Author: /u/JinFuu

With the end of the season our record is at 4831-4820.

We have finished a season above .500 in our overall record for the first time in our 60/61 year history.

Expansion Teams currently with an above .500 overall Record

Houston Astros

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Expansion Teams who have had an above .500 overall record

Arizona Diamondbacks: 1999-2005, 2007-2008

Kansas City Royals: 1977-2002

Los Angeles Angels: 2014-2018

Toronto Blue Jays: 1993-1994

We’ve also won the most divisions out of the expansion teams with 11, but the Diamondbacks have a better per rate, winning 5 Division titles in their 25 years of existence.

Overall in wins we are 179 Wins above the Mets, 181 Wins above the Rangers, and 54 Wins below the Angels (Despite them playing 161 more games than us.)

So overall we are a very successful franchise, especially in the regular season. Now let’s just win another title so we can tie the Blue Jays/Marlins/Mets/Royals.

The Astros came into the AL West coming off back to back 100 loss seasons of 106 and 107, then would lose 111 times in their first year in the AL West. It wasn’t an auspicious start. However things would soon change as Jeff Luhnow continued to right the ship and turn Houston into a powerhouse through homegrown talent and great trades.

ASTROS VS AL WEST SINCE 2013

Along with 4 division titles, passing the Seattle Mariners for amount of West division titles, they have appeared in the World Series to represent the AL West 3 times sofar.

For my own amusement I found the thread that was posted on /r/baseball about the Astros (then potential) move to the AL West and here are some choice comments from it.

Mad Astros Fans:

This is complete bullshit, it’s Bud Selig taking advantage of an Astros’ team that has fallen on hard times to fix a “problem” that has only become a talking point in the last year. Selig is gambling with an Astros’ fanbase that is already stretched thin for a couple reasons (1: Houston is not a baseball town 2: the Astros are terrible now and and the fairweather fans are long gone by now 3: uncertainty about the new owner’s direction/payroll is making things complicated) by adding reason to not watch the Astros #4: a large portion of the games will be played 2 hours later than normal. Less viewers, less advertising, less revenue, we suck even more. Never mind that there is a better team more suited to this move in the SAME DIVISION, the Brewers, who were in the AL as recently as 97. But Selig would never do anything to hurt his prized franchise.

But yeah, lifelong Astros fan here, I’m probably just being bitter.

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I hate the American league. Now all of the games on the West Coast will be televised no earlier than 9pm. What’s the benefit of that? They stand to lose a lot of advertising dollars because fewer people will stay up to watch the games, among other things to complain about.

I’m a fan and this is going to turn me away. I could stomach a bad team. But I can’t stomach a bad team, in division with teams i could care less about, using rules I don’t prefer. I grew up watching NL ball and have a connection to NL teams. I hope the Rays and A’s move in the near future just to mess up Selig’s plans.

From a Phillies flair:

This is the club that scares me the most in terms of luring away Andrew Friedman. He grew up a fan of the Astros and is from the Houston area. If there is any club he’d love to be the GM, it would be the Astros.

Happy AL West fans:

Hooray! Now we shouldn’t finish last every year!

Yay! Can’t wait for those gimme games.

Sweet, another team in the division to help pad the record.

A Mariners Fan that would get along with Cassandra from Troy

I don’t see why fans of AL West teams in this thread are so happy about this. Sure the Astros are bad right now, but they’ve got a big payroll even when they suck. If they ever hire even a decent GM, they’re a team that will be reducing the chances of the A’s, Rangers, Angels and Mariners clinching a playoff berth. It wasn’t very long ago that the Astros were really good, and being a rich team means their rebuilding process can be speedy.

For a long time we’ve had an unfair advantage over all the other 26 teams. That’s going to disappear. While that’s great for baseball as a whole (which is why I support the switch), there will be no more 5% handicap that we all enjoyed at some point since divisional play.

Make no mistake — this is bad news for us. Personally, I can already imagine hating the Astros and rooting for them to do something stupid like re-sign Ed Wade.