Matthew Liberatore entered 2026 as the Cardinals’ Opening Day starter, but by the end of the season he looked more like a question mark than a rotation answer.
That’s the arc for St. Louis’ left-hander, a pitcher who once carried top-100 prospect buzz from Baseball America and has now spent five years in the majors. At 26, Liberatore has still never fully delivered on the promise that made him one of the most highly regarded lefties in the minors.
The 2026 season pushed that reality into sharper focus. Liberatore logged career-best volume with 31 starts and 155 innings pitched, so the durability box is checked.
But the results went the wrong way: a 5.23 ERA, a 5.00 xERA, a 4.62 FIP, plus dips in walk rate and chase rate. For a pitcher the Cardinals backed heavily to begin the year, that’s a rough return.
What makes the season even more discouraging is how clearly opposing hitters started to solve him. In his first trip through a lineup, batters posted a .745 OPS against Liberatore.
The second time through, that number climbed to .786. By the third look, they were crushing him with a 1.077 OPS.
That kind of split is hard to ignore, and it points to the biggest issue in his profile: he doesn’t consistently hold up as a starter once lineups get a better read. A starter has to get through an order more than once without unraveling, and Liberatore simply wasn’t doing that.
His secondary pitches took a major step backward, too. In 2025, his changeup produced a +7 run value and his slider added +3.
In 2026, those same offerings combined for -4 run value. That drop-off mattered most against right-handed hitters, who raised their OPS against him from .730 in 2025 to .802 in 2026.
There is still a path forward if the Cardinals believe an offseason tweak can restore some life to his arsenal. At the very least, Liberatore has shown he can take the ball and cover innings at the major-league level, and there’s value in a pitcher who can handle that kind of workload and still give you a quality start now and then.
But the other path is obvious, too. St.
Louis could try to trade him while he still has name value, top-prospect residue, and three years of team control left as a Super 2 player. The problem is that this would be selling low, and that’s not exactly the move you want to make in Year 2 of Chaim Bloom’s rebuild.
So while the role may change, the likelihood is that Liberatore remains in St. Louis when next season begins. The bigger question is whether he’s still being viewed as part of the rotation mix, or whether the Cardinals decide his best fit is somewhere else.
In Other News...
Cardinals Could Revisit A Familiar Rotation Fix This Winter
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For a club that needs a veteran starting pitcher, the fit is obvious enough to keep the idea alive. St. Louis has already seen enough of May to know what he can bring, and with the winter market taking shape, a reunion would give the Cardinals a familiar route to stabilizing the rotation without having to start entirely from scratch. [Read more 🡒]
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Cardinals president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom confirmed Rodriguez has taken reps there, which is enough to show this is more than idle speculation. The appeal is obvious: if Rodriguez can handle a new position, the Cardinals may be able to keep his offensive momentum moving while removing some of the traffic jam that often slows a young catchers climb. The real question is whether the organization pushes that experiment far enough to change his long-term path. [Read more 🡒]
Cardinals Fans Get A Tough Reality Check On This Rebuild
The Cardinals spent much of the season hanging around the wild card picture, but the broader message from Chaim Bloom was a sobering one for a fan base used to thinking in October terms. He made clear that St. Louis is still in the middle of a rebuild, and that the organization is focused on laying a stronger foundation rather than chasing quick fixes that might look good in the moment but not hold up over time.
Blooms framing matters because it speaks directly to where the Cardinals are in the bigger picture: competitive enough to stay relevant, but not yet at the level needed to make a real World Series push. The caution now is not to rush the process, even if the temptation is there after spending so long in the race, because the front office believes long-term sustainability has to come before any serious championship hopes. [Read more 🡒]