What dominoes need to fall for teams to begin holiday shopping for trades with the Cardinals?

When discussing how Major League Baseball owners could proactively overhaul revenue sharing to help clubs in smaller markets remain competitive, KMOX/1120 AM host and Best Podcast regular joins Baseball guest Kevin Wheeler a model the Cardinals could emulate during their self-imposed reset.

It’s not a team with comparable market size, but it is one that was most similar to the Cardinals when it came to revenue until recent seasons.

“The Atlanta Braves,” Wheeler suggests.

Atlanta is a team that develops, acquires and retains young impact players. Wheeler argues that Atlanta is closer in action to the Cardinals than the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers, the big-spending Philadelphia Phillies or some of the big-budget Barons of the American League. This leads to thinking position by position about how the Cardinals could mirror Atlanta and how big of a gap they need to fill. The Cardinals can start accumulating talent, which is exactly what they’re hoping to do through trades this winter and possibly next season.

This leads to the question of whether the Cardinals have a homegrown, surefire superstar hitter ready to win a golden at-bat – which was all talked about last week when the commissioner referenced a rule that would allow a team to choose it’s batsman for a crucial moment in a game, without regard to the lineup and more than a century of established reign for the drama.

The Cardinals front office heads to Dallas for the annual winter meetings on Sunday (December 8) and is in trade talk mode. This all-new episode of BPIB, hosted by baseball writer Derrick Goold, begins with a look at the dominoes that must fall elsewhere in the market for teams to turn to the Cardinals and do some holiday shopping with St. Louis.

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