JUPITER, Fla. -- Thomas Saggese has questions for the host of the Best Podcast in Baseball.

Moments after finishing his first ever start in center field for the Cardinals, Saggese joins baseball writer Derrick Goold to talk about the transition to a new position and how much work he wants there before playing it in the regular season. But that's not all.

Through the years, Saggese has often shifted interviews to ask great questions he has about history, statistics, and specifically voting for the MVP, other awards, and the National Baseball Hall of Fame. He was invited on the podcast so he could flip the script and ask those questions as part of a conversation. What follows is a deep dive into the decisions that go with a ballot, whether it's the MVP ballot or the Hall of Fame.

The conversation explores how measuring a player with statistics contrasts with how a player measures themselves.

Saggese talks about how he values batting average but avoids looking at it, and how when he's thinking about hitting he's seeking feel. Goold wonders what the reaction would be if he explained his votes for MVP and Hall of Fame by saying it just "felt right." And yet there's more common ground between statistics measuring a players production, especially as they evolve, and how a player works for that production.

The podcast was recorded outside the Cardinals' new spring training facility, where construction continues.

You'll hear it.

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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.

JUPITER, Fla. -- On the even of the Cardinals opening their full-squad workouts for spring training, four reporters covering the camp gather at a table nearby the brand new complex to discuss the bran new questions facing a club in a rebuild.

Best Podcast in Baseball begins its 14th season as the leading podcast about the Cardinals and baseball in St. Louis with host Derrick Goold joined by KMOV/Channel 4 sports anchor Tamar Sher and two St. Louis Post-Dispatch colleagues, baseball writer Daniel Guerrero and columnist Benjamin Hochman for a roundtable discussion about what spring means and what spring must prove for the Cardinals.

The group discusses the players with the most opportunity this spring, the people facing the most pressure this spring, the player most likely to make the most of this spring, and also just how to judge a team that is departing from the franchise's historical pursuit of the next pennant to something more nebulous -- the next core.

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.

The Cardinals' winter of accumulation climaxed with the trade many months in the making: They moved All-Star utility fielder Brendan Donovan in a three-team trade to Seattle and received a windfall that included two of the Mariners' top-10 prospects and two draft picks, one each from the Mariners and Tampa Bay Rays.

So, it's time to take stock.

What did all of this subtraction actually add to the Cardinals?

Back from a brief winter vacation, the Best Podcast in Baseball returns to discuss exactly that. Post-Dispatch editor Nathan Mills joins BPIB host and baseball writer Derrick Goold to explore the ramifications of the Donovan deal and much more on the eve of spring training. The podcast also explores whether the Cardinals should prioritize a contract extension for manager Oli Marmol, what the bigger benefit is for the two draft picks acquired, and what to take from the Cardinals' rise to No. 2 in Baseball America's farm rankings.

It wasn't just prospects the Cardinals added this winter. They've got a bigger scouting apparatus -- they call it an acquisitions department -- and they're going to see how big and how soon that pays off.

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.