While discussing how Major League Baseball could proactively move to help smaller-market clubs remain competitive, KMOX/1120 AM host and frequent Best Podcast in Baseball guest Kevin Wheeler strikes upon a model the Cardinals could aspire to emulate during their self-imposed reset.

"The Atlanta Braves," Wheeler suggests.

A team that develops, acquires, and keeps young impact players, Atlanta is closer, Wheeler argues, to the Cardinals in operations than the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers, aggressive-spending Philadelphia Phillies, or some of the big-budget barons of the American League. That prompts a look, position by position, about how the Cardinals could mirror Atlanta, and how wide the gap is for them to close. The Cardinals can start by accumulating talent, and that is what they're looking to do via trade this winter and, potentially, through the next season.

This leads to the question on whether the Cardinals have a homegrown, surefire, superstar hitter ready to take a "Golden At-Bat" -- which is all the talk this past week as the commissioner referenced a rule that would allow a team to choose its hitter for a pivotal moment in a game, disregarding the lineup and more than a century of estabslihed rule for the drama. 

The Cardinals' front office heads to Dallas for the annual Winter Meetings on Sunday (Dec. 8), and they're in trade-talk mode. This brand new episode of BPIB, hosted by baseball writer Derrick Goold, begins by looking at the dominos that must fall elsewhere in the market for teams to turn toward the Cardinals and begin some holiday shopping with St. Louis.

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