DENVER — Toward the end of his first professional season, not too long after he told a roommate Oliver Marmol about his personal and accelerated timetable to reach the majors, Matt Carpenter got a phone call that could have forever changed his career in baseball.

He was approached about being a coach, and he was tempted to take it.

The next summer his playing career took off.

There are baseball cards galore and probably a Cardinals Hall of Fame red jacket in his future that tell how that story ended, but Carpenter shares with the Best Podcast in Baseball how close he came to moving to a role in the game that he might eventually also have. A three-time All-Star who returned to the Cardinals for the 2024 season, Carpenter joins the Best Podcast in Baseball and baseball writer Derrick Goold for a conversation many months in the making. The two spoke this past week near the batting cage at Coors Field, just ahead of the Cardinals' season finale in San Francisco.

From his early days with the Cardinals as a spring-training standout and favorite of manager Tony La Russa, Carpenter's career had to constantly evolve.

He became a second baseman. He became a leadoff hitter. He broke a doubles record long held by Stan Musial, and then his changed his swing and late in one season led the National League in homers and slugging on his way to MVP considerations. And through it all, a coach's kid out of Texas who judged his production by how high above .300 his average was had to learn in real time as the game shifted to take that away from him, quite literally. He had to embrace slugging. He had to reinvent his swing. He had to reclaim his career.

And over the course of this season, Goold asked Carpenter if he would talke about all he learned about Major League Baseball's modern offense and how difficult it has become to be a hitter in a game when failure, already abundant, is increasing.

Consider the math.

As batting average has grown less important, hitters are being told they can do more with a .270 average and slugging than singling their way to a .330 average, and still that difference is six outs, six fewer times succeeding.

Carpenter has some thoughts and offers lots of insight.

This brand-new BPIB begins as all good stories do on a road trip with Matt Holliday and Carpenter and the trouble they encountered somewhere between Stillwater, Oklahoma, and Memphis, Tennessee. The conversation also touches on what went sideways for the Cardinals' offense during a season that will finish with a winning record but nowhere close to the team's stated goal of contending for the NL Central title and returning to the playoffs. Carpenter also discusses his immediate and longterm future, which brings up the story about the phone call he received while playing Class A baseball for the Cardinals with an offer he wasn't sure he could refuse.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

A year after "pitching, pitching, pitching" dictated the Cardinals' approach to the offseason, the club faces a far broader challenge this winter.

PR, PR, PR.

Or, as Best Podcast in Baseball guest Brooke Grimsley, noted: "Change, change, change."

The 2024 Cardinals' season comes to a close with the club trying ot break the hold of .500 and avoid a second losing season, what would be the first back-to-back losing seasons in a full schedule since Stan Musial played for the team in the late 1950s. Crowds, like wins and playoff appearances, have dwindled, and the one-off season the Cardinals promised after 2023 has become something more problematic for the club: a trend.

Grimsley, co-host of The Opening Drive at ESPN 101.1 FM/WXOS in St. Louis, said the feedback they've received from listeners and fans suggest that fans are moving from anger to acceptance to something more alarming for any club -- apathy.

With BPIB host and St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer Derrick Goold, Grimsley discusses what messages and actions the Cardinals could take in the coming weeks and months to reanimate and engage the fan base. They discuss not just player movement and moves but how important comments, direction, and transparency from the front office could be, and what the role media plays in gathering that info and relaying it to fans.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.

Despite the smallest market in Major League Baseball, the Milwaukee Brewers have become a marvel of what it means to be a modern contender.

The organization the Cardinals used to be and the Cubs wanted to be , the Brewers now are, complete with the 10-game lead in the division standings ahead of the former kings with a month of the season remaining. MLB.com's longtime Brewers beat writer Adam McCalvy joins the Best Podcast in Baseball to talk about Milwaukee's rise within the division and reign atop. McCalvy talks with Best Podcast in Baseball host and baseball writer Derrick Goold about the "culture" the Brewers have created, one that seems to benefit from the team's business model, strong development infrastructure, and something the Cardinals have not shown, and may not be able to show.

Patience.

The Brewers appear to have hit Yatzhee on almost every move. They waited out the market to land Christian Yelich from Miami via trade, ending up with the best fit of the three Marlins outfielders available at the time and an MVP-caliber player. While the Cardinals were also shopping for a catcher, they joined in a trade to help Atlanta land catcher Sean Murphy from the Oakland Athletics and may have ended up with the best catcher in the deal, William Contreras. They fended off interest in Corbin Burnes to watch him become a Cy Young Award ace, and then traded him ahead of him leaving for free agency to then nourish a roster that again is contending.

McCalvy details the Brewers' business model and also how much they've invested in development, and how it continues successful at the major-league level, even as players move out or move out.

The two baseball writers also share some thoughts on Wisconsin-accurate accents and wax nostalgic about legendary slugger Joey Meyer the 1990s Denver Zephyrs.

The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design of St. Louis, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold.