Best Podcast in Baseball

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When the World Series ends, the roster work begins, and the Cardinals have new staff and new leadership in place -- so will it mean new direction?

On Oct. 31, the Best Podcast in Baseball drops, fittingly, the 31st episode of this season. And it's not meant to scare fans. Although, the two teams playing in the World Series might cause a shiver through Cardinals Nation about how far away the local club feels from the two tycoon...

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As Toronto prepares to host Game 1 of the 121st Fall Classic, Vanderbilt graduate Tyler Kepner joins Mizzou grad Derrick Goold preview the big game this weekend -- not not the one in Nashville. The one to the north. The World Series.

The two baseball writers discuss whether the Los Angeles Dodgers, who may not be ruining baseball, might just be ruining the National League. The Dodgers are playing for their ninth World Series championship -- a total t...

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It's been a minute since a brand-new Best Podcast in Baseball and there's a lot to catch up on. For the first time in 18 years, the Cardinals have a new president of baseball operations, and for the first time in even longer they're talking about a team-building plan that doesn't include promises of aiming to contend for a World Series championship. That will likely mean an active winter of trades. At the same time, two prominent former Cardinals, Albert...

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Throngs of Cardinals fans got accustomed to seeing successful baseball.

The Cardinals got accumstomed to seeing throngs of fans.

Now both are facing the prospects of neither.

That's how St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon puts it when he joins baseball writer Derrick Goold for this brand new Best Podcast in Baseball. The two staff writers for StlToday.com discuss the stunning lack of attendance for a four-game visit from the Pittsburgh...

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During a lengthy rain delay before the finale of the Cardinals' visit to Tampa Bay, St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold and Tampa Bay Rays baseball writer Marc Topkin discuss transfers of power on their beats and how they contribute to a clouded forecast. In St. Louis, former Rays executive Chaim Bloom is positioned to take over as president of baseball operations in the coming month, and Topkin offers insight about the role Bloom had with the Rays...

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The Cardinals' begin their final three-series home stand of the season with a reunion. Yadier Molina returns to St. Louis for the first time since 2023 and will be in uniform for the first time since 2022 as he joins Oliver Marmol's staff for two games against the Cubs at the invitation of the manaer. Molina is the first of seven things to watch during the home stand that welcomes the Cubs, Rockies, and Yankees for nine games in 10 days. St...

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As the Cardinals approach the onrushing July 31 trade deadline, what if the moves made (or not made) are just prelude to a larger overhaul of the organization in the opening months of Chaim Bloom's tenure leading baseball operations.

A simple, direct, but essential question about whether the Cardinals four months into their "runway" season have identified the core of their next contending team prompts a lengthy discussion about what's still missing, what hasn't emerged, and what players ha...

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As Major League Baseball's July 31 trade deadline rapidly approaches, so does another opportunity for the Cardinals to choose a side. Are they riding this "runway" toward the future, or are they going to tighten the race for the National League's third wild card to a point that they stand pat or add on the edges of the roster?

The Cardinals' trends of risk aversion and playing it down the middle is about to be challenged.

...

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With Major League Baseball's July 31 trade deadline rapidly approaching, the Cardinals are still considering what direction they'll head. The front office has wished for "tough decisions" at the deadline and "excitement," while acknowledging that the way they head may not be clear 72 hours ahead of the deadline, if at all. History suggests they'll explore the nebulous middle -- neither seller nor buyer, adding to patch holes this year and beyond without giving up too much from the future for...

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It has been more than a generation since the Cardinals picked in the top five for the MLB Draft, and in a week the Cardinals have a chance for a transformative selection that could come define their next era.

A confluence of events meet them at the MLB Draft in Atlanta on Sunday as they hold the No. 5 pick a year after taking J.J. Wetherholt at No. 7, they are deep into a transition year with a...

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After his barehanded play on a slow-rolling grounder ended Tuesday night's game against the Cubs with a stirring, 8-7 Cardinals victory, third baseman Nolan Arenado talked about how much it meant to play meaningful, tense, important games against an archrival. He said he woke up excited, and hadn't been this eager to get to the ballpark in almost two years.

A day early, Cubs manager Craig Counsell said he wouldn't be the "hype man" for the series.<...

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CHICAGO -- Two showdowns loom for the Cardinals in the coming weeks. First, they face the division-leading Chicago Cubs for the first time with a four-game series at Busch Stadium..

Second, they face themselves at the trade deadline.

Hall of Fame broadcaster and fixture on Cardinals' radio Mike Claiborne joins the Best Podcast in Baseball for his annual appearance around Flag Day. Claiborne has long argued that Flag Day is the first day to check t...

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From near his perch at Busch Stadium, where he calls games for the Cardinals' Spanish language broadcast, Polo Ascensio surveys the style of game, the style of play, and, yes, the style of his calls for the 2025 Cardinals.

The nine-game home stand did not lack for some compelling games -- though evidently there is some debate on how entertaining the opening innings of the Cardinals' 2-1 victory against the Dodgers was -- and that had to be...

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The first extended home stand of season brings two sides of the contending spectrum to Busch Stadium, with the Kansas City Royals in an upswing after some down years that have brought in high-end talent and then the Los Angeles Dodgers and how they can muscle their way into perpetual contention with financial might. Somewhere in the middle is where the Cardinals' must find their sweet spot -- not stomaching the downturn the Royals experience while unable to spend...

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A big, defining topic for the Cardinals' future and their development of a big, defining hitter needs a jumbo-sized Best Podcast in Baseball.

For more than a decade, the Cardinals have had to go shopping for their middle-order hitters -- either by trade (Paul Goldcshmidt, Nolan Arenado, Marcell Ozuna) or, rarely, by free agency (Carlos Beltran, Willson Contreras) -- but during this "reset" year where offense has been a major part of their success, the Cardinals seem...

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In the wake of three managerial firings before Memorial Day, author and longtime baseball writer Scott Miller joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss his new book, "Skipper: Why Baseball Managers Matter (and Always Will)". In his deeply reported work, Miller talks with managers, both current and past, to map the changing landscape of the role as front offices and analytics become more dominant and a perception grips the game that, as Miller writes it so well, lineups...

Near the visitors' dugout at Coors Field in September 2024, Cardinals veteran Matt Carpenter found a relatively quiet spot to discuss his career, his future plans, and the dramatic shifts he's seen in the game since his arrival in 2011 with the Best Podcast in Baseball. 

Carpenter announced his retirement this past week after 14 seasons in the majors, and included a six-year run as one of the top leadoff hitters in the game to go with three All-Star appearances and a Silver Slugger Award at second base.

This is a BPIB replay of the full ep...

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“Change the atmosphere at the ballpark and start to mirror the scrappiness and the feistiness and that vibe that you talk about of this team. It is very interesting that for the last few years they’ve had a very stoic team and a very stoic ballpark. This is not a stoic team. This is a kinetic team. It’s time to have a kinetic ballpark.”

PHILADELPHIA -- The wake of the Cardinals roll to a series win at t...

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"The discussion around the Cardinals will be similar to one you and I are having right now," says Rich Waltz, broadcaster for Apple TV+'s Friday Night Baseball. "Who are these guys and where are they headed? Are the pieces they've got good enough?"

The Cardinals reach the nation's capital riding a five-game winning streak, back at .500 for the first time in three weeks, and about to embark on what could be a defining three-city road trip...

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If we can all agree that teams in the National League Central cycle in and then out of a window contention, then let's begin the discussion there as a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball does with a look at all five division rivals and where they are in their timeline to contend. Longtime Cincinnati baseball writer and Reds beat writer C. Trent Rosecrans, who is now with The Athletic and The New York Times, joins Post-Dispatch baseball writer...

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The Cardinals' recent road swing through New York and Atlanta revealed a team playing compelling baseball but vulnerable to late-game ruptures in the bullpen that led to a 1-6 record. That prompts the question to launches a brand new episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball: If the Cardinals are focused on development in 2025 and aim to develop winners for beyond 2025, should they have outfited the most volatile area of the roster -- the bullpen -- with more certainty...

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Welcome to a brand-new Best Podcast in Baseball. St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer and host Derrick Goold is joined this week by colleague, sports columnist, and instant offense Jeff Gordon. They discuss the Cardinals’ “relentless bunch” – their league-leading on-base machine lineup and their leader, hitting coach Brant Brown. There’s even a quiz on his catchphrases. The two writers look at the Cardinals shift to a six-man rotation for the coming week. And then they dive into the numbers on attenda...

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There is a decades-old comic book from Japan that freelance journalist and baseball writer Brad Lefton carries with him and has promised to share when next at the Busch Stadium press box. It features a heroic baseball player, Kyojin no Hoshi, and, in one issue, Red Schoendienst and the Cardinals appear. A fictional character in the comic wears the Birds on the Bat as he becomes a rival to the comic's protagonist. So it was for the Cardinals for...

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It would be difficult for the Cardinals to script a better opening weekend for their "transition" year that an emphatic sweep of the visiting Minnesota Twins. The Cardinals got sturdy performances from the starters, stellar play from the defense, and 19 runs in three days from the offsenese. Lars Nootbaar ignited the weekend with a run scored in three of the Cardinals' first four games, and Victor Scott personified the three-game series sweep of the Twins with a dynamic catch i...

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When the rain clears on opening day, the Cyldesdales, red jackets, and 2025 Cardinals will take center stage in St. Louis for what's become a civic holiday. And yet, outside of the pomp of the opener, the real circumstance facing the Cardinals entering the regular season is how they've faded from relevance in the National League and NL Central.

ESPN baseball writer Jesse Rogers, in town to cover the Cardinals' opener against the Minnesota Twins, joins the Best Podcast...

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While typing the introduction to a brand new episode of Best Podcast in Baseball, I'm sitting in the press box at Clover Park in Port St. Lucie, Florida, having just watched rookie Michael McGreevy carve through the Mets lineup, pitch around two errors, and finish his impressive spring trianing with five scoreless innings.

Meanwhile, down in Jupiter, Florida, Victor Scott II has homered. Again.

McGreevy and Scott personify the decision the Cardinals are going to have to make weighing whether it is better for their future to have a...

Post-Dispatch podcasts page: https://go.stltoday.com/0hfn43 Please consider subscribing: https://go.stltoday.com/9aigz5   JUPITER, Fla. -- Cardinals broadcaster Chip Caray lobbed a compelling question into the conversation he and other members of the media had this past week with Tony Clark, chief executive of the Major League Baseball Players' Association.   Caray, a longtime presence on baseball broadcasts and third-generation Caray in that role, wondered what it would look like if Major League Baseball ditched geographic divisions and reimagined itself along economic lines. The divisions would be organized by market size, not region. Tampa Bay would be free fro...

JUPITER, Fla. -- With three weeks of spring training remaining before opening day at Busch Stadium and three weeks to make decisions on the bullpen, three weeks to explore any last-minute trades, three weeks to stir the offense, and three weeks to make that first free-agent move of the offseason, the Best Podcast in Baseball considers camp with a pair of threes.

Three up.

Three down.

Post-Dispatch sports columnist and instant offense for StlToday.com Jeff Gordon joins baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss three ups of spring (players who have stood out...

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JUPITER, Fla. -- Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado created buzz within the Yankees' social media greenhouse for driving to visit a couple of close friends and, oh, playing six or so innings in an exhibition baseball game.

That is where the discussion begins in a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball featuring host and baseball writer Derrick Goold along with Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon.

The downstream impact of Arenado remaining in Cardinals camp and starting at third base for the Cardinals is a major...

JUPITER, Fla. -- There is a sense around the Cardinals that one of the reasons for reducing expectations, seesawing between the words "reset" and "transition" but never once using the world "rebuild," is that the club is trying to create a valve to release some of the pressure that greats young players when they arrive in the greenhouse of October demands. It's as if the Cardinals front office is trying to take the team out of the Jiffy-Pop tin of its usual brand and try something new, trying to see what grows when that greenhouse is a little cooler.<...

JUPITER, Fla. -- The 13th season of the Best Podcast in Baseball begins as it traditionally does with a gathering of the Post-Dispatch writers covering the Cardinals spring training and an answering of the 10 questions facing the club as it begins a new season.

And what a new season.

For the first time in the span of the podcast, the Cardinals have dropped the pretense of contending for a World Series championship and attempted to lean into a new message, a new direction, a new emphasis on youth and prospects and player development just before...

On the eve of his first major-league spring training with the St. Louis Cardinals, top prospect JJ Wetherholt joins the Best Podcast in Baseball for a discussion about his preparation, his health, his strides as a pro, his goals at shortstop, and his of a new technology to learn more about reaction time. He also details the trouble with the water temp in Florida. Wetherholt is a "brand ambassador" for Pison, a Boston-based biotech company that is launching a new product and expanded studies in baseball to help with reaction-time measurements and decision-making development. Wetherholt spoke about Pison and m...

The Hot Stove needs a spark, and the Best Podcast in Baseball has flint ready to strike steel.

The forecast calls for a flurry of moves in Major League Baseball before next month's arrival of spring training, and big reason for that isn't market cooling. After the brief, jubilant sparks of signings around the annual winter meetings, the free-agent market has gone cold, and the Cardinals have had difficult finding a trade partner for Nolan Arenado as a result.

Does Major League Baseball need a winter deadline for transactions to spur moves, to grab the...

Fresh off the ice after covering the St. Louis Blues for a few days, St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon is greeted with this question to begin his weekly appearance on the Best Podcast in Baseball: Which was chillier -- the Blues game, the frigid temperatures in St. Louis, or the reception the Cardinals got at their annual Winter Warm-Up? While the Los Angeles Dodgers continued to collect a galaxy of stars, the Cardinals delivered their clearest messages yet about the direction they're headed for 2024. They're reducing payroll and prioritizing player development so that they can reconstruct a...

Is it easier to get 400 baseball writers to all agree on who is a Hall of Famer or 30 Major League Baseball owners to agree on ways to address skyrocketing payroll disparity? That's the question that begins a brand new episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball. Esteemed baseball writer Tyler Kepner, of The Athletic and formerly with the New York Times, joins host Derrick Goold to discuss Ichiro Suzuki and his peers in the National Baseball Hall of Fame's Class of 2025. It's a robust class that includes a top left-handed starter CC Sabathia who got elected on his first...

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's question prompted a discussion on whether the Cardinals are changing expectations and their brand.

"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 ticket sales from fans interested in a new direction, but the risk is significant as the...

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 podcast and puts him right to work on cross-examination. Continuing what's become an annual feature on...

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.

All around the pick, the game and how rivals evaluated pitching...

"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 shifting and how they have a long way to go and a short time to get...