Two years into their overhaul of the minor-league system to modernize it, staff it, and reanimate it, the Cardinals are on the power play.

By adjusting their scouting focus and expanding their avenues for acquiring talent (i.e., trading All-Stars during one whirlwind winter), the Cardinals have radically changed the potential within the system, especially when it comes to power. An example of this was a recent exercise by Baseball America that had hosts of the Prospect Podcast draft teams of power hitters and also power pitchers. The Cardinals had five hitters, including top prospect Rainiel Rodriguez and breakout talents Joshua Baez and Jose Baez, selected, four of them by one BA writer. The same BA writer chose several rising talents for his power pitching team.

Geoff Pontes, a prospect writer at BA, joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to discuss his selections and the state of the Cardinals' farm system with Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold.

Pontes sees not only the Cardinals' answers at third base and for the middle of the order ascending (and fast) in the system, but for the possibilty of two pitchers arriving in 2027 who could be the left-right, Nos. 1-2 combo in Liam Doyle and Tanner Franklin, respectively.

Prospects specifically discussed include: Jake Gurevitch, Doyle, Franklin, Rodriguez, Jesus Baez, Joshua Baez, Josiah Ragsdale, Sandro Santana, Daniel Eagen, Jack Martinez, Nate Dohm, Brandon Clarke, and more.

During the conversation, both writers reference the 20 to 80 scale used by scouts to describe upside for various tools, such as 70 power or a 60 slider. Eighty is rarely given, but the higher the score the better.

And this episide of the BPIB is an 80 conversation.

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In its 14th 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.

After a lengthy delay, the Best Podcast in Baseball is back and making up for lost time.

Or, well, going back in time.

On the 100th anniversary -- to the date -- of the 1926 World Series and the Cardinals' first world championship, author Terry Lemons joins BPIB host and Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold to discuss the significance of that title and its role in creating St. Louis as the baseball city we know so well. Lemons' book, "The Year St. Louis Became a Baseball Town: The Cardinals, Babe Ruth, and the 1926 World Series" explores how that series was much more than a best-of-seven showdown. It pitted Ruth and the mighty Yankees against the furthest team west and furthest team south in the majors, and a Cardinals club that wasn't even in the most popular major-league team in its city.

Lemons presents the idea that the series and the Cardinals' victory was the "lightning strike" that made baseball, already popular in St. Louis, part of the city's identity. And that goes right down to the practice of cheering for the opponent.

And at the center of it was the Great Bambino and what Lemons called the "Ruthian" mistake that ended the series.

Signed copies of his book is available at his website, 1926Baseball.com.

Thank you listeners for the patience as BPIB took an unplanned break for a few months and will now resume a more regular and recurring schedule as it reinvents itself a bit. We appreciate the support. This podcast only exists (persists?) because of the listeners like you.

More Post-Dispatch podcasts.

Please consider subscribing.

In its 14th 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.

KANSAS CITY -- When it comes to the fragile, fleeting nature of contention, is a bird in hand worth two birds on a bat?

That's the question that baseball writer Derrick Goold asks in a brand new Best Podcast in Baseball.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch editor and frequent podcast contributor Nathan Mills joins the podcast to discuss which direction the Cardinals are going with their pitching, their offense, and their plans for the upcoming trade deadline. Goold has traveled west to Kansas City, where the World Cup has come for some of its games and the Cardinals have arrived for the conclusion of the I-70 Series.

The Cardinals revitalized their lineup with recent moves. The bullpen is undergoing renovation. And all of that happens with the August trade deadline as a backdrop. The Cardinals have close to 40 games remaining before having to make a call on whether they'll be buyers, sellers, or neither at the deadline. A lot as it stake with their decision. A seller keeps them true their plan to accumulate young talent to contend at a later date. Neither chooses not commit. And both directions could lead to fan frustration as the club is trying to lure them back to the ballpark and get them to buy into a refreshed franchise.

The podcast closes with a cautionary tale about contention, the potential of which played out for the Royals in the first game of this series and is another in a series of reminders for the Cardinals from their recent opponents -- all of whom have talked about identifying a window to contend, a window to spend to contend, a window when the talent would all come together for an extended run of success. And all of whom have had those plans derailed, unable to take a spark of contention and turn it into a campfire all because they were so convinced the could become a blowtorch able to light at will.

More Post-Dispatch podcasts.

Please consider subscribing.

In its 14th 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.