Astros to the AL: Angels Express Concern over Travel, Extra Interleague Games

In the days leading up to baseball's annual owner's meeting this year, some baseball team executives voiced their opposition to a plan that would move the Houston Astros from the NL Central to the AL West prior to the 2013 MLB season.

Among those expressing doubt over the proposal was Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim president John Carpino, who attended the owner's meeting on behalf of Angels owner Arte Moreno.

Carpino indicated he disagreed with the idea primarily because of the increased travel, rather than the addition of a new foe in the AL West.

Carpino speculated the wisest decision would also make the most "geographical sense." Carpino added, "Does throwing the Astros in the AL West solve the real issues except making two 15-team leagues?"

And evening out the leagues to 15 teams apiece is exactly the motivation behind commissioner Bud Selig's decision to include, as a condition of the Astros' sale to businessman Jim Crane, the requirement that Houston move to the American League by 2013.

When it comes to travel and logistics, Carpino is right. Houston is in eastern Texas while Anaheim—sorry, Los Angeles—is in western California.

The distance between Houston's Minute Maid Park and Angel Stadium of Anaheim is 1,533 miles. Oakland is even farther away and Seattle—forget about it (2,383 miles).

Meanwhile, the distance between Angel Stadium and Rangers Ballpark in Arlington is 1,416 miles.

In other words, the Angels already are traveling a significant distance when they visit the Texas Rangers. Is 117 miles really something worth getting so worked up about?

For those who think a time zone set of divisions would solve things, keep in mind that the distance between Seattle's Safeco Field and the San Diego Padres' Petco Park is 1,257 miles.

By comparison, when the Boston Red Sox fly down to play the Tampa Bay Rays for an AL East matchup, they travel 1,378 miles. 

Quite frankly, there is no easy way around the distance issue.

Then there's that simple mathematical quandary of how to schedule 15 teams in each league.

Short of creating a dreaded set of three-game byes for the odd team out in each league every series, MLB will keep every team playing baseball at a price of consistent interleague play.

Teams would each play the most games intradivisionally and almost as many within their league. The remainder would be comprised of interleague matchups.

For instance, the Angels would play 72 games against the AL West, 60 games against the AL Central and AL East and 30 games against the National League, for a grand total of 162 seasonal contests, a length which has not changed since 1996.

Whether it is Angels-Cubs, Yankees-Dodgers or Red Sox-Cardinals, interleague play expansion increases parity and the opportunity to see everyone else.

Carpino raised doubts about expanding interleague play to include 30 games, as opposed to the 18 AL-NL contests that the Angels and other AL teams currently experience. He argues, "We could have our pitchers at risk because some series they're hitting, some they're not."

The truth of the matter is the interleague argument dates back to the 1997 introduction of regular interleague play.

It also questions the value of bifurcating the 30 clubs into one group of 15 teams that relies on the DH and another group that annually presents one of its pitchers with a Silver Slugger Award.

Without a doubt, the AL-NL setup is pitch perfect for deciding the champions of baseball: the World Series is quite obvious.

Every major sports league must arbitrarily or strategically divide its teams into two groups for the terminal purpose of determining its respective national champion. The NFL has the AFC and NFC while the NBA and NHL both employ Eastern and Western Conferences.

MLB has an American League and a National League and is the only major sport in which the rules differ quite crucially between the two.

Is it finally time to abandon decades of history and standardize the DH—or lack thereof—throughout the baseball world?

Though Selig and other MLB executives have not indicated any desire to do away with the interleague rules differences, other team executives have joined the Angels' Carpino in expressing their thoughts about increased interleague play.

Rangers GM Jon Daniels expressed intrigue as opposed to doubt, stating he is "interested to see what the impact is on interleague play...whether we need to factor that into how we put the roster together."

All things considered, realigning the divisions to create six sets of five teams each is the fair thing to do. The move will give each of MLB's 30 teams an equal chance at winning a division or advancing to the postseason via one of two wild-card slots that will exist in each league.

By expanding the wild card to two AL and two NL teams, baseball finally extends the postseason, giving a full one-third of MLB's 30 clubs a chance to play in October.

In the NFL, 12 of 32 AFC and NFC teams make the playoffs, while the NBA and NHL offer postseason berths to 16 of their 30 respective teams. By inviting 10 of 30 AL and NL clubs to the postseason, MLB finally joins the other leagues in placing greater value on its playoffs process—to an extent.

By holding a new wild-card playoff round, MLB will evoke impressions of the NCAA Basketball Tournament with its play-in games, a kick-start to the postseason festivities.

Picture it this way.

Baseball fans everywhere are familiar with the 2011 Tampa Bay Rays gaining access to the postseason on the final day of the regular season. The story is dramatic: The Boston Red Sox fell to the Baltimore Orioles while the Rays defeated the New York Yankees in a classic, extra-inning, walk-off wild-card clincher.

Under the 2012 or 2013 structure, the Rays would have additionally been forced to play the Red Sox during an additional one-game playoff, winner take all.

If that sounds like a tiebreaker, that's because it is.

By expanding to two wild-card teams per league, MLB would guarantee that two playoff tiebreaker games would be played every year. The wild-card team with the better record would presumably receive home-field advantage during the one-game wild-card round of the playoffs.

Selig hailed the proposal as "historic," while acknowledging, "It won't be perfect. Nothing in any schedule is ever perfect, but this will be very good."

In the end, Selig is right. The proposal is not perfect, it has created some friction within the affected divisions and amongst their teams.

However, Selig is also correct in stating, "this will be very good."

It will. It is fair, expands the playoffs and provides fans with greater exposure to storied franchises they wouldn't otherwise have seen.

As Carpino concluded, "It's not that we're opposed to it—we don't have all the particulars to cast judgment...But if it's good for Angels fans and baseball, we're for it."

Fear not, Angels fans.

In the end, it will be good for the Angels and it will be good for baseball.