This change was a long time a'comin' in the minds of many. The Houston Astros are moving to the American League and will join the Texas Rangers in the AL West. As a longtime Rangers fan, I'm excited about this change. It will be nice to build a friendly in-state rivalry and have some division games that don't involved heading all the way out to the West Coast for games that start at 10 p.m.

Also, MLB is adding an extra Wild Card to each league. This is another welcome addition in my opinion.

Not another round of useless wild card playoffs. I think it should go back to a pair of single leagues with no divisions and the two left standing after a 162 game season play in the World Series.

Yeah, What he said................ It's a curmudgeon thang........................

I remember those days. Used to have a 154 game season. A lot of the ball parks were empty right after the all star break. Talk about the dog days of summer. You didn't have all the millionaires who couldn't even play baseball. Money changed it all.
I'll bet the Cardinals wouldn't agree with you.
The dismantling of the Astros gave me several teams to follow down the stretch, namely old foes, the Cardinals, Phillies, and Braves.
I actually enjoyed the playoffs this year, up 'till the end. I wanted the Rangers to win it all.
The Astros are a long way from being a good team and I think it stinks they are going to the American League.

A lot of people are asking that question.
And Houston, even before the Colt 45s/Astros, as the Houston Buffs were associated with NL clubs for many years.
"From 1921-58, the Buffaloes were an important farm team of the St. Louis Cardinals at the Class A, A1 and AA levels. During that period, star players such as brothers Dizzy Dean and Daffy Dean, Solly Hemus, Vinegar Bend Mizell, Hal Epps, Don Gutteridge, Al Papai, Joe Medwick, Frank O. Mancuso, Harry Brecheen and Howie Pollet prepped in Houston on their way to the major leagues. In the 1931 season, led by former Cardinals outfielder Joe Schultz, Sr., the Buffaloes' had 108 regular-season victories (in 159 games) and won the Texas League championship. The Buffaloes' most notable period came between 1939-41, when, as a Cardinal farm laden with talent, they won three straight Texas League pennants, winning 97, 105 and 103 regular-season games in the process."
From Wikipedia
I believe the impending sale of the Astros gave the commish the leverage he needed to get the deal done without ruffling too many feathers.

I should have said without ruffling too many feathers outside of Houston.
Lots of ruffled feathers in Houston. Don't guess that matters.
At the moment the great state of Texas has the worst franchise in MLB along with possibly the best franchise in MLB.
OBK, one good thing about the old days is when you mentioned a player's name, people immediately thought of the
team he played for. I'm getting so old I can't even keep up with all the teams ex-astros have played for.
Now we may have a lot of ex-astro fans to go along with them.
The joke used to be go oilers, and take the astros with you.
Maybe it would have been best if that had happened. Still may.

Is MLB going to expand again soon? I thought the reason for having 14 in one league and 16 in the other was for scheduling purposes. Or to rephrase, avoid scheduling problems. If they go 15 and 15 will there be a league crossover series every three days all season long? The other option might be to have two and three days in a row as open dates for each team. I wouldn't like that very much.

I saw on ESPN where the Rangers had signed Joe Nathan as their closer. Feliz will now get to start. Does this mean that Rangers are not going to try to resign Wilson?

That seems to be the case.
5. Interleague play all the time. The Astros’ move to the American League will now create two leagues of 15 teams each.
Fifteen doesn’t divide by two, so the realignment of the leagues will now require interleague play every day of the season.
Many fans of traditional baseball don’t care for interleague play, even in short bursts. It will now be an every day event.
http://www.boycotthoustonbaseball.com/

Not a fan at all of the sale to Crane or the move to the AL, but I guess they are both happening, so I will live with it and see. I am just not sure that this has moved the Astros into the world of irrelevant MLB teams. Crane said he would spend money, but now I am not so sure. Houston has not been developing talent well enough to compete as a 'non spending team' in the AL.

I know a change had to be made. Drayton wanted out and needed his cash to hand over to hospitals and Baylor. He did a fine job in Houston until the final years. I will always remember the 2005 World Series and for that I am grateful.

As I understand the new system, there wiill not be another playoff round. The two Wild Cards in each league will play each other in a one-game playoff to see who advances to the ALDS and NLDS.

That's how I understand it as well.
2004 and 2005 were good years for the astros.
Caught fire the last part of both seasons and thank goodness for the wild card.
Spent many hours with one of my grandsons watching them.
The 2005 WS was great. Wish we could have won at least one game.

I like the idea of two wildcard teams,,,for the past several
years the AL East have had three great teams NY,Bosox TB,,all with better records than most division winners..With one of those teams being left out
of the playoffs...Like i said before the Rangers will now win 112 games in 2013...

Almost had a one game playoff last year for the wild cards.
Rays & Red Sox and Cards & Braves were tied going into the last game.
So if it happened in 2013 exactly like last year it wouldn't matter who won or lost the last games,
all four of those teams would be wild card teams.
So if your ace was due to pitch you would probably hold him for the playoff game and maybe give some of your starters a day off.
Sure would have taken the excitement out of that last day of the season.