Astros sale expected to be approved

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MILWAUKEE -- Ed Wade is focused on conducting the offseason baseball operations of the Houston Astros, even if his future with the team is uncertain.

With the proposed sale of the team from Drayton McLane to Jim Crane expected to be approved Thursday by major league owners, Wade is not fretting. He's working.

"We're business as usual," he said. "The proposed change or whatever which way you would say it, it's been there," he said Tuesday as general managers opened meetings at a downtown Milwaukee hotel.

"We've run through the draft, we've run through the trading deadline. We've run through the labor period and now we're at the general managers meeting and it still hasn't been finalized," Wade said.

Wade was the GM in Philadelphia before taking the job in Houston and knows that the game's shifts are numerous. In fact, the Astros likely will end up in the American League after the sale is approved.

"I've been around," Wade said. "It's probably more difficult for people who are new to the organization. I think realistically if you've been in this game for a long time you recognize that uncertainty is a fairly standard circumstance."

Crane will receive a $70 million discount off the $680 million purchase price in exchange for moving the Astros to the AL in 2013, an MLB official with knowledge of the talks said, the Houston Chronicle reported.

McLane and MLB will contribute $35 million each to the discount, according to the Chronicle.

An official announcement of the Astros' jump to the AL might not be made Thursday, so that the day's focus can be on the sale and the new owner, the newspaper reported.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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