Can Cardinals find their sweet spot as a contender between KC's cycle and LA's spending?

Best Podcast in Baseball

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Sports, Baseball

4.8 • 673 Ratings

🗓️ 7 June 2025

⏱️ 61 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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The first extended home stand of season brings two sides of the contending spectrum to Busch Stadium, with the Kansas City Royals in an upswing after some down years that have brought in high-end talent and then the Los Angeles Dodgers and how they can muscle their way into perpetual contention with financial might. Somewhere in the middle is where the Cardinals' must find their sweet spot -- not stomaching the downturn the Royals experience while unable to spend like the Dodgers do.

Post-Dispatch sports columnist Jeff Gordon joins the Best Podcast in Baseball host and baseball writer Derrick Goold do discuss and compare the building of contenders through various blueprints.

As the Cardinals rethink theirs, what can they borrow from each of the teams visiting this week, and what can they pull from their rival they're about to visit -- the Milwaukee Brewers?

Gordon presents a hypothetical about the draft and choosing between the high-ceiling high school pitcher and a surefire college starter. Goold offers a quick answer certain to disappoint but not so easily dismissed.

The podcast concludes with a discussion on whether the Chicago White Sox are about to do what no other National League Central team has been able to do: Push the Cubs to spend like their market suggests they should and now may have to in order to keep up with the South Side and the Sox new investor.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is in its 13th season as one of the first and most popular podcasts about the St. Louis Cardinals. It is a weekly production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to a brand new best podcast in baseball.
0:02.9	It's our regular recurring episode with sports columnist Jeff Gordon of the St. Louis Post Dispatch.
0:10.6	And we're going to talk about just the grind of June.
0:13.8	Yeah, sure, they say the dog days is there in August.
0:16.6	But really, these are some dogged days for the Cardinals as they go through a stretch of 27 days with one off day.
0:25.8	And they have to find their way through it when they're maybe not playing their best baseball.
0:30.1	They're pretty ragged.
0:30.9	So how much does that have to do with?
0:32.8	And what kind of fatigue-related issues are they really dealing with, Gordo?
0:37.4	Plus, we'll talk about in this stretch where they face the Royals, the Dodgers,
0:41.3	and then off to Milwaukee face the Brewers.
0:43.2	Where's the cardinal sweet spot for where they are with market size and how they contend?
0:49.4	All of that and more in a brand new episode of the best podcast in baseball.
0:53.7	Cue the music.
1:05.3	Hello, everybody, and welcome to the best podcast in baseball brought to you by Closet
1:08.2	by Design of St. Louis.
1:09.1	I'm St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derek Gould joined as I am frequently this week by Jeff Gordon, instant
1:17.2	offense, author of tip sheet and sports columnist. What sports columnist galore? Is that, is that
1:24.8	a right phrase? What do we go with here, Gordon?
1:35.5	Just, I'd say durable. I'm durable. Durable. I like that a lot. Indie fatigable. That's the,
1:38.0	that's a title I often like.
1:42.5	I'm going to set records for games played, but nothing else. Or as I was called at, at J-School, prolific. There was no, no,
	...

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