The Milwaukee Brewers opened play in as the then-Seattle Pilots. After moving to Wisconsin in , the team remained in the AL through the end of the season. Baseball expanded in and added the Arizona Diamondbacks and the then-Devil Rays. Like Sportscasting on Facebook. If we conservatively assume that they draw 5, additional fans in those games and that ticket prices are doubled as they were last time , it would be like an extra 10, fans in 12 games.
Folks, that's a lot of extra coin. Of course, this only works under certain scenarios, but at the very worst they would each come into town once a year. The two-hour time differential is a killer for television.
The Astros are starting their own network, so this is a huge consideration. Ratings are way down for west coast games. Of course, in most seasons, that amounts to only a few series a year.
Under the unbalanced schedule, you play 18 games within the division and six games outside of the division. So, for the west coast teams only three in the NL West that amounts to nine games. In the new AL West that would become 27 games. One possible scenario has the leagues disbanding the divisions and simply taking the top six teams as playoff teams. In that scenario you would play a balanced schedule with 10 games against each team.
That would be 15 games on the west coast not counting interleague play. That would be more manageable and that is something Jim Crane is more in favor of. It has often been said that talent tends to collect in one league more than the other.
Over the past couple of decades, the American League has dominated the All-Star games and have won more games in interleague play. And one that still seems significant. At least to old timers like me who still sometimes have to remind themselves of the league in which they play. Follow craigcalcaterra. We and our partners use cookies on this site to provide a better experience with content, analytics, ads and to help improve security on our site.
To accept cookies, close this box or continue to use our site, otherwise please do not use this website. To close this box, click I agree. Cookie Policy. If we do that, then we'll take the strikeouts that come with it. Luhnow largely echoed those remarks in an interview with Evan Drellich of the Houston Chronicle and added that a lineup loaded with power threats is "good for our ballpark.
So instead of a different offense, perhaps Houston's mission would have been to build an even better pitching staff, with the idea being to beat the Cardinals, Pirates and Cubs at their own game. In addition to shoring up their bullpen with Luke Gregerson and Pat Neshek, maybe this would have entailed going hard after big rotation upgrades.
But looking at things now, you wonder how much better such efforts possibly could have made Houston's pitching. The Astros' 3. The Astros thus could have done nothing differently and would still have the kind of pitching staff that could go toe to toe with those in the rest of the division. That could have been their excuse to turn their attention back to their offense, which may have led them right back to the whiffs-for-power conundrum. In so many words, exactly how different the Astros would look if they still played in the NL Central is a damn good question.
There's a real chance, however, that they'd have put the same team on the field only to be met with drastically different results than the ones they're enjoying in the AL West. In which case, we might not be talking about their rebuild needing a bit more work rather than them being on the cusp of the postseason. But this is where the thought experiment ends, and where the only path available is the one that leads back to the bright side.
That's the reality that all of the above has indeed been a mere thought experiment. The fact is the Astros are not members of the NL Central, nor were they ever going to be this season. They're not on the cusp of October because they've dodged a bullet. They're on the cusp of October because they spent years building a foundation for a contender, and because they hit all the right notes in taking the next step in recent months.
After doing all that, the Astros being in the right place at the right time is nothing to hold against them. It's just another part of their story to appreciate.
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