Zachary Levine talked to MLBPA executive director Michael Weiner about the Union's role in realignment.
It’s been the union’s stance really since expansion that 15-15 would be the preferred alignment. … We were very pleased that the owners wanted to move to 15-15 this time.
How that was accomplished was up to the owners, whether the Astros were going to be the team to move or a different team. The easiest way to accomplish that was to move a National League Central team to the American League West, to move a team from the six-team division to the four-team division because that necessitates only the one move. 15-15 was important to us. How that was accomplished was up to the owners.
And, of course, Weiner is not happy about the south-bound trend of the Astros' payroll, and there's an odd little note towards the end of his response:
We’re never happy when you have a franchise that’s had the kind of success that the Astros have had over the years drop the payroll. The way the system works, though, is that there are incentives and protections to make sure that all teams that are receiving revenue-sharing dollars are trying to field a competitive team, and we’re confident that the Astros are going to comply with that and try to field a competitive team.
Click the link for the whole interview - it's an interesting one.
We didn't come out here to play tiddlywinks, son.
-Hal Smith
