Frankly, the people who should be happiest about Arte Moreno selling the Los Angeles Angels are those seeking a name change.
Perhaps Stan Kroenke, who agreed to purchase the franchise on Tuesday, will finally bring back the Anaheim Angels moniker. The controversial rebranding was among the first mistakes that Moreno, who’d owned the Angels since 2003, made over what became a woeful and frustrating two decades in Southern California.
Kroenke owns the Los Angeles Rams, and his Kroenke Sports & Entertainment also owns, among other teams, the Nuggets, Avalanche, and Arsenal Football Club. Considering that those four teams have all won championships in the 2020s, Tuesday’s news should be considered an immense victory for a team that’s already clinched its 11th consecutive non-winning season.
Moreno will forever be remembered as the man who wasted Mike Trout’s prime, as well as a six-year partnership between Trout and Shohei Ohtani. The Angels haven’t won a playoff game since the 2009 ALCS, and they’re only 15 losses away from their first 100-loss season.
How much blame does Arte Moreno truly deserve for the Mike Trout era’s failures?
Objectively speaking, Moreno’s tenure as Angels owner was a colossal failure. There’s no justifying going 16 seasons and counting without a playoff win, nor can anyone excuse a 12-year postseason drought.
For what it’s worth, Moreno deserves credit for being willing to spend in free agency. As more teams seemingly embraced trading controllable players before they hit free agency, he wanted to maximize the Southern California market where possible.
So what went wrong? Moreno’s most important mistake was personnel. Hiring Jerry Dipoto in 2011 changed the entire trajectory of the franchise, and it was clear from the jump that he and Scioscia weren’t aligned. The trio of a high-spending owner, an old-school baseball mind, and an analytically-driven lead baseball executive sounds great in a Hallmark movie but not so much when you’re trying to lock up playoff berths in a competitive AL West.
Dipoto gambled on a 31-year-old Josh Hamilton ahead of the 2013 season, and that signing didn’t work out for non-baseball issues. So comparing that to the Albert Pujols deal (10 years, $254 million) is unfair to all parties.
By the time Dipoto stepped down in July 2015, the damage was done. The Angels had taken such a significant step back organizationally and couldn’t press the reset button because of their various financial commitments. It’s easy to forget that the Astros spent 2010-13 tearing apart their core before becoming a powerhouse. Moreno and the Angels didn’t have the flexibility or time to make that kind of strategic adjustment.
The Angels just kept spending, and it obviously never worked out. They made the same error with Pujols that the Yankees and Padres did with Alex Rodriguez and Xander Bogaerts, respectively. You don’t guarantee someone a 10-year deal, especially not when they’re at least 30 years old.
As of September 2026, there have been 29 MLB contracts of at least 10 years. Only seven players — Rodriguez, Ohtani, Will Smith, Mookie Betts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Corey Seager, and Derek Jeter — have won a championship, and four of them did so with the Dodgers. Rodriguez is an interesting case because he signed two 10-year deals, but he nonetheless qualifies.
Pujols never should have commanded that kind of contract entering his age-32 season, and that’s not revisionist history. We only forgive and forget when a championship is involved. Look no further than Rodriguez, who served a suspension for PED use yet remains beloved by a significant amount of Yankees fans.
Arte Moreno’s last straw with Angels fans was the Anthony Rendon contract
Now this could be considered revisionist history, because Rendon was among the top players in a loaded 2019-20 free agency class. But the mistake was the Angels — and we’re sure that they’re not alone in this — clearly failed to do background checks on the longtime Nationals third baseman.
What else is there to say about a player who offered this commentary about baseball?
“It's never been a top priority for me,” the 33-year-old third baseman said in 2024. “This is a job. I do this to make a living.”
Rendon offered those insightful remarks after playing a combined 148 games over the previous three years. Had the Angels done their research, maybe they wouldn’t have given him a seven-year, $245 million contract.
But that’s the story of Moreno’s time as the Angels’ owner, isn’t it? He was overly aggressive and let his heart win over logic. If it doesn’t work for action movie heroes, then why would it work for an MLB owner?
So, Stan, about that name change. Please? The people of Anaheim deserve something to be excited about come baseball season.
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