Arte Moreno, the owner of the Los Angeles Angeles of Anaheim, is so busy trying to screw the people of Anaheim that he just might be forgetting what should be his number one objective – resigning his star outfielder Mike Trout.
You see Trout grew up in New York and he is not just a baseball player. He is one of the ages – a transcendent player like few others in the history of America’s pastime. He can hit, catch, and run and he hits for both average and power. He is the real deal.
How do you suppose Trout feels about what Moreno is trying to do to the people of Anaheim? I can’t imagine he is impressed by Moreno’s behavior. Understand that Trout and everyone else in baseball knows that the biggest problem the Angels have is Moreno – his decision to spend way too much money on the aging veterans Albert Pujols and Josh Hamilton has hamstrung the team’s finances.
Moreno should have taken a page from the Oakland A’s, who made Moneyball the new standard in baseball. You don’t see the A’s throwing millions at old guys. Instead they trade their own old guys and always get young studs in return. They sign players who get on base and they collect young power arms like kids used to collect baseball cards. This is why the A’s manage to have a great team every year – with a budget that is microscopic.
The Moreno way has ruined the Angels. They even had to trade their top power-hitter, Mark Trumbo, to the Arizona Diamondbacks this summer so they could get some arms as they continue to lack quality starters.
So now Moreno is trying to rip off the people of Anaheim but you can bet that Trout is watching these shenanigans and I am pretty sure he is not impressed. He will surely bolt as soon as he becomes a free agent. You don’t see the New York Yankee’s owner behaving like Moreno. They actually signed several quality veterans during this offseason but they didn’t get ripped off in the process. Their only truly bad contract is the one they gave to A-Rod, who got old real fast and who resorted to steroid use to try to live up to his contract.
Pujols will one day be as useless as A-Rod and Moreno will still be paying him millions. Moreno can live with that but if Trout leaves the Angels they will never live that down. They won’t find another Trout. He is one of a kind. And Moreno’s greed and vapidity will end up driving him out of town.
The sad thing is that Moreno really could have made a difference in Orange County. As a Latino he could have donated some of those millions to help support Little League teams in cities like Santa Ana, where money is hard to come by and Latino youth have been leaving baseball for soccer for years. But Moreno blew his money on Pujols and Hamilton.
Don’t believe Moreno’s B.S. about moving to Tustin or Irvine. No city in Orange County is going to bend over for this guy. Let him take the Angels somewhere else. They will never win as long as he continues to meddle in their management. Smart owners leave the baseball to the pros. Moreno got rich renting out billboards. He thinks he knows baseball but my ten-year-old son knows better. He asked me the other day why Moreno doesn’t use Moneyball to run his team. Good question. Even kids know better than Moreno!