The Arte Moreno reign is seemingly coming to an end. In a recent statement, longtime Angels owner Arte Moreno has announced that he’s started the selling process and expects the team to be sold to a new ownership entity in the near future.
I’m sure Angeles fans were absolutely thrilled to hear this news. Although Moreno came into the franchise when the Angels were coming off an all-time high, as they had just won the 2002 World Series, the atmosphere soon soured as the Angeles have experienced nothing but failure and misery under Moreno.
In the 20 years Moreno has been in charge of the team, the Angels have only made the playoffs six times. And, since 2009, the Angels have only played in an MLB postseason once (2014). That’s awful for a team that is not only a former World Series winner, but also plays out of Los Angeles.
Even though the support for most LA teams is spotty at best (looking at you Clippers, Kings, Rams, Chargers, and Angels), there is still an overwhelming pressure to win from each and every one of LA’s sports franchises. That desire is even more amplified for the Angels as their cross-town rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, have won constantly during the same time span.
In comparison, during the last 20 years for the Dodgers, they have made the playoffs 13 times (it will be 14 once the regular season ends), made it to three world series, and won one in 2017. Oh, and they currently have the best record in the MLB, while the Angles are 19 games below .500.
These two teams just aren’t comparable in the 21st century of MLB baseball and that has been one of the two driving factors behind Angels fans’ disgust with Moreno and his style of ownership.
The second factor? Fans have criticized Moreno’s incompetence.
Moreno has long been known to meddle in the affairs of his GMs and coaches as he’s notorious for singing unwanted, overrated stars, not listening to his GMs and managers opinions when they have pointed out glaring team structural/chemistry issues, and has utterly refused to spend into the MLB’s luxury tax threshold to improve the team.
Moreover, by continually failing with franchise superstar players, such as Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani, this just further cements Arte Moreno as an incompetent, tyrannical buffoon that has destroyed the World Series-winning Angels of the early 2000s in the fans’ minds.
Has Moreno been a complete failure with the Angels? No, as the team has drafted future hall-of-famer Mike Trout and he has grown the franchise’s net wort to over $2B dollars. Yet, has Moreno been a good owner for the Angels? No, definitely not as the Angles failed to capitalize on the “golden era” (2002-2009) with more World Series wins (they still only have the one from 2002).
All in all, it is for the best that the 76-year-old Moreno has decided to walk away from the Angels and the MLB world entirely. His relationship with the fans and the Angels franchise has probably become too toxic to reconcile. We’ll have to wait and see who’d be willing to buy the (sorry Angels fans) “little brother” LA baseball team.
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