At the end of year press conference where the Cardinals announced a pivot toward youth and debuted their buzzword "reset" to describe a reduction in payroll and commitment to development, St. Louis' veteran sportscaster Randy Karraker asked what has changed for the club. It was just six years ago that ownership said a .500 team was acceptable in other markets, but just a winning record wasn't enough in St. Louis, where division titles were the goal and National League pennants fly high. Karraker...
Jan 17, 2025•45 min•Season 12Ep. 32
"Empty seats are empty seats; no-shows are no-shows," says St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon. "When you’re just accepting reduced attendance and you’re pointing to that for reduced payroll, now you’re setting yourself up for a spiral." Yet to spend a cent this offseason on a major-league free agent, the Cardinals are banking big on breakthrough seasons from their young players and betting there will be buy-in -- literally -- from fans. The payoff could be sparking interest and...
Jan 14, 2025•40 min•Season 12Ep. 31
The 13th year of the Best Podcast in Baseball begins with a conversation about something new for the Cardinals and their fan base, something that hasn't been discussed around Busch Stadium in decades, and something some might argue was overdue. "For the first time in forever, (they're) trying to sell hope," says Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon. The first BPIB episode of 2025 welcomes Gordon, longtime author of Tipsheet at StlToday.com, as a regular contributor to the weekly baseball p...
Jan 03, 2025•36 min•Season 12Ep. 30
A revealing moment for the Cardinals and all who evaluate or rank their prospects came in the first round of the 2021 MLB Draft. With the 18th pick, the Cardinals went straight back to their sweet spot and chose Michael McGreevy, a right-handed pitcher out of UC-Santa Barbara and straight from central casting. He fit the profile of the pitcher the Cardinals had taken many times before. McGreevy has elbowed his way into the Cardinals' plans for their starting rotation less than four years later. ...
Dec 20, 2024•1 hr 7 min•Season 12Ep. 29
"There should be three expectations in life," MLB Network Radio host and noted baseball pundit Mike Ferrin says in a brand new episode of the Best Pocast in Baseball. "Death, taxes, and the Cardinals competing evry year. That's National League baseball." That may be the Cardinals' brand, but that is not entirely their plan this coming season. At Major League Baseball's Winter Meetings in Dallas, Ferrin joins Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss the direction the Cardinals are s...
Dec 12, 2024•44 min•Season 12Ep. 28
While discussing how Major League Baseball could proactively move to help smaller-market clubs remain competitive, KMOX/1120 AM host and frequent Best Podcast in Baseball guest Kevin Wheeler strikes upon a model the Cardinals could aspire to emulate during their self-imposed reset. "The Atlanta Braves," Wheeler suggests. A team that develops, acquires, and keeps young impact players, Atlanta is closer, Wheeler argues, to the Cardinals in operations than the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers, aggres...
Dec 06, 2024•1 hr 17 min•Season 12Ep. 27
During the past two decades in Major League Baseball, only the Houston Astros have won pennants and appeared in more World Series than the Cardinals and Boston. Two of baseball's most accomplished and celebrated franchises have won four pennants each and faced each other twice in the World Series, both of them won by the BoSox. The ties that bind go beyond shared Octobers these days as both clubs, perennial contenders for most of baseball's current era, are trying to find their footing and retur...
Nov 22, 2024•1 hr 11 min•Season 12Ep. 26
After a brief discussion about a shared fondness for a recent, deeply moving and haunting collection of linked short stories, Sequioa Nagamatsu's 'How High We Got in the Dark,' two baseball writers focus on another work of speculative fiction. What to make of the 2025 St. Louis Cardinals. CBS Sports baseball writer Dayn Perry joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss his lifelong fondness and connection to the Cardinals, and his questions for what comes next. Along with St. Louis Post-Dispat...
Nov 15, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Season 12Ep. 25
While awaiting the parade's arrival at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles Times sports columnist Dylan Hernandez veers into nostalgia as he wonders whether the Dodgers' run of success and appetite for more might spur the Cardinals to defend their place in the National League and re-spark one of his favorite rivalries. Hosting a parade in Los Angeles for the first time since 1988 -- COVID restrictions kept one from happening in 2020 -- the Los Angeles Dodgers claimed their eighth World Series championsh...
Nov 01, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 12Ep. 24
As much as the standings and missteps of their player development system will shape the Cardinals' offseason, arguably the most significant factor in any of their decisions will be when the broadcast sports sinkhole reaches them, and how deep it goes. The consternation will be televised. This much is certain: The Cardinals games will be available to cable subscribers in 2025 and also subscribers to a forthcoming streaming service. What happens next, well ... stay tuned. To explain how Major Leag...
Oct 29, 2024•58 min•Season 12Ep. 23
Continuing the conversation that began in the Best Podcast in Baseball episode 21, season 12 , KMOX/1120 AM's Kevin Wheeler considers the question on how the Cardinals can accumulate younger talent, draft picks, or both. The answer begins at first base. The questions continue from there in this brand new Best Podcast in Baseball that ultimately reaches a discussion about the World Series and whether a clash between high-spending baseball royalty, the Dodgers of Los Angeles and the Yankees of New...
Oct 25, 2024•54 min•Season 12Ep. 22
The official changes to some Cardinals' leadership roles, from the front office to the dugout, as they approach their "reset" winter continued on the eve of the World Series with the first new addition to the front office, a new coach, and a new role for an all-time great. Kevin Wheeler, co-host of the drive-time show and baseball coverage at KMOX/1120 AM, joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss with Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold the moves the Cardinals have made, the names i...
Oct 24, 2024•58 min•Season 12Ep. 21
Toward the end of his first professional season, not too long after he told a roommate Oliver Marmol about his personal and accelerated timetable to reach the majors, Matt Carpenter got a phone call that could have forever changed his career in baseball. He was approached about being a coach, and he was tempted to take it. The next summer his playing career took off. There are baseball cards galore and probably a Cardinals Hall of Fame red jacket in his future that tell how that story ended, but...
Sep 28, 2024•46 min•Season 12Ep. 20
A year after "pitching, pitching, pitching" dictated the Cardinals' approach to the offseason, the club faces a far broader challenge this winter. PR, PR, PR. Or, as Best Podcast in Baseball guest Brooke Grimsley, noted: "Change, change, change." The 2024 Cardinals' season comes to a close with the club trying ot break the hold of .500 and avoid a second losing season, what would be the first back-to-back losing seasons in a full schedule since Stan Musial played for the team in the late 1950s. ...
Sep 21, 2024•42 min•Season 12Ep. 19
Despite the smallest market in Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers have become a marvel of what it means to be a modern contender. The organization the Cardinals used to be and the Cubs wanted to be , the Brewers now are, complete with the 10-game lead in the division standings ahead of the former kings with a month of the season remaining. MLB.com's longtime Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to talk about Milwaukee's rise within the division and reign ...
Sep 05, 2024•51 min•Season 12Ep. 18
Within the span of only a few hours, the Cardinals demoted two of their top prospects from the past decade, sending in separate moves their top left-handed slugging prospect and one of the top right-handed hitting prospects in all of the minors. What gives and what does it mean for the Cardinals ongoing, completely confounding "riddle" when it comes to developing young hitters? To explore this defining question for the current era of Cardinals baseball, the Best Podcast in Baseball turns to a Ha...
Aug 24, 2024•39 min•Season 12Ep. 17
The proverbial turtle on a fencepost that clearly did not get there by itself is also an apt metaphor for the trouble a Major League Baseball club finds itself in when trying to balance between the hedge-fund tycoons and the heavy tankers. Stuck in the middle is a tough place to be as the Cardinals have shown -- and, as with the turtle, it can take looking beyond the shell for a way out of it. The Best Podcast in Baseball hosted by baseball writer Derrick Goold returns with guest Kevin Wheeler o...
Aug 16, 2024•1 hr 13 min•Season 12Ep. 16
It's Flag Day? Have you checked the standings yet? Following closely behind the Cardinals' 3-0 victory against the Cubs at Wrigley Field and each team's 49th game this season decided by three or fewer runs, a question was presented to KMOX/1120 AM's Kevin Wheeler. What are the traits necessary for a team to do well in so many slim-margin games? As a guest on a brand-new edition of the Best Podcast in Baseball with Derrick Goold, Wheeler outlines two necessities for every team to thrive in close ...
Jun 14, 2024•39 min•Season 12Ep. 15
When it comes to evaluating a farm system, few things offer a better glimpse of the external view than the trade deadline and nothing gives greater clarity on the internal view than when there's a need at the major-league level. Consider the Cardinals. St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Daniel Guerrero recently visited Memphis, Tennessee, to scout just that -- how actions at the big-league level relate to the production and development of top prospects at the higheset affiliate. Guerrero re...
Jun 08, 2024•36 min•Season 12Ep. 14
"That gets to the frustration of Cubs fans," says The Athletic senior writer Patrick Mooney. "Of like look at this division and why is the approach so measured and logical all the time to its extreme? ... That drives Cubs fans crazy with good reason." "It's where Cubs and Cardinals fans agree," continues Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold. As the Cubs and Cardinals face each other for the first time in 2024, a conversation about the direction the Cubs are going becomes a reflection of h...
May 25, 2024•50 min•Season 12Ep. 13
Since the Boston Red Sox last bested the Cardinals nearly 11 years ago in one of their recurring World Series appointments, the Red Sox have had three last-place finishes and the Cardinals have slowly faded and fallen, like the leaves, into a decadelong cold snap without a World Series appearance. For these two October rivals, once legends of fall now just legends after a fall, who is closer to a return to postseason prominence? With the Red Sox in St. Louis for the first time since 2017, the ye...
May 18, 2024•51 min•Season 12Ep. 12
With apologies to colleague and Post-Dispatch food critic Ian Froeb, we're talking about meatballs in this episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball. Meatballs and super-sizing. Post-Dispatch sports columnist Ben Frederickson joins the Best Podcast in Baseball, and using his column as a map he and Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold explore the truths and falsehoods about the Cardinals' offensive problems. Statement: They're striking out too much. Response: False. Statement: They're swingi...
May 07, 2024•1 hr 15 min•Season 12Ep. 11
Less than a month after two of the Cardinals' leading young position players started opening day side by side in outfield, bringing a glimpse of the future into the present, Jordan Walker and Victor Scott II are reunited this weekend at Class AAA Memphis. Early season offensive struggles have led to both outfieldres being optioned to the Cardinals' highest affiliate. Since the minor-leagues are in the headlines, who better to swing by for visit on the Best Podcast in Baseball than Post-Dispatch ...
Apr 26, 2024•37 min•Season 12Ep. 10
Whether it was the style of play still expected of the team, the restoration of championship expectations, or the devoted fans that filled the ballpark and informed and inspired generations to come, the 1980s teams of Whitey Herzog were a force multiplier for Cardinals history. They amplified the reach and the devotion of the fans. And Herzog was the exponent, doing more than just double, triple, or even tenfold the fans of the Cardinals for his decade as manager. This podcast built on remembran...
Apr 21, 2024•51 min•Season 12Ep. 9
As the Cardinals head west for the second time in the first month of the regular season, they do so lugging the baggage from one of the least productive lineups in the majors. The Cardinals' rank in the bottom five for many significant offensive categories. Four of the team's home runs have come from the catcher position, none from third baseman Nolan Arenado. He and Paul Goldschmidt, only one full season removed from finishing No. 1 and No. 3 in the MVP voting, have struggled to start the seaso...
Apr 12, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 12Ep. 8
A World Series champion, a two-time NL pennant-winner, and a two-time All-Star, Lance Lynn has done a bit of everything as a Cardinal and since he was a Cardinal. But on April 4, 2024, the burly, right-handed starter will do something he never has. He will start the home opener at Busch Stadium for the Cardinals. And that might mean doing something else for the first time: Fight back the emotions of sentimentality. In the visitors' dugout at Petco Park on the eve of his opening day start and ret...
Apr 03, 2024•39 min•Season 12Ep. 7
From the back fields and press box at Sloan Park, the spring training home of the Chicago Cubs, St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball Derrick Goold and Cincinnati Enquirer baseball writer Gordon Wittenmyer survey the National League Central and discuss ballpark factors, dead zones, and whether any of these teams is actually going to win the division, or will it be won by default? A long-time baseball writer who has been on both the Cubs and Reds beat, Wittenmyer is skeptical of the Cardinals' pitchin...
Mar 26, 2024•41 min•Season 12Ep. 6
The 2023 Cardinals, on their way to 91 losses and a last-place finish, diagnosed the rotation, an inconsistent outfield, and a difficult schedule at the start of the season as reasons for the fist last place finish in more than 30 years. Well, deja vu. The Cardinals near the start of the 2024 regular season with injuries in the rotation, uncertainty in the outfield, and a difficult schedule that begins Thursday at Dodger Stadium. So, did lessons learned from 2023 influence changes to the choise ...
Mar 23, 2024•1 hr 3 min•Season 12Ep. 5
Within the first 90 seconds of his camp-opening comments, Cardinals executive John Mozeliak said one of the "critical" questions of spring was whether the team could stay healthy. He noted that is something he has probably said in all 17 years of addressing the media on the first day of official workouts. Injuries, after all, are part of the game, and they're definitely a rite of spring. Consider the past week for the Cardinals. In order, the Cardinals had 30% of their planned opening day lineup...
Mar 09, 2024•39 min•Season 12Ep. 4
Ten prospects. Two minutes each. Start the clock. St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Daniel Guerrero, one of the few staff writers at a daily paper dedicated to covering minor-league affiliates of the city's major-league team, joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss 10 prospects who are set to have a leap year in 2024. Building off of Guerrero's article in the Feb. 29, 2024, edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Guerrero adds to the four players mentioned in the article with others ...
Feb 29, 2024•34 min•Season 12Ep. 3
