Astros to the American League?

[lockmat]

Interesting. I usually like tradition but wouldn't kinda fun to switch leagues? We'd get to play the Yankees and Red Sox regularly and of course one of the major reasons why is so we'd be able to have a regular rivalry with the Rangers. And since we'd be switching leagues, we'd see a slightly different brand of baseball, which tends to be a little more exciting.

A simple form of realignment being seriously considered has been raised in the labor talks between Major League Baseball and the players' association, according to four sources: two leagues of 15 teams, rather than the current structure of 16 teams in the National League and 14 in the American League.

Two highly ranked executives believe the Houston Astros would be a possibility, because a switch to the AL for Houston would foster a rivalry between the Astros and the Texas Rangers.

http://sports.espn.g...tory?id=6651634

[Fringe]

But we don't have a designated hitter.

[Highway6]

Bad ! No !

Pros (Sorrta): Rivalry with Rangers and Dallas ! Woohoo, I guess.

Cons: Existing rivalries with Cubs and Cardinals kaput!

Bigger Con: The other 3 teams in our AL West would be all on the west coast.. This mean much more travel time for division games, and a more road weary team. Seattle is twice as far as Chicago. Excluding Dallas, every city in our new division is farther or much farther than our farthest division city now ( Pittsburgh )

Bigger Con: Playing the majority of our away games in Pacific time. Ask Ranger fans how much they like having to stay up till midnight to finish a game.

Lastly, except for the Yankee-BoSox rivalry, the AL blows. Screw em.

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Strictly geographically speaking, The ( non AL or NL West) team that would make the most sense in switching over to a Western League would be the KC Royals. They are just as far from LA as we are, but being in the middle of the country, they are 400 miles closer to Seattle.

Move KC to the AL West... and move Milwaukee to the AL Central.

Milwaukee would make the most since for a switch to the AL since they played there for most of their existence up till 97.

MLB had the opportunity to even the leagues at 15 during the 94 expansion and decided against it for scheduling and Interleague Play reasons.. don't know why they would wanna visit this again.

[20thStDad]

It's fun to switch things up now and again. The national league is generally boring, and so are most of the NL central teams. Bring in some fresh colors.

[TV2EBoogaloo]

AL baseball sucks and the DL is stupid

this is a dumb idea I hope it fails

it would just establish the Astros as another nobody generic team with little or no real history and just to be shuffled around to where ever to make it easier on other teams and MLB

shuffle around a bunch of expansion teams or teams that have moved or need to move

[20thStDad]

AL baseball sucks and the DL is stupid

this is a dumb idea I hope it fails

it would just establish the Astros as another nobody generic team with little or no real history and just to be shuffled around to where ever to make it easier on other teams and MLB

shuffle around a bunch of expansion teams or teams that have moved or need to move

Move or stay, this remains true.

[Highway6]

Move or stay, this remains true.

We're almost middle of the pack history-wise..

16 teams were born in the 1880s and 90s.. MLB didn't expand again till 61-62 when 4 teams were founded including the Stros. 10 teams are younger than us.

You could look at it as we're the oldest of the modern era teams.

It's not the Stros fault they don't have 100 year history.. Harris County's population (37k) in 1890 was smaller than the current undergrad student body at A&M. Chicago had a population of 300k when the Cubs were founded in 1870 and over a million by 1890.

All that history and only 2 championships... Hell, the Marlins are only 18 yrs old and already have that. Cubs blow.

[LTAWACS]

But we don't have a hitter.

I fixed it for you.

[samagon]

I fixed it for you.

or a pitcher.

ugh?

[Tumbleweed_Tx]

the Astros aren't a bandwagon team, they're a schedule filler, always have been, always will be.

With that said, hell no they shouldn't move them to the Sissy League, unless they get rid of that dumb designated hitter experiment.

[lockmat]

the Astros aren't a bandwagon team, they're a schedule filler, always have been, always will be.

With that said, hell no they shouldn't move them to the Sissy League, unless they get rid of that dumb designated hitter experiment.

schedule filler? how is there even such a thing? And every team is a bandwagon team, all of 'em. People are fickle.

I did not know that this could take place next year per this article! http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=6659129&campaign=rss&source=ESPNHeadlines

The more I think about this, the more I'm unsure if I like the idea of us going to the AL. But if we had to, the last place I'd want to go is the AL West. If they're so concerned about us playing the Rangers, why don't they just switch them to the NL and send another two teams to the AL. California has multiple teams and they're not in the same league, same with Florida. I think the Astros were just thrown out there b/c we have a new owner and we are currently horrible. If we were good right now, I don't think it'd be us being considered.

And I agree with others, that if we're gonna do realignment, go all out and do it right. I'd like to see them group the teams by region better than they are now.

Also, I'm torn if the NL should add the DH or the AL should drop it. For traditions sake I'd say drop the DH, but the pitchers are just such horrible hitters I kind of think it's a wasted at bat. Anyone know how good the pitchers were good at hitting in the early to mid 1900's? I know Babe Ruth was a pitcher, too, but I think he's the exception.

[RedScare]

It's not the Stros fault they don't have 100 year history.. Harris County's population (37k) in 1890 was smaller than the current undergrad student body at A&M.

But the Aggie's have a baseball team in the World Series.

[Subdude]

At one point I was a real purist about these things and would have hated the idea. At the time I though interleague play was near apostasy. Anyway, if the point of MLB is to sell more tickets by fostering 'rivalries' then I agree: rather than tinkering around the edges do it right and go all the way.

Here's what I would do (edited from ESPN proposal).

EASTERN CONFERENCE

Eastern Division

Boston Red Sox

New York Mets

New York Yankees

Philadelphia Phillies

Pittsburgh Pirates

Southeast Division

Atlanta Braves

Baltimore Orioles

Florida Marlins

Tampa Bay Rays

Washington Nationals

Central Division

Cincinnati Reds

Cleveland Indians

Detroit Tigers

Toronto Blue Jays

WESTERN CONFERENCE

Midwest Division

Chicago Cubs

Chicago White Sox

Kansas City Royals

Milwaukee Brewers

Minnesota Twins

St. Louis Cardinals

Western Division

Arizona Diamondbacks

Colorado Rockies

Astros

Seattle Mariners

Texas Rangers

California Division

Los Angeles Angels

Los Angeles Dodgers

Oakland Athletics

San Diego Padres

San Francisco Giants

Link

On the other hand, it's silly to add another round of playoffs. Playing a season of 162 games should be a better indicator of who should advance than yet another playoff round.

[Fringe]

But if the Astros are in the same conference as the Rangers we will never get an all Texas world Series.

(I admit the Astros chances are pretty slim to get to the world series this year).

[Highway6]

(I admit the Astros chances are pretty slim to get to the world series this year).

You misspelled "Any"

[Fringe]

You misspelled "Any"

[stan the man]

From a personal standpoint of reason, moving the Astros to the AL would do more harm than good in the long run. The Astros have done relatively well in the half-century they have taken to the field as a member of the Senior Circuit, and a lot of the reasoning behind moving the Astros is because of...

• an ownership transition (from Drayton McLane to Jim Crane, and both sides view a move to the AL with relative disenchantment)
• the team's current situation (last place in all of baseball, but it's just one season out of many)
• lack of closer rivals (it was this way when the Astros played the NL West many years ago)
• the allure of seeing the overpriced, overindulged Yankees and Red Sox come to town every year (as if it's the only way to guarantee a profit at the gate), or
• you should see this from a mile away: a strengthened rivalry with the Rangers (for the last time, it already happens on a perennial basis anyway)

If realignment is considered, and given the possibility of the divisions being scrapped, it would make sense to plot the teams accordingly, regardless of whether or not a rivalry does exist:

1. Keep the historical teams in each league intact. The Yankees, Red Sox, Orioles, Indians, A's, Tigers, Twins and White Sox are all charter franchises of the Junior Circuit, and should not depart the AL (8 down, 22 to go). And the "Classic Eight" from the Senior Circuit - Dodgers, Giants, Braves, Phillies, Cubs, Cardinals, Pirates and Reds - should continue to be NL teams (16 down, 14 to go).
2. Pair according to their metro areas. Mets (17) with the Yankees, Cubs with the White Sox, Giants with the A's, Dodgers with the Angels (18), and Nationals (19) with the Orioles. Not to mention the Ohio Cup between the Reds and the Indians. I may also suggest pairing the Pirates with the Tigers due to their shared "Rust Belt" struggles and blue-collar industrialist histories, as well as the Braves with the Red Sox due to the Braves' early beginnings in Boston, the lack of an AL team in the Deep South, and the lack of an American NL team north of the Big Apple.
3. Now throw in the one intrastate rivalry involving 1 pre-1961 and 1 post-1961 team: Royals (20) vs. Cardinals.
4. And a similar one involving two different states: Brewers (21) vs. Twins. Some suggest the Brewers should go back to the AL, but Milwaukee does have an NL history with the Braves (after Boston and before Atlanta).
5. Now cobble together whatever interleague pairings exist among the remainder. Pair the Phillies with the Blue Jays (22) since their home cities have played significant roles in the early history of their respective countries. Next, pair the Padres (23) with the Mariners (24) since both teams share a spring training facility, their shares of Interstate 5 are near the borders with Canada (Seattle) and Mexico (San Diego), and the two cities have something to do with Eddie Vedder.
6. Per my view on realignment, the Astros (25) and Rangers (26) should remain in separate leagues. I would also add the possibility that MLB may split the contracts between the leagues for regular season games in the future (similar to how the Texans usually play on CBS and the Cowboys usually play on Fox), and in that scenario it would be senseless and inconvenient for one network to have a monopoly on Texas because their league package covers two Texas teams while the other package has no Texas teams.
7. I will simply go ahead and keep Florida as is. Historically, MLB expansion traditionally has been 2 teams in one league followed by 2 teams in the other. The last time the pattern was followed was 1993 when the Marlins (27) came on board the NL. When the Rays (28) joined in 1998, it was supposed to be the AL's turn.
8. That leaves us with the two interior West teams. The Rockies (29) and Diamondbacks (30) both play in the NL, but the Rockies joined with the Marlins in 1993 and that makes the Diamondbacks, in my opinion, the most plausible team to switch. Of course, Arizona fans and their team's front office will complain and point to their state's historical connections to the National League, which is why the Diamondbacks' founding owner (who has since sold the team after putting the team deep in the red) did not want his team to play in the American League. But having two 15-team leagues and a patently perfected, parity-friendly scheduling formula means that these same Senior Circuit ball clubs will still make at least one annual trip to town anyway and the Rockies' fanbase in Denver is already surrounded (sans Arizona) by AL franchises in Kansas City, Seattle, Minnesota and Oakland.

Moving the Astros to the AL may be what most in Baseball's Illuminati prefer, but it would come back to blow up in their face in the long run, particularly when they have to struggle with the Teflon-coated, one-size-fits-all Yankees for a pennant. I should also add that mid-to-small market teams still can't compete in MLB even with the luxury tax that was supposed to correct a variety of issues. Mark my words, if I were the commish, the Diamondbacks would be the more logical candidate to move over to the AL. Leave the Astros alone.

[Subdude]

Interesting idea to maintain the integrity of the charter franchises within the leagues, although that does maintain a good deal of the existing NL/AL overlap within some cities (LA, Chicago, NY). At this point I would lean toward blowing up the leagues as they stand and reconstitute them as geography-based conferences as I posted above.

All teams in Eastern time zone in Eastern Conference, everyone else in Western Conference. This would greatly cut down the amount of travel time for each team. The West Division would still encompass three time zones, but the others would all be fairly localized.

Like the current leagues, the conferences remain unbalanced at 14/16. I can't see where there's a crying need for a balanced configuration, and it makes scheduling a nightmare.

Inter-conference play would remain, limited like interleague now.

Each division would have one-two sub-championships, based on the two teams record against each other:

East:

- Yanks v Mets (NYC Cup)

- Phils v Pirates (PA Cup)

- Baltimore v DC

- Marlins v Rays (FLA Cup)

- Reds v Indians (Buckeye Cup)

West:

- Oakland v SF (Bay Cup)

- Angels v Dodgers (LA Cup)

- Astros v Rangers (TX Cup)

- KC v St Louis

- White Sox v Cubs (Chicago Cup)

This would keep the level of excitement high within each division without having to add another playoff round.

[plumber2]

Houston has a longer history with the NL than most think. The minor league Buffs were a farm team for the St. Louis Cardinals, way back when. I remember my father commenting on listening and following the Cardinals on the radio as a young man.