Astros Sale, Realignment To American League Slowly Progressing

Jim Crane is expected to be approved as the new owner of the franchise, contingent on the Astros moving to the American League West in 2013.

MLB Realignment: Jim Crane Wants $50 Million Discount To Move Astros To The American League

The potential sale of the Houston Astros to Jim Crane has hit a snag, because commissioner Bud Selig wants to move the Astros to the American League. However, Crane in exchange for a move to the American League wants a $50 million reduction of the $680 million price tag:

Sources told The Post that Crane -- who reached a deal in May to buy the Astros from Drayton McLane for $680 million -- is asking for a price reduction in the $50 million range to make the move.On that front, the two sides are in the "ballpark" on the price, although a deal is far from certain, sources said.

Crane argues the move to the AL would hurt the value of the franchise because the Astros would be playing more late-night games against West Coast teams. 

Even if the price drops from $680 million to $630 million the amount would be the second most expensive sale of a MLB behind the Chicago Cubs who were sold for $845 million back in 2009.

Drayton, Crane And The Rangers Success

Houston Astros To The AL: Reports Indicate Team's Sale Will Coincide With League Change

The sale of the Astros is apparently contingent on Houston leaving the NL Central for the AL West.

Astros More And More Likely Heading To AL West

Whooo-boy. We’re heading to a big decision for Houston baseball fans. Reporting coming out of the commissioner’s office sounds like there’s going to be realignment and one team will be moving from the National League back to the American League.

Drayton McLane keeps denying having any discussions with management about that, but is that surprising? Maybe Selig is going through Jim Crane now that Drayton has agreed to sell. Maybe (gasp) Drayton is out of the loop.

Of course, it also seems that Selig himself doesn’t know what’s going on yet with realignment. All the talk about moving the Astros or Diamondbacks stems from talking with unnamed owners. Is it surprising other owners aren’t going to like playing in a six team division? As we’ve talked about before, the problem in the NL Central isn’t competing against more teams than the AL West, it’s that the other teams haven’t been very good for that time.

For those thinking about a uniform DH rule in both leagues, it seems the player’s union is for it, while Selig thinks it would take a “cataclysmic event” to change that rule.

I don’t know what to think about realignment. It’s not taking place for a year or two yet at the earliest, so we’ll have months and months more of these stories to get through. At least until the new collective bargaining agreement is reached.

MLB Realignment: Drayton McLane Does Not Want Astros In American League

The Astros haven’t been sold yet, so while he doesn’t have much power left in the franchise, Drayton McLane is using the last few minutes of fame he has to let you know that he wants no part of the Astros moving to the American League.

"I’ve always been a National League guy," McLane told me Monday morning. "I think our fans are National League fans."

Drayton said when he toured Minute Maid Park on Sunday, "it was all anyone wanted to talk about."

And they weren’t supportive of a move?

"Absolutely not," he said.

I think there’s something to be said for the idea that Astros fans oppose the move just based on tradition alone rather than the merits of the switch. Of course, there are plenty of legitimate reasons why Astros fans wouldn’t want to move either, and we’ve already gone over those.

The short of it is that while Astros fans continue to not be opposed to the move, baseball columnists continue to write about how much sense it would make for the league as a whole. That may be true, but it’s hardly any consolation to Astros fans.

MLB Realignment: Pros And Cons Of The Proposed Astros Switch To The American League

I’m not really a fan of debating about the relative strengths or weaknesses of a league, as I believe long-term those are fairly cyclical, so I’m not going to follow Astros County’s lead and say that the American League is generally stronger. Take the Astros and Pirates out of the equation last year and the NL would have won more interleague games than the AL. The AL has less hopeless teams than the National League, but the Astros aren’t in a position to take advantage of that right now because they can’t play themselves.

Anyway, here are one Houstonian's thoughts on this possible move:

PROS

1) It’s a solid move for Major League Baseball as a whole. The Astros and Rangers aren’t in the Pacific or Mountain time zones, but they’re the closest thing to it geographically as far as filling those last two slots of ten. It makes more sense to put the Astros in the AL then it does to put two other NL West teams in the AL and move the Rangers to the NL. Logistically speaking, considering that the 14/16 format has been outdated ever since the advent of interleague play, it might be the best move that MLB could hope to make.

2) In theory, it would make it easier for the Astros to get to the playoffs. Despite the fact that the Pirates have been doormats for the entirety of the divisional era, moving from a division with six teams to one with five teams does make it easier to actually reach the playoffs, as you have one less team to compete with.

CONS

1) The Astros uh, “rivalry” with the Rangers, isn’t much of one. Houston is a National League town, and the Rangers were seen as more of a curiosity here than an actual rival when the Astros were winning. It may have helped if the teams were good at the same time, but even traditionally, Dallas and Houston haven’t been terrific sports rivals over the years in any real way. The hottest rivalry the two cities have is on the MLS pitch, which tells you everything you need to know.

2) Lets talk about the thing that a lot of national columnists are pitching: the guaranteed series with the Yankees and Red Sox. Let me be the first to say: who cares? They’re in the AL East, and the Astros would be in the AL West. That’s 6 guaranteed games of boosted attendance a year. The Astros would be moving to a division where they have no actual teams that draw fans, and they already have 6 games with the Cubs that traditionally do that. So while it sounds good in theory, there really isn’t much benefit to Houston. Side note: why on Earth is having 20,000 bandwagon Yankees or Red Sox fans pack your stadium’s stands a good thing for anyone?

3) The Astros may find it easier sledding to make the playoffs, but because they are almost guaranteed to face the Yankees or Red Sox in the event that they get there, their overall chances of actually winning a World Series probably go down in this situation. Yes, anyone can beat anyone in a seven game series, but the Red Sox and Yankees up the level of competition in the AL for those last few spots and outspend any team in their path. A hypothetical good Astros team would have a better shot in the NL playoffs, where they’d only have to face the Sox or Yankees in the playoffs once.

4) If MLB kept the unbalanced schedule, the Astros would have to play more road games on the West Coast. Houston barely qualifies as West to begin with, and the eyes are going to glaze over for mediocre Astros squads when they play west coast games for all but the most diehard fans. It’s a sure way to lose television viewers.

5) Due to the higher costs of competing with the Yankees and the cost of actually employing a ninth full-time member of the starting lineup, the Astros would likely have to drop a few extra million every year to fill out their squad. Jon Paul Morosi talked about Carlos Lee being on the squad as if that was a reason to have the DH, but for Lee to be a good DH we’d have to wind the clock back to 2008.

That’s not even getting into the loss of traditional rivalries and such that the Astros have developed with their main opponents over the years. No Cardinals, no Mets, no Cubs, no Braves. I think the best thing I could say for the proposal to move the Astros to the American League is that it makes a lot of sense for baseball as a whole: it evens up the leagues, is the easiest solution for travel, and if a balanced schedule is instituted, it will make things more “fair” for teams.

But I really can’t see any reason that it makes sense for the Astros. Maybe Bud Selig will make it clear that it’s in the best interest of Jim Crane to accept it, but there doesn’t appear to be much of a benefit beyond getting one less team in their division. Even then, considering how poor the Pirates have traditionally been, that doesn’t mean much.

MLB Realignment: Astros Rumored To Be Heading To American League

Over the weekend, news was broken by ESPN.com's Buster Olney that Major League Baseball was considering a realignment of it's teams that would force the Houston Astros to the American League. Olney even wrote that it might be a condition of the approval of the Astros sale. 

One of the biggest issues that would have to be resolved in any realignment resulting in two 15-team leagues is which of the National League teams would switch to 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.

The Marlins could be another candidate, a source suggested.

Houston Chronicle beat writer Zachary Levine followed up with a lengthy piece that dismissed most of the ideas, but still seemed to leave the question of moving to the American League open. CultureMap Houston has an exclusive source that says that Crane will not accept the move if it is presented to him:

"Jim is a businessman first, but he's also a traditionalist in many ways," the ownership group source tells CultureMap. "He's a pitcher (in college) and he loves the National League game. He grew up in St. Louis. This is not something he's looking for. This group certainly didn't buy the team with the intention of it becoming an American League franchise."

That seems a little silly. Not the preference to stay in the National League, I'll accept that, but the idea that Crane would give up on the sale because the Astros are moving to the AL seems preposterous. For one thing, Crane has already tried to buy the Rangers. This sounds more like saber-rattling in an attempt to get more favorable terms than anything.

SB Nation's Rob Neyer is in favor of the Astros move to the AL, but he seems to do it from more of a universal perspective than an actual interest in what happens in Houston:

Baseball won't be any less entertaining if the Astros switch to the American League. Baseball won't be any less entertaining if there's an interleague game every day of the season. Baseball won't be any less entertaining if the divisions are eliminated, with the top five teams in each league qualifying for the postseason tournament.

In fact, it's that latter possibility that particularly intrigues me. I think it'll be a lot of fun, seeing the standings presented that way, with the top five teams -- the first division, just like in the old days -- highlighted, and the second division teams fighting their way toward the first division.

Obviously, more on this story as it further develops. It doesn't seem like an incredibly likely scenario at this point, but it can't be easily dismissed with this many baseball writers discussing it.

Early Talk Of A Potential Switch To The American League Fosters Strong Emotions From Houston Astros Fans

The Astros Are Perfectly Fine In The National League

A move to the American League would spike interest, but would it make the Astros winners or losers?