Arte Moreno Exploring Possible Sale Of Angels
In a news release, the Angels ownership group announced that it is considering selling the team, and will start to explore a possible sale along with Galatioto Sports Partners (who have been retained as financial advisors during the process).
“It has been a great honor and privilege to own the Angels for 20 seasons,” owner Arte Moreno in the statement. “As an Organization, we have worked to provide our fans an affordable and family-friendly ballpark experience while fielding competitive lineups which includes 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.”
While any number of factors may have weighed into the Moreno family’s thought process, it was less than three months ago that Anaheim’s city council ruled against a long-gestating deal that would have seen Moreno’s management group purchase Angel Stadium and the entire 150-acre property around the ballpark. Moreno’s group was planning to develop the area into a multi-purpose residential and commercial space, similar to other “ballpark village” developments that have become common around both newer baseball stadiums and other venues in other sports.
However, the tentative agreement between Moreno and the city fell apart, in large part due to an ongoing federal investigation concerning alleged corruption, violations of state laws, and insider information. Former Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu resigned his position, and the city council voted to overturn the Angel Stadium deal entirely in the wake of the scandal.
Though the stadium controversy led to fresh questions about the franchise’s future in Anaheim, it now seems like Moreno himself will be walking away from the Angels entirely. Moreno originally bought the team in April 2003 for a price of $184MM, taking over operations from the Walt Disney Company in the wake of the Angels’ 2002 World Series championship season.
That 2002 title still stands as the franchise’s lone championship, despite Moreno’s efforts to remake the Angels into a big-spending perpetual contender. Under Moreno’s stewardship, the Halos have regularly been at least a top-10 payroll team, even if Moreno’s willingness to spend didn’t lead to a willingness to cross the luxury tax threshold. (2004 was the only season the Angels ever made a luxury tax payment.)
The Angels reached the postseason five times between 2004-09, though they won only two playoff series and didn’t advance beyond the ALCS. The regular trips to October soon stopped, as an AL West title in 2014 (and a three-game sweep at the hands of the Royals in the ALDS) marked the Angels’ most recent postseason appearance. After winning 85 games in 2015, Los Angeles has had six consecutive losing seasons, with the struggling 2022 squad on its way to making it seven straight years of sub-.500 baseball.
As Moreno’s statement noted, “some of the game’s all-time greatest players” have worn an Angels uniform in the last 20 seasons, including the likes of Mike Trout, Albert Pujols, Vladimir Guerrero, and Shohei Ohtani. Despite these and other talents, the Angels simply haven’t been able to break through due to a host of other ill-advised acquisitions. While Moreno was willing to spend, this aggressiveness manifested itself in many major investments that simply didn’t pan out — i.e. Josh Hamilton, Justin Upton, Vernon Wells, Gary Matthews Jr., Zack Cozart, and (to date) Anthony Rendon.
Pujols’ ten-year, $240MM free agent deal is probably the defining transaction of Moreno’s ownership, and unfortunately symbolic of the Angels’ last decade of struggles. While Pujols was still an elite player heading into the 2012 season, giving such a major contract to a first baseman entering his age-32 season was seen as a risk, and those fears ended up being warranted. Pujols had a few good seasons in Anaheim, but injuries and the normal aging curve made him far less productive than during his prime years with the Cardinals.
Responsibility for these signings ultimately fell to Moreno himself, who was widely known to be far more involved in baseball operations than the average owner. The Angels have had five different general managers during Moreno’s tenure, with this revolving door reflective of Moreno’s lack of patience. As well, the Angels haven’t had much of a minor league pipeline in place to build around these high-priced acquisitions, as the Angels have routinely traded prospects and missed on several draft picks.
Trout is the major exception, of course, but the Angels haven’t been able to capitalize on having a homegrown prospect develop into a legendary player. Signing Ohtani was another huge moment for the organization, and while injuries have largely kept Trout and Ohtani from seeing a lot of time together in the same lineup, it still seems hard to believe that a team with two generational players hasn’t been able to even crack the .500 mark, let alone contend in October. Ohtani is a free agent after the 2023 season, and his future with the Angels will certainly be a major story over the next year-plus, with an ownership change now adding another intriguing wrinkle.
Major League Baseball now has two franchises known to be for sale, as the Lerner family is also widely expected to sell the Nationals. It is possible that any bidders for the Nats might also look into buying the Angels, and it’s safe to assume that either franchise will sell for at least $2.5 billion. The Angels’ proximity within the greater Los Angeles area could mean a higher price tag, though it also remains to be seen if the organization will necessarily remain in Anaheim.
As per the team’s Angel Stadium lease, the Angels are bound to their ballpark through 2029, with a club option to extend that lease through the 2038 season. While the Halos aren’t going anywhere in the short term, at least, a new owner might have designs on moving the team elsewhere. Conversely, a new owner might represent a new beginning for the Angels’ future in Anaheim, potentially a fresh start on talks about ballpark redevelopment, and perhaps even another name change. It’s probably safe to say that the old “Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim” mouthful will remain a thing of the past, but the club could also return to the “Anaheim Angels” moniker rather than being tied to Los Angeles.
Anaheim City Council Votes Against Sale Of Angel Stadium
TODAY: The Angels appear to be moving on without any legal disputes, announcing in a statement that “given that the City Council unanimously voted to cancel the stadium land agreement, we believe it is the best interest of our fans, Angels Baseball, and the community to accept the City’s cancellation.” As per the terms of the deal, since the arrangement fell through, the city of Anaheim will return a $50MM escrow payment made by Moreno.
MAY 25: In a unanimous vote on Tuesday, the Anaheim City Council ruled against selling the 150-acre Angel Stadium site to a management company created by Angels owner Arte Moreno. Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times and Alicia Robinson of the Orange County Register each had details of last night’s ruling, as well as a summary of what has become a major political story in southern California.
It was almost two and a half years ago that the city of Anaheim reached tentative agreement on a deal that would have sold the Angel Stadium property to Moreno’s SRB Management group for $320MM. Beyond just the ballpark itself, Moreno’s group was looking to heavily develop the area surrounding the stadium, building everything from commercial and retail space to housing and restaurants.
However, the agreement has long been the target of criticism from Anaheim residents and civic officials, and a federal investigation is currently being conducted into alleged corruption, violations of state laws, and insider information being shared as part of the stadium deal. Anaheim mayor Harry Sidhu was personally cited in the investigation, and he resigned his position earlier this week.
Moreno (or representatives from the Angels or SRB) have yet to comment on the council’s ruling. It isn’t clear what the immediate next step could be, though as Shaikin writes, “a long and nasty legal battle” could take place between Moreno and the city of Anaheim over the collapsed deal.
As the situation relates to the Angels, their lease at Angel Stadium runs through the end of the 2029 season, with a club option to extend that lease through 2038. (The land deal included a clause that would have kept the Angels in Anaheim until at least the 2050 season.) Given the issues at play and the chance that Moreno’s group could be battling the city in court for years to come, it remains to be seen if Anaheim will remain the Angels’ long-term home, or if Moreno will start exploring new sites elsewhere in SoCal or the greater Los Angeles area.
Four Owners Voted Against MLB’s Most Recent CBA Offer
March 4: Angels owner Arte Moreno, D-backs owner Ken Kendrick, Reds owner Bob Castellini and Tigers owner Chris Ilitch were all opposed to proposing a $220MM CBT threshold, per Evan Drellich and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Drellich and Rosenthal add that some concerned owners have pointed to the spending of the Dodgers and the Mets as reasons for trepidation with pushing the luxury tax threshold further north. Martino tweets, rather unsurprisingly, that the Mets and the Yankees are among the teams open to a “less punitive” CBT setup.
The Athletic report also indicates that the players were particularly irritated when MLB proposed counting the cost of player meals against the luxury tax. Whether that’s among the issues recently raised by Blue Jays righty Ross Stripling isn’t clear, but Stripling contended that the league “tried to sneak some shit past us” in the proposal’s “fine print” during the wee hours of Monday night/Tuesday morning negotiations. Health insurance and other player benefits already count toward the luxury tax under the terms of the prior CBA. League special assistant Glen Caplin called reports of MLB trying to include meal money within the CBT “grossly mischaracterized” as part of a statement included in Drellich’s article.
March 3: Major League Baseball’s most recent offer in collective bargaining proved unpalatable to the Players Association, which rejected it despite knowing the league was likely to follow by canceling some regular season games. Various members of union leadership described that as an easy decision, with the MLBPA particularly dissatisfied with the league’s proposals on the competitive balance tax thresholds and the amount of money that would be allotted for the pre-arbitration bonus pool.
While the union found the offer too slanted in favor of the league, some on the MLB side apparently viewed the proposal as going too far towards the players’ asks. Andy Martino of SNY reports that during a video call between all 30 ownership groups and MLB leadership, four owners voted against the terms of the league’s final offer to the union on Tuesday. MLB needs approval from 23 of the 30 ownership groups to agree to their end of a new CBA, so the league was able to proceed with its offer with the assent of the other 26 owners.
Obviously, the terms of that deal weren’t sufficient to get the union’s approval. Yet some of the owners who were on-board with the league’s proposal Tuesday are evidently hesitant to move any further in the players’ direction. Martino writes that the call “made it clear” that more owners would oppose any offer that pushes the base CBT threshold above the $220MM mark the league put forth. The MLBPA, meanwhile, proposed a $238MM base tax marker in 2022. Martino writes that the union refuses to entertain any offer with a 2022 tax threshold lower than $230MM.
There’s currently an $18MM gap on the luxury tax for 2022, and the parties are even more divided on the marker’s long-term future. The MLBPA has sought more rapid escalation of the threshold over the term of a potential CBA than the league has offered. Under the parties’ latest terms, the $18MM gap would rise to a $33MM divide by 2026 — the players were looking to set that year’s figure at $263MM, while MLB proposed $230MM for that season.
Martino’s report sheds some light on the challenges that remain for finding a mutually agreeable settlement on the CBT, which has proven perhaps the biggest sticking point in negotiations. The union has pursued a rapid expansion of the threshold, pointing to team spending habits suggesting the CBT has served as a de facto salary cap for clubs. Last season, five teams finished with CBT payrolls within $5MM of the $210MM base threshold. Two clubs, the Dodgers and Padres, pushed their CBT number above $210MM. Given the union’s longstanding opposition to any form of salary cap, it’s little surprise they’ve sought to dramatically increase the numbers this time around.
The league, meanwhile, has pursued the opposite initiative. MLB’s early CBA proposals included harsher penalties for tax payors, provisions that would’ve presumably made clubs even more reluctant to do so. It dropped the push for tougher penalties this week, but it hasn’t shown the appetite for the kind of higher thresholds the union seeks.
As MLBTR’s Tim Dierkes explored in December, the past two collective bargaining agreements have seen limited growth in the CBT thresholds. From the time of the tax’s introduction in 1997 through 2011, it wasn’t uncommon to see the CBT jump by more than 4% year over year. Since 2012, however, that growth has slowed considerably. The base CBT marker has moved from $178MM that year to $210MM last season, an average hike of less than 2% per year.
The league’s offer to move from $210MM to $220MM would represent a 4.8% year-over-year jump. MLB would presumably posit that’s a meaningful enough increase to be favorable to the players. However, it was followed by no movement on the tax in each of the following two years and minor increases in each of the two seasons thereafter. The union, meanwhile, seems intent on pulling in a more dramatic spike in the tax threshold to somewhat compensate for its slowed progression between 2012-21.
It’s not clear how many owners are inherently opposed to pushing that number beyond $220MM. Martino’s report hints at the conflicted interests that can arise among the ownership groups themselves. Presumably, some large-market clubs that are planning to exceed the CBT anyhow would be on-board with the union’s efforts to encourage penalty-free spending. Others could be anxious to draw a harder line, particularly with the league reportedly content to miss a month’s worth of regular season games in order to pressure the union to move in their direction.
If more than three of the owners who voted yes on MLB’s latest proposal are stringently opposed to going further, the league may be hard-pressed to find the votes to go past $220MM this year. That’d seemingly be unacceptable to the union. If there’s that kind of fundamental disagreement on the luxury tax, it’ll be essentially impossible for the sides to put a new CBA in place.