Astros Deal is Done And it Stinks

Major League Baseball has announced that Jim Crane has been approved as the new owner of the Houston Astros. That's not the bad part. It is a good thing for the Astros future to be finalized so they can move on with the rest of their lives. The bad news is that the announcement coincides with an Astros move to the American League West in 2013 to join the Rangers. It's the first realignment in baseball since the Brewers switched from the American League to the National League.

This decision stinks for several reasons. First, the Astros have a fifty year history in the National League. When the Brewers moved to the NL, they were a relatively new franchise that didn't have as much vested in history. That's not the case with the Astros. The Rockies and Diamondbacks are both newer franchises than the Astros and would have had a better case for making the switch, not to mention that both of those franchises are already in a western division. The goal of any realignment plan should be to at least make geographically correct divisions. This move does not do that at all.

The Rangers were already out of place. All you have to do is look at this time zone map to see what this author means:

With the new alignment two-thirds of the Astros and Rangers away games will start two hours later than their time zone. That's not only stupid, but bad for the teams' fans and bad for the players' logistics. Comments on the linked post above also seem to indicate the change might go against the Astros lease agreement with their stadium.

So now we have two teams badly placed in divisions. We wrench the Astros away from a league they have played in for fifty years and the equal but uneven number of teams in each league will mean constant interleague play, a feature not exactly in this Fan's happy spot.

It's a poor plan that is poorly executed and no change would have been better than this change. Golly...

The Fan's Realignment Plan

Buster Olney over at ESPN.com reported yesterday that MLB and the players union are discussing moving a National League team over to the American League to even out the two leagues to 15 teams each. This Fan has maintained for quite a while that realignment is overdue. Two other proposals talked about in Olney's report were that Houston might be that NL team and that there is consideration for the abandonment of the division format. Boy, that gives us a lot to talk about.

Let's get the easy one out of the way. No divisions would be a huge mistake. While baseball did play with two ten team leagues for many years, fifteen teams in one big blob just seems unseemly. Plus, this Fan (and probably other fans) likes having three division races to cover all the time. It's more exciting than just having one big blob of a league and taking the top five teams for the playoffs. While that would ensure the best five teams in each league getting to the playoffs (based on record, not division), what you would lose outweighs what you would gain. Though this issue seems the easiest to dismiss, the Fan wouldn't be surprised he gets plenty of counter-arguments on this one alone. Perhaps a more balanced schedule would be created by this idea and that would be one of the arguments to be sure. But an extra wild card round already takes care of a lot of those concerns about good teams getting screwed by the current system.

The other sticking point for this Fan is the idea of the Astros joining the American League. The problem here is that one of the current inequities of the current divisions as they stand now is having the Texas Rangers in the American League West. While the AL West needs to have four teams, the travel this gives the Rangers is difficult. Plus, it would make more sense to choose a team like the Diamondbacks, who are one of the newest teams in baseball to make the switch than a team with a tradition that goes back to the early 1960s.

And so, the Fan's plan is very simple. Only two teams get moved. The Texas Rangers join the AL Central and the Arizona Diamondbacks move to the AL West. Sure, that gives the AL West a lot of teams, but that's already the case with the NL West. Why would the Astros need to have more competition with the Rangers as Olney suggests? The Yankees don't need to compete with the Mets do they? This "excitement" is already covered in the interleague games.

Perhaps this Fan is among the few who enjoys the current division format. You have the potential for six division races that still mean something. With the Fan's plan, you have the smallest amount of disruption to the current system, fix an inequity for the Rangers and still keep a western team where it belongs. Makes sense here. Arguments are welcome though.

**Update: One further thought: Except for two days a week, every team plays games. If you have two odd numbered divisions, wouldn't that create an interleague situation for every one of those other five days a week?

Realignment Proposal

It's been a while since the major leagues realigned the divisions. How many of you remember the Milwaukee Brewers as an American League team? The problem with many realignment proposals are that usually, too many teams have to jump leagues. This linked blog post from a very good blog suggests something really radical. So radical that the heart stops just thinking about it. All those teams jumping leagues is just too stomach churning to consider. After all, the Yankees playing in the National League. Say what!? But there are options and obviously, when the Toronto Blue Jays are in an eastern division, something is goofy. Here's a plan:

Here are the current configurations:

American League

East

Red Sox, Blue Jays, Yankees, Bay Rays, Orioles

Central

White Sox, Tigers, Royals, Indians, Twins

West

Angels, Rangers, A's, Mariners

National League

East

Mets, Phillies, Marlins, Braves, Nationals

Central

Reds, Cardinals, Pirates, Cubs, Astros, Brewers

West

Dodgers, Giants, Rockies, Diamondbacks, Padres


When looking at it as a whole, it's really not that bad. But there are a couple of teams that don't fit. The already mentioned Blue Jays are not close to the rest of the east teams. The Indians are more east than central and the Rangers aren't far enough West.

There are problems. First, there aren't enough AL West teams. With only four, there aren't enough teams left if you take the Rangers out of there. Somebody is going to have to jump leagues because no other American League team is located close to the west coast.

When asking a team to jump leagues, the first thing to consider is tradition. You can't move a team like the Dodgers, Giants, Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs and other iconic teams to a new league. The better route is to take a team that is fairly new and doesn't have the weight of history against it. The Brewers were such a team during the last realignment.

Weighing all the factors and the geography, here is a new proposal for the divisions. The green teams are teams that change divisions. The red teams change leagues.

New American League

East

Red Sox, Yankees, Orioles, Bay Rays, Indians

Central

Rangers, Blue Jays, White Sox, Twins, Tigers, Royals

West

A's, Angels, Mariners, Diamondbacks

New National League

East

Mets, Braves, Nationals, Marlins, Phillies, Pirates

Central

Cubs, Cardinals, Reds, Astros, Brewers

West

Dodgers, Padres, Rockies, Giants

Under this plan, only five teams jump divisions and only one team jumps leagues. The Pirates would have a great rivalry with the Phillies. The west divisions each have four teams and Toronto and the Rangers are more in line with where they are geographically. The Diamondbacks are fairly new, have had some success in the past and could adapt easily.

Makes sense to this Fan.