According to FoxSportsArizona.com report on Tuesday, the Houston Astros would be selected to move to the American League if Major League Baseball decided to realign itself to have an equal number of teams in both leagues.
Currently the National League has 16 teams while the American League has 14 teams. This could potentially mean that the Astros would move from the 6 team NL Central to the 4 team AL West.
The plan for realignment isn’t rumored to happen until the 2013 season however the original report from FS Arizona also mentioned that the jump would be one of the conditions of the Astros being sold from Drayton McLane to Jim Crane.
McLane, the current Astros owner, said that the FS Arizona report was “totally inaccurate”.
In addition to this, McLane also expressed his desire for the Astros to stay in the National League.
“We’ve been a National League team for 49 years,” McLane told the Houston Chronicle. “I think it would not be good for the franchise to change to the American League West.”
Other teams rumored to make the jump the American League are the Florida Marlins and Arizona Diamondbacks.
If the Astros end up staying in the National League, the Diamondbacks seem like the second most logical options since they would fit nicely in the AL West geographically.
Source: Fox Sports Arizona, SportingNews
