CBT negotiations confirm Los Angeles Angels going nowhere with Arte Moreno

Recent reports from Evan Drellich of The Athletic that four of the 30 owners rejected the final CBA proposal to players, including Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno, are the latest piece of evidence in a well-established fact: the Angels are doomed under the Moreno regime.

Some owners don’t spend for various reasons. Stu Sternberg (Rays) and John Fisher (A’s) don’t spend because they have stadium problems. Some owners just have problems finding the right people finding to oversee baseball operations. Paging Dick Monfort? Anyone? All owners make some sort of attempt at fielding a competitive team. Only one seems to be more concerned about what his team is called instead of winning. Arte Moreno.

When then-commissioner Bud Selig approved the sale of the Anaheim Angels to Arte Moreno on May 15, 2003, the Angels were on cloud nine. The club had just won the 2002 World Series, taking down Barry Bonds in a thrilling Game 6 comeback to win the series 4-3. In Moreno’s first offseason in 2003, the Angels signed Vladimir Guerrero Sr. This would be the first of many big splashes that Moreno would hand out over the next two decades as owner. Little did the Angels fanbase know, that would be the peak of the Moreno regime.

The first sign of trouble for the Los Angeles Angels

In 2005, as part of a “marketing strategy,” Moreno sought to have the name of the team changed from the Anaheim Angels to include “Los Angeles” to access the larger sponsorship deals that come with the bigger market. This decision not only irked the Anaheim City Council, which sued Moreno (and eventually lost), but many of the fans in Orange County who did not want to be associated with LA. The team eventually dropped “Anaheim” from its name entirely in 2015.

Front office shakeup… (Moreno’s) Apprentice Style

Since Mike Trout debuted for the club in July 2011, the now Los Angeles Angels have gone through 4(!) general managers in just over a decade. Is this some wicked bad luck that Moreno was dealt? Most definitely not, Moreno has had a history of being an overly hands-on owner, even threatening former GM Tony Reagins that he would be fired if he didn’t acquire Vernon Wells within 24 hours (according to an article by The Score‘s Brandon Wile). At the time of the trade, Wells had the lowest OBP of all qualified hitters, maybe they should make a movie called “Anti-Moneyball” and get Moreno to play the GM. According to an article by Bleacher Report’s Scott Polacek, he also personally nixed a deal that would have sent Ross Stripling and Joc Pederson to the Angels. For a team that has been ridiculed for wasting Mike Trout’s prime, mainly due to the lack of pitching, this rash decision to pull the deal because of a slight delay due to medicals is head-scratching, to say the least.  On top of getting in his own GMs way, Moreno has neglected the pitching staff entirely. He passed on the likes of Gerrit Cole and Zack Wheeler in 2019, instead opting for the likes of Julio Teheran and Matt Harvey. The Angels have not handed out a multi-year contract extension to a starting pitcher since CJ Wilson in 2011. Does he know that you only get to hit half the time?

All that stuff doesn’t even begin to address the problems away from the diamond. From Minor League players being fed less than 1200 calories a day to the rampant drug culture in the clubhouse that was recently revealed at the trial of Tyler Skaggs (reports by ESPN’s Joon Lee and TJ Quinn). It is clear that Moreno is complicit in the toxic culture that he helped create. No matter how many more generational talents fall into the Los Angeles Angels’ laps, it doesn’t matter as long as Moreno is at the helm.