Searching for Cardinals' next core with Cespedes Family BBQ's Jordan Shusterman
Best Podcast in Baseball
St. Louis Post-Dispatch
4.6 • 690 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2025
⏱️ 70 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As the Cardinals have retreated from annual October appearances they have also faded from the national spotlight. They haven't been historically bad. They haven't been as good as their recent history. Jordan Shusterman, senior writer at Yahoo! Sports and host of Baseball Bar-B-Cast, begins a converation on a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball there: Their absence from the national conversation and what will get them back.
The answer, of course, is identifying what current players must be a part of the next contending core.
That drives this new episode of the long-running Cardinals podcast.
When Shusterman joined BPIB and host Derrick Goold for this recording, he entered his name as "#1 Jimmy Crooks Fan," and that fondness for the Cardinals' left-handed hitting catching prospect came up as the two baseball writers tracked the list of teams that have missed the postseason in the same years as the Cardinals. One of those teams -- the San Francisco Giants -- is not only the subject of a forthcoming article by Shusterman but also one of the teams interested in the Cardinals' Brendan Donovan and also a team that shares a standout trait with the Cardinals.
Both clubs featured Hall of Fame caliber catchers as their cornerstones and have faded in the years since Buster Posey and Yadier Molina retired.
The podcast also includes a discussion on sleeper picks for the future core and how lefty Liam Doyle, the Cardinals' first-round pick in the recent draft, could wake up the ballpark with his debut and personality, if the performance is there to match. He's compared to a closer, just at the start of the game. Plus, did Cardinals' fatigue contribute to the Cardinals' drift out of the national headlines?
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.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to a brand new best podcast in baseball thrilled to be joined by Jordan Schusterman. |
| 0:04.8 | Senior writer at Yahoo Sports. |
| 0:06.1 | We're going to, who knows where this conversation is going to go? |
| 0:08.3 | I'm not even going to tease it because I don't even have any idea. |
| 0:11.0 | So let's just strap in. |
| 0:13.0 | We'll talk baseball for a while. |
| 0:14.5 | Holidays are here. |
| 0:15.9 | New Year is coming and Dustin May has arrived as a cardinal. |
| 0:18.7 | Cue the music. |
| 0:28.5 | Hello, everybody, and welcome to the best podcast in baseball, |
| 0:31.1 | brought to you by Clause of By Design of St. Louis. |
| 0:34.4 | I'm St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer. |
| 0:36.9 | We were talking about titles before we had come. |
| 0:42.7 | Should I use my, like, official title, St. Louis Post Dispatch lead baseball rider. |
| 0:47.1 | Derek Gold, joined this week by Jordan Shrewsman, Senior Rider at Yahoo Sports. And you know him as the lowercase half of Sestimus family, barbecue and host of the baseball Barbie cast. |
| 0:53.5 | Jordan, it's thrilled. |
| 0:54.5 | I'm thrilled to talk to you. |
| 0:56.0 | We have great conversation every time I can cross pass with you in a press box or |
| 1:00.1 | winter meetings. |
| 1:01.4 | I also admire the podcast from afar, so this is great. |
| 1:05.0 | Thank you so much for having me, Derek. |
| 1:06.8 | This is a treat. |
... |
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