Originally Posted by The Difference:
“...perhaps Kenny Albert being compensated for that demotion by getting to commentate on the MLB Divisional Series that Fox have rights to which Buck's lead crew won't be covering.”
Ah, just considered that Fox hired and publically announced Matt Vasgersian and John Smoltz as their secondary baseball commentary team at the start of the year, so they'll most likely be calling the MLB Division Series that Fox are televising and isn't the one their new 'A' team of Joe Buck, Harold Reynolds and Tom Verducci are doing. In any case, the regular pairing of Thom Brennaman (another NFL on Fox commentator) and Eric Karros have long been senior to Kenny Albert and AN Other in the MLB on Fox announcing pecking order, so it's highly unlikely that Albert would be given Playoff baseball to make up for a lack of bigger NFL games on Fox if he is indeed demoted there.
Staying on the baseball/American football commentary crossover theme, in addition to the six main pairings announced for CBS' NFL coverage this year that SSReporters has mentioned, regional MLB TV announcers Brian Anderson (Milwaukee Brewers) and Tom McCarthy (Philadelphia Phillies) will call selected NFL games for them alongside analysts Adam Archuleta and Chris Simms. Anderson is quoted in
this article on the subject, saying that he'll be commentating on 3-5 NFL games for CBS in November and December once his Turner Sports commitments are over, which suggests he'll be calling the MLB Division Series that TBS has rights to that isn't handled by their 'A' team lead by Ernie Johnson Jr.
TBS previously had rights to all four MLB Division Series (the first round of the Playoffs barring the one-game Wildcard and tiebreaker matches) over the past seven years, but from this year onwards two of those series will be shifting to Fox and Fox Sports 1. I had felt that Brian Anderson, who is highly rated as one of the best young MLB announcers around, would get the nod over their other postseason announcers Don Orsillo (NESN's Red Sox TV announcer) and Dick Stockton (a prolific freelancer who covers NFL and MLB for Fox) to stay on and call the secondary series given how he is about as prominent on their regular season MLB coverage as lead announcer Ernie Johnson Jr is. So for the 2014 MLB Division Series it'll likely be crews of 1) Buck, Reynolds and Verducci and 2) Vasgersian and Smoltz for Fox and 1) Johnson Jr, Ron Darling and Cal Ripken Jr and 2) Anderson, Joe Simpson and AN Other for TBS. The question still remains to who will take over from John Smoltz on TBS' secondary crew seeing as he's now with Fox, Bob Brenly and Buck Martinez would probably be the leading candidates.