartolo Colon's first season was pretty meh.
-Jon Lester through a similar number of starts was pretty mediocre

And I'm sure there are many more. I'm not saying that Libby's the next Glavine or Unit or anything, but baseball history is littered with guys who don't figure it out right away. And I'm 100% certain there are many more that never figured it out. And there's even some who came up, pitched well, and cratered after.

Here's what I see. Liberatore's often had problems maintaining his velo deep into starts. That's a more than fair criticism to make. And this time last year, I would've been right with you in saying that Liberatore's not cut out to be a starter, based on that information alone. We've also seen and criticized Liberatore for falling apart when things got bad. That's fair criticism, too, and criticism I've leveled at Liberatore.

That said, we also have new information. Lib got rocked in the first couple innings yesterday. But then he recovered and pitched pretty well until Oli yanked him and Roycroft allowed a conga-line of runners to score, including one of Libby's. His velo looked pretty good throughout the game, and he carved up his share of batters. Bottom line, he kept us in the game. If Roycroft does his job, and the bats add on one more run, are we having this discussion?

Here's what's different for me. Being able to hold the velo over several innings is good. Being able to take a rough inning and turn around and pitch clean is a thing we see out of Liberatore now. Being able to pitch into/past the sixth in both of his starts and keep the team in the game (and what more do you want out of a fifth starter?) is something he can do now. His underlying stats also suggest that he's due for positive regression. His k/9 is right in line with last year's, and overall better than his career marks. His FiP is in the 2's, suggesting that he's been unlucky. And he's walked nobody through 2 starts--and that's been a particular bug-a-boo with our guys this year.

There's a lot of flaws on this team, but Matt Liberatore ain't one of them.

Well stated.

He may fail, but let him. He goes deeper in games than any current SP.
IF he makes it into the top 4 on a good team, yeah.

[CCard]

Is that acceptable because he's cheaper?

Or do we put him back in the pen so he has a chance to avoid the inevitable big inning?

Mikolas is the worst pitcher in baseball. Libby will only get better for a while. If Libby goes the path of Mikolas then ship him out also.

[Ozziesfan41]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

I don't know why people devalue this so much when talking about him as a starting pitcher prospect. He's not even in his arb years, either. Plenty of time to evaluate!

+1 his development was already stunted from the covid year he missed then he was skipped from A ball to AAA after missing the covid season then they jerked him around between bullpen and rotation his development was screwed

[ecleme22]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

I don't know why people devalue this so much when talking about him as a starting pitcher prospect. He's not even in his arb years, either. Plenty of time to evaluate!

+1 his development was already stunted from the covid year he missed then he was skipped from A ball to AAA after missing then covid season then they jerked him around between bullpen and rotation his development was screwed

Covid was 5 years ago

[woofy25]

It is acceptable in 2025 as that will clearly indicate Liberatore is not part of the starting rotation picture in 2026 and beyond. If they were to demote him to the bullpen after, say, 5 start, then that would be unacceptable for the 2025 season.

[Ozziesfan41]

Cite what you want, but the facts are that he has never been given an actual chance to start regularly, and has been yanked back and forth between the bullpen and rotation with seemingly no plan behind it.

If you give him the year and he is junk, then maybe you can make a final decision. But he's still 25, Bloom apparently loves him, and he's never been given the chance like he has. Besides, while the ERA is ugly, the peripherals are looking good. Keep starting him.

Oh yea, and this is a reset year, or whatever you want to call it. The young guys should play. Probably should have started last year, or even at the end of the year when it was clear we weren't going anywhere, but we blew that opportunity. No need to blow this one.

I don't know why people devalue this so much when talking about him as a starting pitcher prospect. He's not even in his arb years, either. Plenty of time to evaluate!

+1 his development was already stunted from the covid year he missed then he was skipped from A ball to AAA after missing then covid season then they jerked him around between bullpen and rotation his development was screwed

Covid was 5 years ago

Gee really I had no idea! It doesn’t change the fact in 2019 he pitched in A ball then missed all of 2020 due to covid then in 2021 after missing an entire year he was skipped to starting in AAA missing a year then skipping from A to AAA is a set back in debelopment then they started jerking him between rotation and bullpen