MLB out to ruin baseball again

Hooray, time for a sports blog! I recently heard some rather disturbing news that Major League Baseball is considering a move to "realign" all teams in the sport. According to the report from "a top official", the 6 divisions would be done away with completely and only the 2 leagues with 16 teams each would remain. The top 8 teams with the best record from each league would then make the playoffs. On paper this makes a lot of sense. In most recent history for instance, the top team in the National League West would make the playoffs with a sub .500 record while a team in the National League East would miss out on the playoffs with a 90+ win season simply because they play in a better division. So this would essentially eliminate the wildcard and all the shenanigans that go along with it. Great.

Ok, where this plan is not so good is in the details. For the plan to executed, one National League team would have to jump to the American League side since there are currently 16 National League teams and only 14 American League teams. This is a relic of the last "realignment" that changed the amount of divisions from 2 to 3 and added the wild card with the Milwaukee Brewers jumping from the American League to the National League for some reason leaving the NL Central with 6 teams (only division with 6 teams) and the AL West with 4 teams (only division with 4 teams). So obviously the solution is to just move the Brewers back to the American League where they belong, right? Well, no. In MLB's infinite wisdom, they have allegedly proposed moving the Astros from the National League to the American League to incite some sort of rivalry between them and the Rangers.

This is dumb for a multitude of reasons. Bear in mind that the following opinions are those of an Astros fan and are thereby biased as such. First off, I believe that the Astros have been selected for realignment simply because they are absolutely miserable right now*. They are dead last in almost every stat in baseball and also have the worst record in all of baseball. So I think the MLB's thinking was along the lines of "who the hell cares what happens to the Astros". Well, for starters, I do. A lot of people do. This is not some pitiful franchise that has never accomplished anything like the, pardon my rudeness, Milwaulkee Brewers. The Brewers' only pennant was in 1982 when they were an American League team. It only makes sense to move a team that has a League Championship back to the league they won that championship in. It would be equally stupid to move the Astros, a team that has a National League Championship, into a league where that would essentially mean nothing. This is really the most no-brainer part of my argument.

My second point of contention is that the American League has the Designated Hitter. The DH is an abomination to baseball. Always has been, always will be. I enjoy watching the National League brand of the sport where all 9 players on the field have to take an at-bat. The strategy and "small-ball", boring as some may say, are really what make the sport great for me. I don't really have much else to add here other than to reiterate how much the DH sucks and is ruining baseball.

Lastly, it has been said that an Astros and Texas Rangers rivalry would be good for the region. I couldn't disagree more. While it is generally good fun when the Astros and Rangers play each other during the regular season, the proposed rivalry could never top the current rivalry the Astros currently have with the St. Louis Cardinals. In the glory days of the Astros in 2003-2005, the Cardinals played a large part in the Astros getting to their first NLCS and finally winning it the next year. Everyone is always going to remember the shot that Albert Pujols hit off of Brad Lidge with 2 outs in the top of the 9th inning of game 5 of the NLCS that would have sent the Astros to their first World Series in team history. All the history is already there. You simply can’t create rivals by switching teams around the league. They are made on the field of play.

Anyway, I guess the point of this post is for me to just vent a little about the current ideas being pondered by Major League Baseball. MLB, if nothing else, is great at coming up with ideas for solving problems that don’t really exist. If you don't believe me, just look at the dumb All-Star game. Their best bet is to just leave well-enough alone and stop tinkering with is otherwise a great sport.

*Don't even get me started on how pathetic the Astros are this season. I don't even want to talk about it.