The Angels were having a great winter, with one prescient, cost-efficient player move after another (by this winter’s pricey standards) — adding Tyler Anderson, Carlos Estevez, Hunter Renfroe and others for under $100 million. Then team owner Arte Moreno dropped the bomb. He abruptly changed his mind and is staying as owner.
And so, with that one unexpected call, the chances the Angels keep two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani — which is what matters to Orange County baseball now — very likely dropped from not too great to even less great.
One rival flat-out says: “The chance of him being an Angel on Opening Day 2024 is about 5 percent.”
Moreno’s 180-degree turn after seven months shopping the franchise was a shocker to many — it was to the five viable interested parties (including Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who knows a thing or two about keeping stars, plus one high net worth individual from Asia) and also to the fans in Orange County, who’ve seen the team waste a decade of all-time great Mike Trout’s career and a half-decade of Ohtani.
Moreno declined comment about his hopes for Ohtani through a team spokesman, but has told folks close to him he had a change of heart due to a feeling of renewed energy and unfinished business.
While Moreno hasn’t fully explained his sudden about-face, we can only imagine the groups anxiously lining up to pay a record price for his team — which is said to be very profitable (though bids weren’t due until Feb. 15, they were expected to break the Mets’ record $2.4 billion price and perhaps even eclipsed $3B) — may have convinced him that he was holding a hot property.
“He does like baseball, so it could be as simple as that,” one major league source said.
Seems like a strange call in any case, as he risks becoming a forever target, assuming he loses Ohtani.
“Especially if he loses him to the Dodgers,” one MLB source said.
But Moreno was an unusual owner from the start. He often acts as a big ownership hawk while simultaneously signing off on all-time dreadful contracts — from Josh Hamilton’s $125M deal to Justin Upton’s $106M deal to C.J. Wilson’s $77.5M deal to Albert Pujols’ $240M deal (though Pujols may have helped get a better TV deal).
Since buying the team from Disney for a bargain $183.5M, he’s made one bad big deal after another, with the exceptions being two extensions for superstar Mike Trout and all the deals since winning the bidding for Ohtani.
The Angels are sure to make a play to extend Ohtani, and they do possess information others don’t — including intel on how much loot Ohtani brings in via sponsorships and signage, plus tickets and TV. (Though someone with the team claimed “it’s less than you’d think,” one source described the Ohtani overage this way: “It’s a ton.”)
Anyway, with winning teams such as the cross-freeway Dodgers plus big-spending Padres, Giants and of course Steve Cohen’s Mets almost sure to be in the bidding, which could easily hit $500M, the Angels’ chances look very long since Ohtani’s main stated goal is to win. At the very least, a new owner wouldn’t have been burdened in the derby by Moreno’s long track record of losing.
