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Matthew Liberatore, P
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Scouting report
Liberatore throws at a Phoenix-area facility called Fuel Factory and was cruising in the low-90s during offseason bullpens, then was 90-93 in a heavily-scouted live BP exhibition just about a week before the top 100 was published. Because Liberatore's fastball has sinker movement, the growth of his changeup is going to be the most important aspect of his development, since those two pitches have similar movement and will theoretically tunnel better. That pitch has indeed improved and will likely be his putaway offering in the big leagues. That may surprise readers aware of his curveball's reputation. Indeed, Liberatore's curveball has all-world depth, but I think its results may suffer because he doesn't have an up-in-the-zone four-seamer to pair with it. Instead it's the sort of pitch I think he'll use to get ahead of hitters late in outings, dumping that curveball into the zone for strike one. It's the type of pitch that's hard to hit even if you know it's coming, but might be easy to lay off of when Libby tries to bury it in the dirt, because its Loch Ness Monster hump is easy to identify out of the hand. All of the advanced pitchability stuff -- Libby started learning a slider during his senior year of high school, he varies his timing home, and he's likely to pitch backwards with his breaking balls -- is here, too, and that'll be important given the lack of a bat-missing fastball. The slider isn't there quite yet but, based on Liberatore's natural ability to spin the ball, I bet it will be eventually. He profiles as an innings-eating, 2-ish WAR starter. (Alternate site)