The Angels announced that the Moreno family is ending the exploratory process to sell the team and will continue ownership throughout the 2023 season and beyond.
“Throughout this process it has become clear that we have unfinished business and we feel we can make a positive impact on the future of the team and the fan experience,” says club owner Arte Moreno in a statement released by the club. “This season, we committed to awarding franchise record player salaries and still wanted to achieve our goal of bringing the World Series back to our fans. We are excited about this next chapter of Angels Baseball. We are grateful to the Galatioto Sports partners for their outstanding efforts throughout the process that allowed us to meet a number of Highly qualified individuals and groups who have expressed a strong interest in the club. However, as discussions progressed and began to take shape, we realized that our hearts remain with the Angels, and we are not ready to part ways with the fans, players and our staff.”
Major League Baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred also issued a statement on the matter, according to her Sam Blum from The Athletic. “Despite Jupiter’s strong interest in Angels, Arte Moreno’s love for the game is most important to him. I am very happy that the Moreno family has decided to continue owning the team.”
Moreno, now 76 announce In August he said he would explore selling the team. Not many details about the sale have been reported in the meantime, though, Manfred said in December that the club hoped to complete the sale by opening day. It appears Moreno either hasn’t found an offer to his liking or has changed his mind and will keep the team for the foreseeable future.
He bought the team from The Walt Disney Company for $184 million in April of 2003. The Angels were champions at the time, having won the 2002 World Series. They qualified for the postseason several times in the next few years but have been in a dry spell ever since. They’ve only made the playoffs once since 2009, being swept by the Royals in the 2014 ALDS and haven’t been back since. This comes despite having some notable players on the roster in those years, including the current Angels Mike Trout And Shuhei Ohtani. The club’s payroll was regularly in the top ten in the league in Moreno’s tenure, but he developed a reputation as one of the owners most likely to meddle in baseball decisions, making him a divisive figure among Angels fans.
This off season, despite a potential sale pending on the club, they have been very active in pursuing promotions. They were traded for Geo Orchila And Renfrew hunter While signing free agents Brandon DruryAnd Brett PhillipsAnd Tyler Anderson And Carlos Estevez. This increased the club’s salaries to $206 million each list resource, with a competitive tax account balance of $220 million. The payroll is already going to be a franchise record as Moreno mentioned, with Cradle baseball contracts After last year’s highest of $189 million. It remains to be seen if this will be enough for the club to break their post-season drought. They will be looking to chase the Astros, who have dominated the division for years and just won a World Series. The young and rookie Mariners just clinched a Wild Card spot last year and the Rangers have been very aggressive in pursuing promotions over the past couple of years.
The continuation of the Moreno regime will raise many questions that will have to be resolved in the coming years and months. From a field perspective, the biggest unknown is Otani’s future. The unprecedented two-way star is entering his final year in charge of the club before hitting free agency. Many are speculating about whether the new owner will be motivated to give Ohtani a huge deal to remain an owner or if he’d rather start fresh through the clearing house and start rebuilding. Now those questions must be directed at Moreno and whether they can find common ground on a deal or if Ottiani is determined to spend the next part of his career elsewhere.
Off the field, there will be questions about the issues that may have led Moreno to pursue the sale in the first place. One of the companies Moreno created was trying to purchase the 150-acre Angel Stadium site from the City of Anaheim with the intention of using the land to develop commercial space, housing, restaurants and more. A tentative price tag of $320 million was reached, but the potential sale drew fierce criticism from many in the area, and a federal investigation was launched into allegations of corruption, violations of state laws, and insider information sharing as part of the deal. Anaheim Mayor Harry Seydow personally cited in the investigation and eventually resigned. Later Anaheim City Council voted against The deal is in May 2022. The club’s lease on the stadium runs until the end of the 2029 season, with the club having an option to extend this lease until 2038.
There will also be league-wide questions to be answered, as the Angels were one of two teams scouting for sales this winter. The other is the Citizens, although this one seems to be mired in TV rights issues and Not close at all resolution. For any groups interested in getting into the MLB ownership game, it now appears that those two paths that seemed open a few months ago are closed or possibly untenable. The league has expressed interest in expanding from 30 to 32 teams though Manfred has repeatedly said he would like the A’s and Rays to work out their stadium situations before expansion was on the table.