(04-01-2013 03:36 PM)grol Wrote:  I'm thinking the same thing about the Nats. Now that we don't have a home team (in the NL) to root for, I'm adrift at the beginning of this season.

My distaste of all things that come from Washington pretty much preclude my ever rooting for any team from there in any sport.

I've always been a Cardinals fan, with Pirates second, so I can adjust to not having a local NL team. It does sort of mess with my AL loyalties a bit, since I worked on the Rangers telecasts for a while and they have been my favorite AL team. Fortunately I don't think they'll be hanging out in the same levels of the standings this year, so the rivalry won't be that bad. Yes, I was cheering for Darvish to get the perfecto the other night, partly because he's on two of my fantasy teams and partly because my son he spent so much time in Japan and is thus a huge Darvish fan.

I'm really not totally unhappy with the AL move from the Astros standpoint. I'd rather be in the best division in baseball (which AL West either is, or is very close) than the worst (which NL central pretty much is), because that way you see much better visiting teams come to town more often. The DH game is a different game from pitchers hitting, but both appeal in different ways. It will be fun for a couple of years to see guys that we never or only very rarely got to see before.

Where I wonder is from a marketing standpoint from the MLB end. You now have no NL presence between Atlanta and Phoenix. I don't think that's an intelligent marketing strategy. Then again, nobody ever accused MLB of intelligent marketing strategy.

While on the soapbox, I also agree with what the Astros are doing on the field (not with what they're doing in the back office, I've had some friends lose jobs for no reason). I don't understand all these commentators equating the breakup of the team to the worst thing ever. It's not like the Marlins breaking up not one but two World Series winners. This team before it was broken up wasn't going to win 70 games. Put Pence (since traded again), Wandy, Carlos (since retired), Jed, and Bourn (would have left in free agency) back in place, and this team is still a 65-70 win ball club. Given that, I'd rather tear it all down and start from scratch. Scouting and player development is the way to go, the only way for the Astros. The prospects they got back from those trades transformed their minor league system from the worst combined record of any big-league team's farms in 2011 (30 games behind 29th), to the best combined record in 2012. That doesn't guarantee success at the MLB level in 3 or 4 years, but it's a pretty good precursor. Astros are not far removed from where Washington was in about 2007-08. If by 2018 they can get to where Washington is today, that'll be fine.