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.