LOS ANGELES — Arte Moreno has started exploring the option of selling the Angels and has taken on Galatioto Sports Partners as financial advisors, the team announced Tuesday morning.
“It has been a great honor and privilege to own the Angels for 20 seasons,” Moreno said in a statement. “As an organization, we have worked to provide our fans an affordable and family-friendly ballpark experience while fielding competitive lineups which included some of the game’s all-time greatest players.
“Although this difficult decision was entirely our choice and deserved a great deal of thoughtful consideration, my family and I have ultimately come to the conclusion that now is the time. Throughout this process, we will continue to run the franchise in the best interest of our fans, employees, players, and business partners.”
Moreno bought the team from the Walt Disney Co. for $183.5 million shortly after the Angels won their only World Series championship in 2002 and was praised for lowering beer prices in Angel Stadium and his hefty free-agent investments that brought 2004 American League most valuable player Vladimir Guerrero, 2005 Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon and pitcher Kelvim Escobar to Anaheim.
Those players — along with several holdovers from the 2002 team and newcomers such as pitcher Jered Weaver and shortstop Erick Aybar — helped fuel a highly successful run in which the Angels won five AL West titles and reached the American League Championship Series twice from 2004-2009.
But a 7-6 win over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the 2009 ALCS in Anaheim would be the Angels’ last playoff victory. The Angels have made the playoffs only once since, in 2014, when they were swept in a three-game division series by the Kansas City Royals.
They are on their way to their seventh straight losing season and eighth without a playoff berth.
It hasn’t been for lack of spending. The Angels been among baseball’s top 10 spending teams in every year Moreno owned them, but they haven’t spent their money very wisely.
Moreno was the driving force behind the 10-year, $240 million deal for Albert Pujols before 2012, the five-year, $125 million deal for Josh Hamilton before 2013 and the seven-year, $245 million deal for Anthony Rendon before 2020, and not one could help deliver a playoff win.
Pujols, 32 when he signed with the Angels, was hampered by lower-body injuries and age and was a shadow of the slugger who put up Hall of Fame numbers in St. Louis for 11 years. He was released in May of 2021.
Hamilton, the 2010 AL MVP with the Texas Rangers, had a history of substance abuse problems and suffered a relapse in the spring of 2015. He was traded to the Rangers that April, the Angels eating $61 million of his contract.
Rendon has played just 103 games in the past two years, suffering a season-ending hip injury in July 2021 and a season-ending wrist injury this June.
The Angels have also employed two of the best players in baseball for the past five years, three-time AL MVP Mike Trout and two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani, and they have not even had a winning season with the pair.
Moreno’s refusal to exceed the luxury tax threshold prevented the Angels from competing for several free agents who could have been difference-makers for them, including pitcher Gerrit Cole, third baseman Adrian Beltre and first baseman Mark Teixeira.
Moreno instructed then-general manager Billy Eppler to fire manager Brad Ausmus after the 2019 season so he could hire long-time favorite Joe Maddon, who had spent more than three decades with the organization before moving on to manage the Tampa Bay Rays and Chicago Cubs.
Moreno then fired Eppler after the 2020 season — only a few months after giving Eppler an extension through the 2021 season — and hired Perry Minasian as the team’s GM.
Moreno approved Minasian’s decision to fire Maddon in early June, with the team near the end of an eventual 14-game losing streak, and Maddon has not spoken to the owner since his dismissal.
