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.

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.

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.