Best Podcast in Baseball

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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 the standings are start making plans on what kind of team the Cardinals are going to be. This year's time might take a little longer, but Claiborne tells baseball writer and BPIB host Derrick Goold what he already knows about the 2025 'transition' club.

Claiborne and Goold also discuss what the Cardinal can aim to get in return at the trade deadline if the upcoming series against the Cubs point them in the direction of selling.

That is if they can fight their tendency for straddling the fence -- never all-in and hesitant to drop out.

The podcast was recorded on the South Side of Chicago at Rate Field before another postponed game due to rain forced the Cardinals into their sixth doubleheader of the season.

In its 13th season as one of the most-popular and longest-running Cardinals-centric podcasts, the Best Podcast in Baseball is sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis. BPIB is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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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 reflected in the calls from all of the broadcast booths. Ahead of Toronto completing a series sweep of the Cardinals, Ascensio spoke with Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold about those calls, about the enthusiasm and inspiration he brings to them as well as whether this team has made such energy easier with its style of play.

Ascensio also discusses the catching history of the Cardinals and the catching present, with background on how two members of the current team, Willson Contreras and Ivan Herrera, signed with the Cardinals specifically because of their fondness for former Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina. The podcast explores why Contreras stayed with the Cardinals when the team, pivoting toward youth, offered to trade him to a contender, and there a conversation about Herrera's future at catcher.

Ascensio's broadcasts with former catcher and former Cardinals coach Bengie Molina are available for every home game on WIJR/880 AM La Tremenda. There is hope from many parties in and around the Cardinals that the broadcasts will expand beyond home games, especially if the club continues to contend late into the season.

The Best Podcast in Baseball is in its 13th year as one of the first and most-downloaded baseball podcasts and a leader among the Cardinals-based podcasts. It is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, and it is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. It is part of the constant Cardinals coverage available at StlToday.com and in the pages of the Post-Dispatch daily.    

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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 are being written for the manager not by the manager.

With BPIB host and baseball writer Derrick Goold, Miller discusses the evolution of managers in the game from Sparky to Tony to Bochy, the traits that make a successful manager, and also how those traits have changed and adapted to a game driven more and more by data and run like the big business it is.

The two baseball writers also explore what happens to game if, as one executive told Miller in his book, the hiring practices and analytics used in the game leave the majors "with a very homogenous group of managers."

The managerial aspirations of Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and others are explored as a way to avoid that.

Miller has covered baseball for the New York Times, Bleacher Report, and many other outlets, and his book shows the depth of his understanding in the game and access to some of the great managers. He watches a Yankee game at the Boone house as Aaron manages; he spends time with Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts on the job and with Hall of Fame-bound manager Dusty Baker at the vineyard. Miller also talks with former Cardinals manager Mike Matheny and gains welcome perspective on his tenure during a changing time for the role.

Miller's book is available now.

On Amazon.

At a local independent bookstore like St. Louis' Left Bank Books.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a weekly production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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 episode that first dropped on Sept. 28, 2024.

From the original launch of this episode:

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 Carpenter shares with the Best Podcast in Baseball how close he came to moving to a role in the game that he might eventually also have. A three-time All-Star who returned to the Cardinals for the 2024 season, Carpenter joins the Best Podcast in Baseball and baseball writer Derrick Goold for a conversation many months in the making. The two spoke this past week near the batting cage at Coors Field, just ahead of the Cardinals' season finale in San Francisco.

From his early days with the Cardinals as a spring-training standout and favorite of manager Tony La Russa, Carpenter's career had to constantly evolve.

He became a second baseman. He became a leadoff hitter. He broke a doubles record long held by Stan Musial, and then his changed his swing and late in one season led the National League in homers and slugging on his way to MVP considerations. And through it all, a coach's kid out of Texas who judged his production by how high above .300 his average was had to learn in real time as the game shifted to take that away from him, quite literally. He had to embrace slugging. He had to reinvent his swing. He had to reclaim his career.

And over the course of this season, Goold asked Carpenter if he would talke about all he learned about Major League Baseball's modern offense and how difficult it has become to be a hitter in a game when failure, already abundant, is increasing.

Consider the math.

As batting average has grown less important, hitters are being told they can do more with a .270 average and slugging than singling their way to a .330 average, and still that difference is six outs, six fewer times succeeding.

Carpenter has some thoughts and offers lots of insight.

This brand-new BPIB begins as all good stories do on a road trip with Matt Holliday and Carpenter and the trouble they encountered somewhere between Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Memphis, Tennessee. The conversation also touches on what went sideways for the Cardinals' offense during a season that will finish with a winning record but nowhere close to the team's stated goal of contending for the NL Central title and returning to the playoffs. Carpenter also discusses his immediate and longterm future, which brings up the story about the phone call he received while playing Class A baseball for the Cardinals with an offer he wasn't sure he could refuse.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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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 the rocking Citizens Bank Park against the Phillies, Post-Dispatch sports writers Jeff Gordon and Derrick Goold discuss if expectations should change for the 2025 Cardinals after they won nine consecutive games and 10 of 11. The Cardinals' stated goal in this "transition" year is to be better in May than they were in April and better in June than they were in May.

A brand new Best Podcast in Baseball explores this question: When they have a May that puts them within one game of the National League Central lead and earns them the longest winning streak of the month in the National League, then haven't they rewritten what it means to be better in June?

Gordon, a sports columnist, and BPIB host Goold, a baseball writer, note how the Cardinals clearly have buy-in from the players, and next would be buy-in from fans before the ultimate test.

Does this team get buy-in from ownership to add what it needs for a legit run toward October?

Gordon suggests that the style of baseball and success of May should lead to more fans at the ballpark, and that prompts a bit of a rant from Goold about the atmosphere at Busch Stadium. The Phillies drew 40,000 to a Monday game in South Philly, and they had pulsating, jamming crowds for a doubleheader despite poor weather. The Cardinals need to borrow from some of their rivals, and that starts with having a player choose a singalong walk-up song (ala Bryson Stott) that gets the whole crowd involved and part of the experience and then finally identifying and adopting a victory song for all the fans to sing at the end of home wins. 

The Cardinals have had a businesslike and stoic team for years and the ballpark reflected that often.

This is no longer that team. The team should embrace that, own that, and make that part of the ballpark experience.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Post-Dispatch podcasts page: https://go.stltoday.com/0hfn43

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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. There to great them is a national broadcast as the Cardinals appear for the first time this season on Apple TV+'s Friday Night Baseball. Waltz will be at Nationals Park with Ryan Spillborghs and Tricia Whitaker to call the game. As he prepared for it, Waltz joined St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold for a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball recorded in Washington. 

The discuss the Cardinals' winning streak coming out of a strong home stand and the curse of being stuck in the middle, which one baseball executive once called "quicksand."

Waltz also describes how broadcasting baseball is evolving, not just with the new rules but with new views -- some of which only baseball, of the major professional sports, can provide the viewer.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, brought to you weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is in its 13th season as one of the leading baseball podcasts and among the top-rated for Cardinals conversation. It is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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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 Derrick Goold during a rain delay at Great American Ball Park to look out the windows and see what teams are in a downcycle from contending, what team is square in an urgent window to do so, and where the Reds and Cardinals fit on the spectrum.

The comparison between the Reds and Cardinals gets some added gravity when considering how the Reds have a young nucleus of players -- and arguably the most-talented position player (Elly De La Cruz) and most-talented starter (Hunter Greene) in the division -- and yet they're not considered a favorite, some pundits don't see them as a contender, and it's not the first itme they've had a core built to contend that doesn't. That's a lesson for the Cardinals who want to build a core as well and expect to contend -- but there's no guarantee.

An X-factor for the Reds is manager Terry Francona, who came out of retirement to lead the Cincinnati youth and possible galvanize them for a division run they've not been able to make due to inconsistency.

Francona's arrival in the NL Central comes 14 years after the Cardinals interviewd him for their manager vacancy.

Rosecrans and Goold, two writers who covered the late Walt Jocketty when he was leading the Reds or Cardinals front office, respectively, also discuss the popular baseball exec's impact on both franchises and especially what he brought back to Cincinnati that the Reds are out to restore even today.

Star Wars Day is also discussed.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. In its 13th season, BPIB can be found wherever you get your podcasts. It is likely in need of a new theme song after all these years.

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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 to avoid losses like on the road trip? 

KMOX/1120 AM's Kevin Wheeler rejoins the podcast to discuss that concept and what role the results of games actually play in the development of young players. 

Along with Post-Dispatch baseball writer and BPIB host Derrick Goold, there are some hearty debates about the importance of fundamentals and style of play as a force multiplier not a counterpunch for superstar talent and about how fissures in a bullpen can crack other facets of a baseball team, especially one that already needs a lot to go right to win. Goold and Wheeler arrive at the crux of the Cardinals' season -- how much time is enough for young players to work through their improvements and how much time is too much time to wait for improvements that aren't happening as talent stagnates. It's that last part that the Cardinals don't want to face at the end of 2025.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a weekly production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Post-Dispatch podcasts page: https://go.stltoday.com/0hfn43

Please consider subscribing: https://go.stltoday.com/9aigz5

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 attendance in the early series of the season, ticket sales, and whether the dip in attendance reflects exactly the drop in payroll. Will the assertive start by the lineup and this team’s style of play be enough to bring fans to Busch Stadium, or Goold asks, is there something else afoot hear? The Cardinals have advertised a “transition” year, so is coming to the ballpark early in the season less fun because the team is more likely to change? Being there to watch a team in April that will be dismantled by August can be a hard sell.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a weekly production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Post-Dispatch podcasts page: https://go.stltoday.com/0hfn43

Please consider subscribing: https://go.stltoday.com/9aigz5

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 in the opener, two stolen bases in the middle game, and the decisive three-run homer in the series finale.

The Cardinals put on a show.

And some of the smallest crowds in Busch Stadium history were there to see it.

How can the Cardinals grow a team and regrow the crowds? Will one assure the other, or are the Cardinals entering more than a "transition" year in the front office and actually embarking on a whole new product to sell fans?

Maybe reset wasn't the word after all. This is a rebranding.

Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon joins Best Podcast in Baseball host Derrick Goold to discuss the first four games of the Cardinals season and how they came a late-game bullpen leak away from starting 4-0. The Cardinals established their identity early, and the question becomes whether they can maintain it to be competitive in the National League Central. But that isn't the only question. Competitive is quaint. Competitive is the expectation. Moving merch is essential. Will a style of play be enough? Will winning be enough? After several years of selling nostalgia to fans, the Cardinals need more than a clear message about the future.

They need a brand new way to market the team.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. In its 13th year, BPIB drops weekly and is eager to hear from listeners about what it does well and what it can do better. Yes, we're especially talking to you -- the listener we have in Ireland.

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 deserving player sitting in St. Louis or playing in Memphis. That's the crux of quesitons facing the Cardinals as they crystallize their roster before leaving Florida for the start of the regular season and opening day Thursday against Minnesota at Busch Stadium. 

The final Best Podcast in Baseball from Florida centers on that choice -- sitting in the majors, playing in the minors -- and what is best for the players, what is best for the team, and what is a true reflection of the promised "transition" and youth movement?

How they act upon the strong springs by McGreevy and Scott will say more than any quote from the Cardinals.

Post-Dispatch sports writers Derrick Goold and Jeff Gordon explore the final Cardinals' roster choices and much more much in the sixth episode of the 13th season of the Best Podcast in Baseball.

Gordon also provides a forecast for the reception the Cardinals will receive upon returning to St. Louis.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. It's available weekly throughout the season. Please consider subscribing to the Post-Dispatch at the above link and support local journalism and the constant Cardinals coverage you've come to expect from the only outlet that dedicates multiple reporters to every day of Cardinals spring training and has for decades.

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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 factor in their spring training, but it doesn't disrupt the priority playing time as much as it might seem. Nolan Gorman will still be able to receive ample at-bats, just at a new position. Brendan Donovan won't be budged from the lineup, just to the outfield. And so on, all the way to center field,.

That is where this podcast goes.

Looking at center field, the big-league bench, the rotation, and the bullpen, Gordon and Goold explore the decisions the Cardinals must make with young players that will reveal how committed they are to the future -- and how the now still shapes their choices. The players discussed include Michael McGreevy, Zack Thompson, Matthew Liberatore, Michael Siani, Thomas Saggese, and center fielder Victor Scott II, who is off to a blazing start to spring training.

Gordon joins the podcast from St. Louis, while Goold is in Jupiter covering spring training for the Post-Dispatch's constant Cardinals coverage.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is in its 13th season. It is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

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 a new front office takes over at the end of the 2025 regular season. That has prompted a lot of questions. Ten to be precise. The Post-Dispatch's annual look at the 10 questions facing the Cardinals is once again the backbone of a podcast that aims to answer them.

BPIB host Derrick Goold welcomes Post-Dispatch writers Benjamin Hochman and Daniel Guerrero to the table at their shared rented condo in Jupiter to explore the answers to these 10 questions:

1. What's the fallout from the Nolan Arenado trade talks?
2. When's the ETA on Generation Bloom?
3. Will defense be a deciding factor?
4. Can a new coach perk up the pedestrian offense?
5. Any room for youth in a seasoned rotation?
6. Will Cardinals really rev up the running game?
7. Any room for surprises?
8. What's the setup for the closer?
9. How will fans react?
10. Can Cardinals being their way back?

In conclusion, Goold offers something to look for during spring training workouts as an answer to the 10th question. Watch for a frenetic camp. Measure the Cardinals' strides by the movement seen in spring training. The Cardinals have expanded the workforce for the coaching staff, and that should lead to a lot of instruction and action in spring training, just because they can, and when there aren't standings to monitor or wins and losses to track, consider looking at the pace of camp as a glimpse into progress and development.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a weekly podcast that is produced by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. It is part of the newspaper's Constant Cardinals Coverage, and it will be an element of the coverage from Cardinals spring training in Jupiter.

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 much more with St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold for an article and this companion podcast. 

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is available weekly wherever you find your podcasts and its a fixture of the constant Cardinals coverage at StlToday.com. A production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and host Derrick Goold, BPIB is approaching its 13th year as the leading podcast about baseball in St. Louis and the St. Louis Cardinals.

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 contender in this rapidly changing baseball economy. BPIB host and baseball writer Derrick Goold asked Cardinals ownership if the endgame of their "reset" -- their word for it -- will require a salary cap introduced to Major League Baseball as it has been in other professional sports leagues. The short answer from ownership was no. The long answer is that there are many ways to curtail spending and penalize overspending than a salary cap or a salary floor. Drawing on Gordon's background in CBA negotiations, the two writers explore what mechanisms those could be, and in the meantime how the Cardinals will turn to Gen-Z -- relying on a group of twentysomethings to return thme to October because in today's game the thirtysomethings are finding riches in the major markets.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. BPIB is available weekly wherever you find your podcasts. Please rate and review the podcast because it is feedback from the community of listeners that has shaped BPIB as it nears its 13th year.