Can Cardinals' Hot Stove spark excitement in busy St. Louis sports scene as lockout looms?

With City SC headed toward the MLS playoffs, SLU men's basketball set to host Mizzou, and the Mizzou football team about to face Texas, there's a lot of potential excitement for sports fans in St. Louis.

At the same time, the Cardinals, committed to their rebuild, reach what could be a race to the lockout.

In this landscape, what needs to happen for the Cardinals' Hot Stove to spark attention?

Tamar Sher, sports anchor and reporter at KMOV/Channel 4, and Post-Dispatch sports columnist Benjamin Hochman join Best Podcast in Baseball host Derrick Goold to discuss the events in St. Louis and where Cardinals fit and whether they need to make a splashy move in this short window to invigorate the fan base. Hochman has a suggestion. He'd like the team to sign a specific free-agent third baseman, and that spurs the discussion that eventually leads to what happens when baseballn stops. Major League Baseball and the players' union appear unlikely to finalize a new Collective Bargaining Agreement before the current one expires at Dec. 1 and a lockout begins by the morning of Dec. 2. That will put a freeze on all major-league activities and interactions between teams and players. 

The podcast discusses whether that also puts a chill in the vibe around the Cardinals, or if it just further focuses the conversation on where it has been during the rebuild -- on the rising, young talent in the minors and when those players will arrive.

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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.