Expansion and realignment to get Astros back in NL

The Cubs and Cards did not give "two sh*ts" about their "rivalry" with the Astros...

 

Don't care at this point about NL or AL. I hate the West Coast games. Rivalries don't mean much to me. Enjoy seeing Astros beat whoever the best is, but don't care if in division or not...well prefer not. Beatng Rangers is fun due to brother-in-law, but after a while it gets old.

I'm not sure expansion will happen. I think postseason money has become too important for non-postseason teams.

 

Don’t Pee on his dream

 

The Cards certainly did.

Because we were good while they were good. You think the A's will give a crap about us when the Astros suck?

West Coast games do not matter, I believe it is 12 or so more every year. Could be wrong, correct me with the right number.

 

No more Canadian Teams and relocate Toronto out of there. Then require every Canadian Politician to play a season of HOCKEY to be eligible to run for office.

 

You have to have a team or two that you hate and who hates you.

This is mostly bred on Postseason Games...see: A's, Braves, Cardinals, Yankees, Dodgers....

If you suck then nobody cares and it does not matter. Nobody wants to suck.

This is not a problem for the Astros right now.

 

Not as much as they’d get amped for the Cubs. And the Cubs were not always good when the Astros/Cards were dominating things.

At the time (and this was when I lived in STL), many St. Louis fans were old enough to remember when Houston was their farm team…. And they somehow kept that association despite all the time that had passed.

 

To me, rivalries (which I also don’t care as much about, but also wouldn’t scoff at them) are the matchups that carry weight even if one team does suck.

unfortunately the Astros and Rangers still haven’t been around long enough as the other teams that have generational fans, and you need a run of sustained success to imprint fandom on those generations (something the Rangers have never had).

This current era of Astros baseball IS literally creating that for generations to come. Especially if they have another few deep playoff runs in them. The 90’s Astros did so, but with less overall success. The 80’s Astros also did so, but with less overall success than the above two eras.

The Rangers have the 2011-2016 era? As their “golden age”?

 

Well no ****ing ****? Really? Except they never played the Cubs in the Postseason.

If you don't think the Cards hated, respectfully hated, the Astros and vice/versa for several years...

And the Braves and Astros for several years...

You're just wrong. It has more to do with being good than anything else.

 

Same thing here in Houston. The St. Louis Cardinals always seemed like a rivalry of brothers. You wanted to win, but you didn't want anyone to get hurt.

Now the Dodgers, Cubs and Braves are a different story. I started to edit are to were. But are still fits for me.

 

"respectfully hating" and "true rivalry" can be mutually exclusive. Certainly, Astros fans were wired to get up for those games and hate those teams.

Obviously this is all extremely subjective... but having lived there through the thick of the most heated games between the two teams, and going to plenty of other Cardinals games, the Astros were maybe a little more of a challenge but no real emotional investment.

It was probably closer to how Astros fans think of the A's now. Sure, they're annoying... there's some respectful hating... and they've even had a playoff series (along with employing the most impactful pedophile in the history of baseball), but its not going to get much more than that in the long term.

 

I agree more on the playoffs lead to more impactful rivalries...

I'd say Yankees-Astros, for all the reasons, has at least gotten to the level of Astros-Braves/Cardinals, mainly because of how insufferable their fans will be when they just can't beat a certain team or don't always have success.

 

I'd say the abusive fans turn a friendly rivalry into an insufferable hate-fest.

I attended a few games in Kansas City while the Astros were playing there in 1988 and the fans were friendly. But Cubs fans, particularly ANDYSERALOL hacked the MLB Astros Chat board and banned all the Astros Fans. That changed things. I still relish any Cubs loss.

 

Austin or San Antonio needs a team. Austin is the largest metroplex without a professional team in the 3 major American Sports. The success of Austin FC proves that Austin is ready. San Antonio has fat women.

 

Its about corporate sponsorship/support. Its also about media market size. All major cities have some of the corpororations, but not necessarily enough to support 2 or 3 major teams (and I'd include UT as an entity that takes up corporate support).

Austin sits right below Milwaukee in terms of media market size, and right above West Palm Beach Fl. Around #40 in the country. That still remains a main reason (in addition to saturation from the other pro sports teams in Dallas/SA/Houston) that they don't have a team of their own.

 

Reorganizing without expansion:
W to E team move (ie Oakland to Nashville)

ALE: (no change) ETZ
BAL (swap with NYM?)
BOS
NYY
TBR (swap with PHI?)
TOR

NLE: (no change) ETZ
ATL
MIA
NYM (swap with BAL?)
PHI (swap with TBR?)
WAS

ALC: (no change) CTZ
CHW (Perhaps swap with STL?)
KCR
MIN
HOU
TEX

NLC: (W to E OAK?) ETZ
CLE
DET
CIN
PIT
NAS (OAK?)

ALW: (LAD, SDP and SFG change leagues) WTZ
LAD
SDP
SFG
LAA
SEA

NLW: (ARZ and COL change Div) C/M TZ
CHC
MIL
STL (perhaps swap with CHW?)
ARZ
COL

 

marshall tucker

cant you see?

What that women, been douin' to me?

 

I should have said division rivalries don't matter to me. Regular season is a marathon. It really doesn't matter who you beat as long as you beat enough teams to put you into a good postseason position. Postseason...rivalries built upon actual games that eliminate teams, those would matter more. Braves are the only team Astros have beat twice and been beat by twice. I'd not consider Braves to be a rival. Maybe if the Astros stayed in the NL I'd feel different.

I don't see the Astros having a true rival at the moment. The Yankees are the closest mostly because they are the loudest. I have a hard time seeing the Yankees as anything other than an angry Chihuahua that thinks it is ferocious at the moment. I'm not sure if they hate us more than Red Sox at the moment.

 

Why exactly do we need more teams? I understand the money and all will cause every league to continue to expand.

But there are already teams every year that just cannot compete and lose. It is basically a sign that there is not enough talent for all the teams in the league to be competitive at essentially the same time right now. Whether that is due to injuries, tarnished MLB reputation from the 90's meant fewer kids of the last generation looked at baseball, or just the game is not appealing to young kids anymore like basketball or football.

Biggest gripe is that the Astros never made sense to move when the Brewers were previously in the AL. I also hate the Pacific Coast Time Zone games, and miss the crazy strategies regarding double switches and all that comes with pitchers batting. It is also the tradition of having pitchers have to hit. Maybe there are more Ohtani's out there, but we just aren't giving them the opportunities.

 

A's and Yankees are as close as it gets.

Someday the Rangers will be competitive again, then that could be fun.