JUPITER, Fla. -- On the even of the Cardinals opening their full-squad workouts for spring training, four reporters covering the camp gather at a table nearby the brand new complex to discuss the bran new questions facing a club in a rebuild.

Best Podcast in Baseball begins its 14th season as the leading podcast about the Cardinals and baseball in St. Louis with host Derrick Goold joined by KMOV/Channel 4 sports anchor Tamar Sher and two St. Louis Post-Dispatch colleagues, baseball writer Daniel Guerrero and columnist Benjamin Hochman for a roundtable discussion about what spring means and what spring must prove for the Cardinals.

The group discusses the players with the most opportunity this spring, the people facing the most pressure this spring, the player most likely to make the most of this spring, and also just how to judge a team that is departing from the franchise's historical pursuit of the next pennant to something more nebulous -- the next core.

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In its 13th season as one of the first and most widely heard podcasts on baseball and the Cardinals, the Best Podcast in Baseball has reached a new season-high with 30 episodes. Each episode is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and lead baseball writer Derrick Goold.

The Cardinals' winter of accumulation climaxed with the trade many months in the making: They moved All-Star utility fielder Brendan Donovan in a three-team trade to Seattle and received a windfall that included two of the Mariners' top-10 prospects and two draft picks, one each from the Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays.

So, it's time to take stock.

What did all of this subtraction actually add to the Cardinals?

Back from a brief winter vacation, the Best Podcast in Baseball returns to discuss exactly that. Post-Dispatch editor Nathan Mills joins BPIB host and baseball writer Derrick Goold to explore the ramifications of the Donovan deal and much more on the eve of spring training. The podcast also explores whether the Cardinals should prioritize a contract extension for manager Oli Marmol, what the bigger benefit is for the two draft picks acquired, and what to take from the Cardinals' rise to No. 2 in Baseball America's farm rankings.

It wasn't just prospects the Cardinals added this winter. They've got a bigger scouting apparatus -- they call it an acquisitions department -- and they're going to see how big and how soon that pays off.

More Post-Dispatch podcasts.

Please consider subscribing.

In its 13th season as one of the first and most widely heard podcasts on baseball and the Cardinals, the Best Podcast in Baseball has reached a new season-high with 30 episodes. Each episode is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and lead baseball writer Derrick Goold.

If you sensed some melancholy from both the Cardinals as they announced trading a Hall of Fame-caliber player to Arizona and also from that player, Nolan Arenado, as he described feeling "in the way" where once he expected to retire, that's fair. There was that disappointment on both sides as what could have been came to an end.

In a brand new episode of the Best Podcast in Baseball, St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold and editor Nathan Mills discuss the conclusion of a trade more than a year in the making and potentially a streak that stretches back more than a century. For more than 100 consecutive years, without pause, the Cardinals have had a Hall of Fame player or manager in uniform with the team, and that streak could end with 2025.

Or, it will be a young player who has yet to emerge as an All-Star who we'll discover in hindsight continued it.

The Cardinals reach their annual Winter Warm-up after trading their third namebrand All-Star of the offseason and facing a difficult task of selling a team to a fan base that already had a record-low appetite for purchasing tickets. The pulse of the fans will be on display during the weekend Warm-up, but less clear is how the Cardinals will promote their future and what jerseys will fans be able to purchase. Mills and Goold discuss that and more, like who takes over at third base for the Cardinals and who should take over at third to excite the fans.

The podcast concludes with one things fans can look forward to doing in 2026 and how that one thing, voting Albert Pujols and Yadier Molina into the team's Hall of Fame, can be used to create an event that will thrill Cardinals Nation as well give the current Cardinals a feel of what the ballpark is like at its best.

Halls of various fames become a recurring theme of the podcast, allowing Goold to note there may not be a Hall of Fame at his high school but he can totally brag about being in class with a future astronaut, Jack Fischer.

More Post-Dispatch podcasts.

Please consider subscribing.

In its 13th season as one of the first and most widely heard podcasts on baseball and the Cardinals, the Best Podcast in Baseball has reached a new season-high with 30 episodes. Each episode is sponsored weekly by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and lead baseball writer Derrick Goold.