Best Podcast in Baseball's 13th season premiere: Answering 10 questions facing Cardinals

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 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.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold and other sports columnists and reporters discuss the St. Louis Cardinals, MLB and anything tangentially related to the national pastime and the city that adores it.