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.

A discussion the Cardinals and a chilly Hot Stove eventually ignites with this completely unrelated question: How far into your list of the best players in the history of Major League Baseball do you get before mentioning Rickey Henderson?

He's the all-time leader in runs, he's the greatest leadoff hitter in the game's history, and he almost lapped everyone but Lou Brock when it comes to career stolen bases.

The name of the game is scoring runs, and few (if any) did it better than Henderson.

That's part of the discussion with Matt Snyder, CBS sports writer and author of the new book, "The Leadoff Man: The history of, the evolution of, and fun with the greatest catalyst in sports." (The book is available here.) In his book, Snyder chronicles the changing nature of the leadoff spot, from the speedy contact hitters of yore to the bashers and mashers of the modern game, from the tradition of putting infielder there regardless of their ability to get on base to the analytics of prioritizing the most at-bats for the player who makes the fewest outs. Henderson leads the way with a style of play that was both ahead of his peers and ahead of its time.

At about the 23-minute mark, the conversation speeds from leading men to discussing the current offseason and the Cardinals' willingness to trade their leadoff man, Brendan Donovan. The Hot Stove has been sluggish, even stagnant. And that prompts an impromptu suggestion for how to spur deals during the winter meetings with tools already present in the current Collective Bargaining Agreement. No cap needed.

Although talk about a cap is going to dominate the next 11 months, and that is where the podcast hurries toward its conclusion by describing how it's not the tycoon-like Dodgers that signal the lack of competitive balance and economic concerns about the game. The Cardinals could be the canary.

To which, Snyder flips the question: How deep into a list of the most recognizable baseball teams does one get before naming the Cardinals?

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.

There should be ballads written about Willson Contreras' brief time with the Cardinals.

From his arrival as the All-Star eager for the challenge of following Yadier Molina, to that weird week when he took fly balls in left field and stopped catching, to the injuries and fractures and ultimately his move to first base, out from behind home plate without skipping a beat at the plate. Contreras brought both joy and fury to the Cardinals' lineup and clubhouse, and at some point his absence will be felt by the teammates who remain.

But he won't be a alone.

In a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball, recorded on Christmas Eve, Post-Dispatch editor Nathan Mills and baseball writer Derrick Goold discuss the Cardinals' counterintuitive shopping list for the holidays and what is missing from it and possibly from the clubhouse during his reboot of an organization. The Cardinals traded a starter (Sonny Gray) only to sign a starter (Dustin May) a few weeks later; they traded a right-handed bat from the middle of the order (Contreras) only to suggest a few hours later that they would now look for a right-handed bat to add to the roster. The Cardinals are swapping All-Stars for pitching depth and then looking to replace those veterans with players on shorter-term deals or with more control and less cost.

What's missing from those moves is the leadership and experience that the Cardinals have long championed as part of their continuity, as part of their identity as a club. And more trades ahead could mean the departure of Brendan Donovan, who personifies the way the Cardinals like to play and be in the clubhouse; JoJo Romreo, the seasoned reliever in the bullpen; and Nolan Arenado, the future Hall of Famer and Gold Glove-cornerstone at third.

Mills and Goold discuss what happens when a young group of players isn't inheriting expectations but tasked with trying to grow them.

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.