An Astro-Nomical Change.

For the first time since 1998, a Major League Baseball team will switch leagues. With the approval of Jim Crane's purchase of the franchise, the Houston Astros will move from the National League Central to the American League West by 2013, creating a balance between both leagues as a part of the proposed realignment.

While opinion has been heavily divided regarding the issue of whether or not there should be realignment (and, if there was, which team or teams should move/switch leagues), I've always been a staunch supporter of it. Think of it this way: there are 6 divisions in baseball today, and 4 of those divisions have 5 teams. However, the NL Central has 6, whereas the AL West has 4. That means that the odds of a team in the former making the playoffs is 1-in-6 compared to 1-in-5 for the others, and a team in the latter has a 1-in-4 chance. This kind of imbalance has made for some interesting circumstances (the Rangers had never won a postseason before 2010, yet they're now 2-time AL champions), but it's always looked silly to me. Why should MLB make it harder for the Brewers or Reds to reach the playoffs, but give the Mariners a better shot at it? Now that every division has the same number of teams, there's a feeling of fairness that's more present than I believe there has been since the last realignment. Let's face it, the Cubs probably won't be making a splash anytime soon, but now their chances are just as good as the other 29 teams (well, not really, but you get the picture).

This move also creates the possibility of a stronger Texas rivalry: the Rangers and Astros always face each other in interleague play, a ploy by MLB to generate interest in such a matchup that has largely gone unnoticed. These series have rarely had much impact, mostly because both teams have been bad for most of their history (the Rangers lead the Astros by 1 year as the expansion team with the longest World Series drought, 51 years to 50), and because a mid-June series between the two never had implications on the chances of either team winning the division. With the Astros' move, though, another layer is added to the rivalry, in that they could square off in September with the division on the line. This will definitely fire up Texas fans, and hopefully continue to garner some attention for baseball in a football state.

One of the main things fans are unhappy about with this move is that it would require an interleague game every single day of the season, making the supposed excitement and authenticity of the AL-vs.-NL matchups anything but interesting. Sure, everyone loves those forced snooze-fests between the Mariners and Padres (a nonsensical "rivalry" more perplexing than the one to be cultivated in Texas) that occur each June, but those games might now become commonplace. And for that matter, would this eliminate the 3-game series altogether? If a team is supposed to play not just the 14 other teams in their league but also the 15 teams in the opposing league, how do you fit at least 29 3-game series alone in a single 162-game season? There must be a system for rotating which teams an organization will face from year to year.

Until that time, though, we can sit back, relax, and enjoy the Astros' continued mediocrity in the National League before they take the show on the road to the American League. Maybe a league change is just what they need.