Best Podcast in Baseball

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.

Former Cardinals pitcher, current Cardinals broadcaster, and winner of the 2025 St. Louis Baseball Writers' of America Chapter's 'Good Guy Award,' Ricky Horton joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss that release of pressure and what it means for the Cardinals.

Horton, who appears on the KMOX/1120 AM and Cardinals Radio Network broadcasts,  discusses with BPIB host Derrick Goold what he'll be watching as spring games begin. The two also talk about what lens to use when evaluating the Cardinals given the youth movement, and finally they explore whether the Dodgers' spending and acquisition of talent is creating a juggernaut unlike any baseball has seen. The Dodgers are likened to the Death Star. There is a stretch of the podcast where the most cynical of Cardinals fans might need earmuffs as Horton and Goold discuss whether a trade not made this winter means a red jacket that must be made in the future. And Horton describes how Whitey Herzog approached pressure and whether there is a lesson from the 1985 Cardinals for the 2025 Cardinals on the power of adopting a style of baseball.

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

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 headlines?

St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold and sports columnist Jeff Gordon discuss how creating a signing deadline in the offseason would change the pace of free agency and possibly benefit. The two writers discuss the history of baseball's deadline-less offseason, compare to other leagues with their frenzy of signings in a allowed window, and explore when and how a deadline would work for a sport that has long defined itself by just always being there, even if being there means being in the background.

Goold wonders if a winter deadline might shake owners from their methodical, ruminating, risk-adverse approaches by limiting the time they have to marinate over moves and talks themselves out of it.

The podcast explores the Chicago Cubs moves and how the Wrigley Astros will tilt the NL Central, Major League Baseball's most forgiving division. The discussion touches on whether the Cardinals would be the division favorite if they made the moves for outfielder Kyle Tucker and reliever Ryan Pressly that the Cubs did. And finally, the podcast concludes with a suggestion -- really, a solution -- that blends all of the topics about deadlines and doldrums into a proposal that's three words long:

Luxury tax amnesty.

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.

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 ballot and a top left-handed reliever Billy Wagner who got elected on his final ballot. The class also includes Dick Allen and Dave Parker to further reveal the many numerous routes available to players to reach induction in Cooperstown. There is the expressway that Suzuki takes with near unanimous support. There is the state two-lane highway that will likely welcome switc-hitter Carlos Beltran to Cooperstown in 2026, and then there's the country roads that Wagner had to drive to ultimately reach immortality. All of which brings us to the crossroads currently facing baseball. With the Dodgers spending freely and collecting all of the talent, is the only way deep into October through Los Angeles? The two baseball writers discuss the widening gap in the game and explore one reason for the dramatic change (hint: shrinking small- and mid-market television revenues) -- and whether there will be a correction in a few years.

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 appears weekly wherever you subscribe or listen to podcasts and is part of the newspaper's Constant Cardinals Coverage.

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.

That is the launching point for a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball as host and baseball writer Derrick Goold asks Karraker what questions fans should ask at the team's annual "kickoff" to the season.

The 28th annual Cardinals Care Winter Warm-up will be over the holiday weekend at Ballpark Village and Busch Stadium, and three times fans will have a chance to ask Cardinals leadership directly about this shift in direction and stagnant winter. Karraker and Goold outline the questions that could be asked, the answers they're likely to get, and what all of this means is at stake for the year ahead. Karraker put it bluntly: The current Cardinals leadership hatched the Golden Goose, nurtured and benefited from it for at least two decades, and now run the risk of losing it.

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 appears weekly wherever you subscribe or listen to podcasts and is part of the newspaper's Constant Cardinals Coverage. 

"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 Cardinals could spin into a financial whirlpool that leads to more severe cuts or a complete overhaul once new leadership is in place.

In a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball, host Derrick Goold is joined by Gordon to discuss what the Cardinals' actions tell us about their situation and their motives. The Cardinals went 3-for-6 on finalizing deals with arbitration-eligible players, leaving salaries for Lars Nootbaar, Brendan Donovan, and Andre Pallante undetermined for the coming season. They could go to hearings unless there is traction for a multi-year extension. But what does it say if the Cardinals don't pursue any of those? What if this spring is the first spring in awhile without an extension? Could that all be a setup to give Chaim Bloom maximum payroll flexibility when he takes over as president of baseball operations and move on from this roster and even its "next core" players to a deeper rebuild?

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. Now entering its 13th year, find BPIB weekly throughout the 2025 season wherever you get your podcasts.

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 the podcast, host and baseball writer Derrick Goold reveals his ballot for the upcoming class of the National Baseball Hall of Fame. Ichiro Suzuki is eligible for the first time and brings more than 3,000 hits in the majors and 4,200 hits as a professional to his bid to become the first unanimously selected position player. 

Ichiro, five holdovers from last year's ballot, and four newcomers, all pitchers, appear on Goold's 10-full ballot.

Gordon and Goold discuss the layup decisions and the other choices that forced a look at how the modern game uses starting pitchers and, thus, how voters should consider that when looking at this generation of starters for the Hall of Fame.

After the Cooperstown conversation, the two Post-Dispatch staff writers discuss new year's resolution for the 2025 Cardinals, and that brings the discussion around to the team's messaging. How do they sell a fan base and tickets to that fan base without the stars that fan base is used to seeing, without the contending club the fan base is accustomed to the team promising? Gordon has some thoughts on who should deliver that message and soon.

That brings the podcast around to its conclusion -- and a potential historic end for a Cardinals' continuity.

For more than 100 years, the Cardinals have had an eventual Hall of Famer in uniform. From Roger Bresnahan to Stan Musial, Dizzy Dean to Bob Gibson, Lou Brock to Ozzie Gibson, and certainly through 2011 when Albert Pujols went west until returning in 2022. Carlos Beltran is currently on the ballot and is a candidate to extend that streak through 2012 and 2013, and Yadier Molina has a claim to take it all the way through 2022, when then Adam Wainwright, Paul Goldschmidt, and Nolan Arenado are potential Cooperstown inductees to keep it going. Wainwright is now retired. Goldschmidt is now a Yankee. And the Cardinals actively exploring trade talks for Arenado. If all three are gone, is that streak?

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. Find it weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

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 was changing.

That's the description Baseball America prospects writer Geoff Pontes provides in a brand new episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball with host and Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold. Pontes is fresh off ranking the Cardinals' top 10 prospects for the industry's leading prospect magazine, and he joins the podcast hours after finishing the organization's top 30 prospects for Baseball America's Handbook. That indispensable rite of spring training is more of a guidebook this season for Cardinals' fans as it will show them where the Cardinals begin this reinvestment in player development -- and how far they have to go.

Pontes discusses how chose between 2024 first-round pick JJ Wetherholt and 2024 BA Pitcher of the Year Quinn Mathews for the Cardinals' No. 1 prospect.

He provides insight on two names to know, rising electric talent Yairo Padilla, a shortstop and one of the youngest players at his or any level, and catcher/slugger Rainiel Rodriguez, who had 10 home runs and a 1.145 OPS in 41 games this past summer for the Cardinals' academy team in the Dominican Republic.

Pontes describes how the Cardinals fell behind on pitching development while staying ahead of other teams with how they approached hitters. The Cardinals have produced a steady stream of contributing hitters, either for them or other teams, but the podcast explores how they've been unable to launch one thing: a tent-pole hitter for the lineup. Within Pontes' top 10 from the Cardinals system, there are four hitters in the top eight, and could one of them (Wetherholt, Chase Davis) be that talent?

Pontes offers his sleeper prospect within the organization and what Cardinals are likely to be top 100 talents in all of the minors, with Wetherholt likely headed for the top 30.

Located in Massachusetts, Pontes saw how Chaim Bloom revived Boston's pitching pipeline, even if he's no longer there to benefit from it, and details how the Cardinals are ahead of the Red Sox and could see the same improvement under Bloom's leadership. Pontes gives details on where the Cardinals can improve, and toward the end of the podcast the conversation arrives at the crux of the Cardinals' "reset":

How they got there. What was the tell in the 2021 draft.

How they up to pace, and how fast.

Two pitchers might offer early indications of the direction the Cardinals are headed and the improvements afoot: right-hander Tekoah Roby and lefty Cooper Hjerpe. They rank Nos. 6 and 7, respectively, in Pontes' top 10 for the Cardinals system. Both have upside, and Pontes is bullish on one of them -- especially as the Cardinals modernize their approach to pitching around him.

The Best Podcast in Baseball is sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis and it's a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, from iTunes to Spotify, to right there on the StlToday.com web site. Happy holidays and here's to a healthy start to a new year.

"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 there. This isn't just about carrying on the torch of the Cardinals Way, but turning it into a more fuel efficient electric lighter. 

Several years ago as a guest on BPIB, Ferrin, who hosts Power Alley on Sirius XM's MLB Network Radio, introduced this podcast's listeners to the phrase "player dev," short for player development. The conversation that followed in that episode offered a glimpse into where the Cardinals had started to go astray from the modern system and how they can now catch up. Ferrin dives into what current, successful teams do to maximize player development and how the Cardinals are not alone in their attempt to restart after a stalled stretch.

Ferrin and Goold also discuss the Cardinals rising to the fifth overall pick in the upcoming MLB draft, and they conclude with a discussion about the legacy of the Paul Goldschmidt-Nolan Arenado era in St. Louis as it likely comes to an end. The two infielders and potential Hall of Famers finished first and third for the 2022 National League MVP, respectively, and they helped the team to several postseason appearances. But Goldschmidt only advanced as far as the 2019 NLCS and they never won a playoff series together as Cardinals teammates.

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.

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, aggressive-spending Philadelphia Phillies, or some of the big-budget barons of the American League. That prompts a look, position by position, about how the Cardinals could mirror Atlanta, and how wide the gap is for them to close. The Cardinals can start by accumulating talent, and that is what they're looking to do via trade this winter and, potentially, through the next season.

This leads to the question on whether the Cardinals have a homegrown, surefire, superstar hitter ready to take a "Golden At-Bat" -- which is all the talk this past week as the commissioner referenced a rule that would allow a team to choose its hitter for a pivotal moment in a game, disregarding the lineup and more than a century of estabslihed rule for the drama. 

The Cardinals' front office heads to Dallas for the annual Winter Meetings on Sunday (Dec. 8), and they're in trade-talk mode. This brand new episode of BPIB, hosted by baseball writer Derrick Goold, begins by looking at the dominos that must fall elsewhere in the market for teams to turn toward the Cardinals and begin some holiday shopping with St. Louis.

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

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-Dispatch baseball writer and BPIB host Derrick Goold, Perry discusses if the Cardinals have reached a point where fans, like him, must "adjust their expectations."

If so, the podcast explores, are the Cardinals still stuck in the middle, not committing to an all-the-way rebuild in the same way they came shy of an all-in contender.

Perry makes the case that the future of the Cardinals may come down to Jordan Walker's bat. It is the tent pole around which a lineup and a contender could be built, Perry argues, and the young outfielder needs the opportunity to grow into that -- not seesaw between levels.
Perry counted up that he has 28 different Cardinals hats, and two of them he wrote in his Substack newsletter, Birdy Work, illustrate his connection to the Cardinals. One is the mesh hat worn by his father mowing the yard in the Mississippi heat, and the other is the winter cap Perry's son wears against the Chicago cold.

As Perry recounts the story, his father became a fan of the Cardinals during the 1940s heyday, and his son latched onto the Cardinals during their 2010s run. Perry became a fan of those charismatic WhiteyBall clubs from the 1980s, the ones built around defense and speed and the time-tested, standings-approved art of stealing outs in the field and not making outs at the plate.

That invites the question: As the Cardinals look toward the future and modernizing their farm system while financial titans load up with talent on the coasts, is the model for how the Cardinals succeed in the future actually from their past?

Perry's newsletter can be found on Substack.

The Best Podcast in Baseball is available wherever you listen to podcasts, and it's also housed right here at StlToday.com with all of the Constant Cardinals Coverage.

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 baseball writer Derrick Goold.  

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 involved -- and some of the motivations and goals driving them.

From there the conversation expands into an audit of the Cardinals strategy and financial position.

The team has advertised as cut in payroll as it bends young and reinvests in an eroded player development program, but there's more going on than just a shifting of dollars and sense. There is the potential for a huge cut in revenue that is driving some of their decisions, and is not their plan to increase spending on minor-league coaches and technology, nor the $100-million project to upgrade the Roger Dean Stadium complex in Jupter, Florida, with new player development facilities. Looming on the horizon is the possibility the Cardinals will not get some or all of the $78 million owed them from their broadcast partner for 2025 and the reality that the jackpot years ahead in their billion-dollar broadcast rights deal aren't going to come to fruition.

That shift in revenue prompts the questions that direct this podcast -- how much must the Cardinals cut, and how soon?

The answer may not be as simple as just shedding salaries.

There is a way for the Cardinals to chase their goal of accumulating young talent, clearing opportunity for in-house talent, and still cleave dollars off the payroll. And that is where this brand new podcast ends with Part 1 and will continue with Part 2.

Part 2 will drop Friday.

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 baseball writer Derrick Goold. 

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.

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. Crowds, like wins and playoff appearances, have dwindled, and the one-off season the Cardinals promised after 2023 has become something more problematic for the club: a trend.

Grimsley, co-host of The Opening Drive at ESPN 101.1 FM/WXOS in St. Louis, said the feedback they've received from listeners and fans suggest that fans are moving from anger to acceptance to something more alarming for any club -- apathy.

With BPIB host and St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold, Grimsley discusses what messages and actions the Cardinals could take in the coming weeks and months to reanimate and engage the fan base. They discuss not just player movement and moves but how important comments, direction, and transparency from the front office could be, and what the role media plays in gathering that info and relaying it to fans.

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.

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 atop. McCalvy talks with Best Podcast in Baseball host and baseball writer Derrick Goold about the "culture" the Brewers have created, one that seems to benefit from the team's business model, strong development infrastructure, and something the Cardinals have not shown, and may not be able to show.

Patience.

The Brewers appear to have hit Yatzhee on almost every move. They waited out the market to land Christian Yelich from Miami via trade, ending up with the best fit of the three Marlins outfielders available at the time and an MVP-caliber player. While the Cardinals were also shopping for a catcher, they joined in a trade to help Atlanta land catcher Sean Murphy from the Oakland Athletics  and may have ended up with the  best catcher in the deal, William Contreras. They fended off interest in Corbin Burnes to watch him become a Cy Young Award ace, and then traded him ahead of him leaving for free agency to then nourish a roster that again is contending.

McCalvy details the Brewers' business model and also how much they've invested in development, and how it continues successful at the major-league level, even as players move out or move out.

The two baseball writers also share some thoughts on Wisconsin-accurate accents and wax nostalgic about legendary slugger Joey Meyer the 1990s Denver Zephyrs.

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.

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 Hall of Famer. BPIB co-founder and former Post-Dispatch sports columnist Bernie Miklasz joins podcast host Derrick Goold to discuss a week that featured Nolan Gorman and Jordan Walker returning to Class AAA Memphis just a few months after they were supposed to emerge as the next core contributors in the Cardinals' lineup. Urgency rules as the Cardinals try to capture magic from a series win against Milwaukee and turn it into a last-gasp run for a playoff spot. But is that same urgency, that same pressure to produce and perform and contend every day also contributing to a cycle the Cardinals cannot escape? The opportunity gap persists and now two of the most highly prized young prospects the Cardinals have had in the past decade are caught in the conversation on whether they must go elsewhere to thrive. Young hitters arrive. Some young hitters struggle. Some young hitters are traded. Those young hitters thrive elsewhere. Miklasz describes the conversations he's had with MLB sources about where and how the Cardinals' infrastructure is lacking, and Goold details where the answers might come from the young hitters, like Masyn Winn or Alec Burleson, who have thrived after alterations to their approach or swing encouraged by the Cardinals. 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.

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 of KMOX/1120 AM to discuss the Cardinals as they emerge from a disastrous series in Cincinnati and begin the most grueling stretch of their season. They are, once again, balanced around .500 -- waiting for the wind of change to knock this turtle into one direction or the other. And that becomes the crux of the conversation. If the Cardinals are able to put together a 41-game sprint for October and a playoff berth, does such a run risk masking or misleading the direction the franchise is really headed. Look to the most recent World Series championship teams for examples. Will the 2024 Cardinals be like the surprise 83-win team of 2006 that won a World Series but prefaced a signficiant shift for the franchise when it tried to repeat that flawed roster in 2007, or are the 2024 Cardinals the Happy Flight-era 2011 Cardinals who buzzsawed to a World Series title and hinted at a successful run of pennant-contenders that even withstood the departure of a Hall of Fame manager and a three-time MVP and Hall of Fame player? One team gave off a false impression of the future. The other hinted at a future fueled by pitching development and some savvy outside additions. The '24 Cardinals have to overcome their run differential and an offensive deficit to contend, and even if they do what they had to overcome and how far they had to go should offer a lesson, even a reckoning, on where the franchise is going.

Thanks to all the listeners of BPIB for the patience as the podcast experienced one planned break as the host took some time off and another unplanned pause as the host had a few episodes experience hiccups of various types. The BPIB is back, ready to regain some of those lost episodes and sprint to the finish of the regular season.

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

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 games and how doing one will help the other survive. It is vital Wheeler illustrates for a team to get more innings from the rotation so that it's asking less of the bullpen in close games, and that will help keep the bullpen fresh to turn those close games into victories. This is how teams can get friendly with the confines of close games.

During a 4-3 home stand and again as they opened a Father's Day weekend series at Wrigley, the Cardinals showcased some of the developing depth in the bullpen that is helping them hold leads and secure slim victory. Ryan Fernandez has emerged with holds in consecutive games; Matthew Liberatore's return to the bullpen gives the Cardinals a third setup lefty and one with strikeout stuff at his best; and Chris Roycroft, only a few years removed from independent ball, has intrigued the Cardinals with his power stuff and movement. Or, as one teammate put it, "filth."

The Cardinals returned to .500 with the victory and should they spillover for the first time in more than a year, they'll be one of the few teams in the National League with a winning record.

Wheeler and Goold discuss if that's fallout from the consolidation of spending and power at only a few NL spots, such as Dodger Stadium and South Philadelphia. If those teams are collecting the highest-dollar stars in the NL what does that mean for the remainder of the standings and how do teams keep up as that spending gap grows into a standings gap. Wheeler suggests that a lot can be learned from NL Central-leader Milwaukee and how the Brewers have kept ahead without spending too much. It's an example of how the division, bunched-up and sometimes confusing mediocrity for parity, will be decided.

What team gets its stars to shine the brightest the soonest?

That list would include Cubs Dansby Swanson just as it could be asked of the Cardinals' cornerstones Paul Goldschmidt, Nolan Arenado, and Willson Contreras, who is on the injured list with a fractured arm. That list would also include Cardinals starter Sonny Gray, whose bounce-back start helped Cardinals to a winning home stand. And all of that brings the conversation back around to one way for a team to thrive in so many close games.

Play fewer of them.

Score more runs to avoid them.

Also discussed in this episode of BPIB is the Cardinals' visit to Rickwood Field later this month for the first National League regular-season game at the nation's oldest ballpark.

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 baseball writer Derrick Goold. 

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 returned with stories for StlToday.com on Jordan Walker, Thomas Saggese, Victor Scott II, and several pitchers. And he joins the Best Podcast in Baseball and baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss if there's advancement coming from Memphis or just idling talent in Memphis. 

An injury to Steven Matz at the beginning of May opened a spot in the Cardinals' rotation, and as they await the lefty's return they have at least twice had a chance to promote a prospect from within to make those starts. They did not. Actions always speak louder than rankings, and for the Cardinals their actions at the big-league level have suggested they feel it's more important for some of their prospects to continue developing in Class AAA Memphis than have their routine upset with a spot start, or, in some cases, that they're not ready to contribute to the majors even in a spot start.

It's a telling decision from the team that also strikes at their situation in the outfield.

The Cardinals are going to need contributions from the the organization in both the outfield and on the mound, and how they utilize their top affiliate is a chance to scrutinize the prospect pipeline and player development.

The two baseball writers conclude the episode by making their picks to represent the Cardinals in the Futures Game.

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.