Why Arte Moreno Couldn’t Give Up the Dream Just Yet

The Angels owner hasn’t been able to bring a consistently winning team to Anaheim, but he couldn’t go through with a sale. Can he turn a love for the game into a pennant?

TEMPE, Ariz. — Arte Moreno rolled his black Bugatti toward the entrance of a private section of the Diablo Stadium parking lot. A gray-haired man in a polo shirt rose from his folding chair while giving him the stop sign with his hand. Moreno rolled down his window. The man studied him for a moment and said, “Sorry. You can’t enter without a pass.”

“I am Arte Moreno,” said the man who has owned the Angels for 21 seasons.

The guard paused a moment. Then the name registered.

“Oh! I’m sorry,” said the guard. “Go right ahead.”

Angels fans thought they were done with Moreno. He announced suddenly last August his intention to sell the team, explaining little more than saying “Now is the time.” With the franchise mired in its longest losing stretch in 44 years, many found him as forgettable as the guard at Diablo Stadium did. The Los Angeles Times bid him “good riddance” in one column and published letters to the editor echoing the sentiment.

Five months later, Moreno changed his mind about selling. Again, the explanations were thin and kept to a terse statement. He and his wife, Carole, he wrote, “are not ready to part ways with the fans, players, and our employees.”

What was going on with Moreno? What was going on with his team? How could the Angels be the only American League team to post seven straight losing seasons while featuring four of the league’s past eight MVP winners, Mike Trout (three times) and Shohei Ohtani? How could Moreno be accused of spending both badly and not enough? How could Moreno hope to keep Ohtani, a free agent after this season, when the Angels owner had tiptoed over the first luxury tax threshold just once—and that was 19 years ago?

The man who could best answer those questions, Moreno, wasn’t talking. He has not made himself available to answer detailed questions in more than two years.

Until now.

Moreno agreed to SI’s request to discuss why he chose to sell the team, why he changed his mind and the direction of the team, including the future of Ohtani. He makes clear the reason for keeping the team was not for a lack of bidders or price. Moreno indicates three potential buyers were vetted by Major League Baseball and made bids. (One potential buyer from Japan, he says, inquired about the purchase but was not among the bidders.) He says all three bids exceeded the record $2.42 billion Steve Cohen paid for the Mets by more than $200 million.

Moreno said his initial desire to sell the team stemmed more from the tumultuous circumstances than losing his love for the sport.  :: Rick Scuteri/USA TODAY Sports

“I had some big numbers,” he says. “Yeah, it was above the Mets’ number. Well, it was considerably above the Mets number. I think I have one offer on my phone I can show you I got that was not only what I was looking for, I got more.”

One source said Moreno turned down at least one offer of “more than $3 billion.” Moreno would not confirm or deny that figure. He did tell the story of meeting with one bidder at Angel Stadium that he says helps explain why he did not sell.

“I had one buyer come to close the deal,” Moreno says. “I said, ‘You want to walk around the stadium?’ He said, ‘No, we just wanted to come in.’ And so, we talked and talked. He brought a group with him. They all just sat and talked.

“Then I said, ‘You know, you’ve got to walk around the field here. Let’s go to the field.’ We walked around the field. It's just the two of us. And then he says to me, ‘I see in your eyes that you don't look like you’re ready to sell.’ And then he goes, ‘If you don’t want to sell, I want to be your partner, and whatever you want to sell to me, I’ll buy.’

“When you got right down to it, I didn’t want to go.”

Moreno changed his mind because of seller’s remorse. He made that clear when he greeted Cleveland manager and fellow Arizona alum Terry Francona before an Angels spring training game at Diablo Stadium against the Guardians.

“I don’t know what happened, but I’m glad you still own the team,” Francona told him as they hugged.

“I couldn’t do it,” Moreno told him. “In my heart, I just couldn’t go through with it.”

Moreno’s decision to put the team up for sale, he says, had more to do with a tumultuous time for the franchise than losing his love for baseball.

“It was more circumstantial than it was a change of heart, yes,” he says. “It wasn’t a change of heart. I’ll never fall out of love with baseball. That is true until the day I die. I’ll never fall out of love with baseball.”

Loving baseball isn’t enough to get the Angels into the playoffs. Los Angeles has missed the playoffs eight straight years, tied with Detroit for the worst active drought in the majors. It last won a playoff game in 2009. Every franchise in baseball has won a playoff game in the past 14 seasons except two: the Angels and Twins. Moreno has some explaining to do.

First, there must be beer.

Beer plays a symbolic part of Moreno’s stewardship of the Angels. When he bought the team in 2003 for $183.5 million from the Walt Disney Company, one of his first decisions was to cut the price of beer at Angel Stadium. His accountants told him it would cost him $500,000. “What if by cutting the price we sold more beer?” he asked. That’s precisely what happened. The price cut made him instantly popular.

“4.50 for a 16-ounce beer, the same as it is today,” he says. “It shouldn’t have to hurt somebody to enjoy a beer at a ballgame. Say you go to a game with three friends. You buy a round. That’s $18. Throw in a tip and make it 20 or so. Taking out a 20 to pay for a round of beers is reasonable. When you have to start pulling out two 20s to pay for a round, now the experience is not so enjoyable.

“When you come to a ballpark you want it to be fun, you want it to be safe, you want it to be clean and you want it to be affordable. I used to stand outside the ladies’ room and ask women, ‘Was it clean in there?’ It’s important to the experience.”

We are sitting next to the Angels dugout in the first row of Diablo Stadium. Underneath Moreno’s seat is a small cooler filled with cans of light beer swathed in shaved ice. He cracks one open and pours it into a red cup.

“I mean, what’s better than this?” he asks. “Beer and hot dogs always taste better at the ballpark. And I love to sit here. I sit here, not upstairs. I can see the players, learn something about them from up close, see how they react in certain situations. This seat ... I didn’t want to give this up.”

It’s one reason why when Moreno did put the team up for sale he intended to keep a portion of it.

“I was looking to hold a piece of the deal,” he says. “That's what I wanted to do. What position? Five to 10% is what I was thinking.”

Moreno does not want to go into specifics about why he decided suddenly last August to put the team up for sale. “I sort of learned a long time ago, you know, some things are better left unsaid,” he says.

Those close to Moreno say he was shaken by the public discourse surrounding the collapse of a proposed deal by the city of Anaheim to sell Angel Stadium to a partnership he owns, SRB Management. Mayor Harry Sidhu resigned last May after a court filing revealed Sidhu was under investigation by the FBI for alleged corruption related to that deal. In an official affidavit, an FBI agent wrote that Sidhu shared confidential city information with the Angels and sought at least $1 million in campaign contributions from Angels executives. The Anaheim City Council unanimously voided the deal, a decision SRB decided not to challenge.

Moreno and the Angels were not implicated by the FBI. But the unwanted attention prompted Moreno to think about retreating from the public eye at a time when the Angels appeared to be at peak value as sports franchises were selling for record numbers. Forbes estimated the Angels to be worth $2.2 billion. Unlike the Mets, who carried $350 million in debt when Cohen purchased the team in 2020, the Angels carry no debt.

“When I bought it, Disney never made any money,” he says. “So, when I bought the team, everybody thinks I got this really great deal. I was the high bid. It's something a lot of people tend to forget. Okay? So, everybody’s said, ‘Well, you only paid this ...’ Believe it or not, I was the high bid [and] they were losing money and really, the way they operated, there was no chance to make money.

“So, I said, ‘I believe I can get this thing three or four years to even.’ You know, 18 months later after we took over in May, by the end of that next year, we were really close. But I was spending money because the first year, I signed [Vlad] Guerrero and [Bartolo] Colón.”

In 2004, Moreno’s first full season owning the team, the Angels joined the Yankees and Red Sox as the only teams to exceed the luxury tax threshold. With a $124.7 million payroll slightly above the tax threshold of $120.5 million, Los Angeles paid a tax of $927,059. It has not exceeded the tax threshold since—while its National League neighbors to the north and south, the Dodgers and Padres, will each exceed it for a third straight season this year.

Moreno is such a strong proponent of the luxury tax system as a breaking mechanism against runaway spending that he was one of only four owners to vote against raising the luxury tax thresholds as defined in collective bargaining with the union last year. (The others who argued for lower thresholds were Ken Kendrick of Arizona, Christopher Ilitch of Detroit and Bob Castellini of Cincinnati.)

“People say why put your name out there if you knew how the vote was going to turn out?” Moreno says. “I’m not going to vote for something if I don’t believe it’s the right thing to do.”

Until last year, only once, in 2016, did as many as six teams cross the first tax threshold since the luxury tax system began in 1997. Now six teams are on pace to cross that mark for a second straight year, including Cohen’s Mets, who with a tax payroll of $299.8 million have blown through three tiers of tax penalties.

“He said he grew up a Mets fan and he was going to buy the team because he wanted them to win,” Moreno says. “And I really can't just say ‘I hate you’ because you're trying to win. That's not how I'm wired. I just can't look at the Dodgers and point to them because they have an unbelievable fan base. They've done an unbelievable job.

“I like the fact that people want to win. But I just would like everybody to have a chance. Like if somebody came to my house [for a card game] and everybody is putting a thousand dollars in and one guy puts in a hundred, I mean, how many hands can he play? It’s just no fun.

“So, if you want to spend four hundred [million], then you should be taxed. It is taxed, but to me it’s just not enough. Clearly, it’s not enough.”

In Moreno’s first six full seasons of ownership, 2004 to ’09, the Angels won five division titles and ranked among the top five teams in payroll four times. In 13 seasons since then, they have one playoff appearance and no postseason wins while ranking in the top five payrolls twice—not since 2012.

It’s not that the Angels have not spent money on star players. It’s that many of their biggest investments have been disappointments, including free agents Gary Matthews Jr. (5 years, $50 million in 2017), Albert Pujols (10 years, $240 million in 2012), C.J. Wilson (5 years, $77.5 million in 2012), Josh Hamilton (5 years, $125 million in 2013), Zack Cozart (3 years, $38 million in 2018) and Anthony Rendon (7 years, $245 million in 2020), trade acquisition Vernon Wells (4 years, $86 million in 2011) and an extension for Justin Upton (five years, $106 million in 2018). Moreno paid those eight players, not including the remaining four years on Rendon’s contracts, $827.5 million and received just 19.8 in combined WAR.

Among the big free agents signed during Moreno’s tenure was Hamilton, who played just two years with the club :: Gary A. Vasquez/USA TODAY Sports

“We have been in the last eight to 10 years in the top 10 payrolls,” Moreno says. (The Angels were 11th in 2017 and 2022.) “I can't tell you we’ve always spent the money right. But we spent money. So, if anybody that criticizes me that I’m not committed to winning, well, I am committed to winning.

“You know, you signed players that you think are going to perform. Mike Trout hit 40 home runs last year. Would I like to see him hit 50? Yeah. I would. But I would be happy if I had a guaranteed 40. If he plays every day and hits 40 drives into the rocks, I’d like that. But the reality is I can't guarantee when I sign someone that they’re going to stay healthy.

“We go after Hamilton because he just murdered us for like five years. And the year before had like [43] home runs, 130 RBI, whatever. We sign him. Now all of sudden we have Hamilton, Trout, Pujols ... I remember they were taking B.P. here [at Diablo Stadium]. I mean, these guys are blasting balls everywhere. It was just unbelievable.

“Then one day Hamilton is trying to stretch a single into a double. He slides into second base and dislocated a thumb.”

Hamilton suffered the injury in 2014, his second and final season with the Angels. He was healthy in his first season but hit a career-low .250 with 21 home runs.

Moreno studied marketing in college and built his own billboard business that he sold in 1998 for $8 billion. He values stars. For instance, though Moreno paid heavily for the back end of Pujols’s career (Pujols hit .256 with the Angels, averaged 22 home runs per year and posted an OPS+ of 108, or slightly above average), he considers the signing a success. “The reality is our fans got to see arguably one of the top 10 players of all time,” he says. “They saw him hit milestones in an Angels uniform.”

After the Angels lost 89 games last year, Moreno says he wanted to sign shortstop Trea Turner. He asked general manager Perry Minasian about the potential cost and fit.

“I kept saying, ‘What about Turner? Is this what we need?’” Moreno says. Minasian, he says, told him the Angels had multiple needs besides shortstop.

“I said, ‘You mean you need more than just Turner?’” Moreno says. “He says, ‘Yeah.’ So, it’s about the distribution of money. Is it one player who makes a splash? Or is it, ‘Hey, we can spend this money on two or three players.’”

The Angels spent $85 million on free agents Tyler Anderson, Brandon Drury, Carlos Estévez and Matt Moore and traded for Hunter Renfroe and Gio Urshela.

“I’m at 210, 212 [million dollars] right now, which that was 180 last year,” Moreno says. “So now you add 16 million [in benefit costs applied to luxury tax payrolls] and you’re in the 226, 227 range and the threshold is 233. Every player you sign over that you start paying tax. So, then it’s really multiplied.”

Moreno’s history of staying under the tax threshold complicates his desire to retain Ohtani. Last year he rejected all trade requests for Ohtani.

“We had five real offers for Ohtani,” Moreno says. “People say, ‘Why didn’t you trade him?’ He’s one of the best hitters and best pitchers and he’s probably the most popular player. Nobody’s going to give us three major league players for him or else they would have to empty out their minor league system. But how do you replace him? You don’t.

“People ask me, ‘Shouldn’t you get something?’ But we get to see him every day. That’s not nothing. These people get to come and watch the best players. They’re going to tell their grandkids, ‘I saw Ohtani play.’

“He is absolutely a pleasure to watch every day. And he's a gentleman. He’s just great. It was really hard to take anything away from [Aaron] Judge and that record of 62 home runs. But you can't tell me that Judge was a more valuable baseball player than someone who excels as a pitcher and a hitter. Well, I guess it depends how you define valuable. The argument is, is it about wins and losses or is it the best player? That’s the two different arguments.”

Moreno says Los Angeles won’t trade its former MVP Ohtani while it vies for a return to the postseason :: Kiyoshi Mio/USA TODAY Sports

Ohtani never has played on a winning team in five years with the Angels. He has finished no closer than 10 games out of first place. Moreno knows the team must do better this year to help convince him to stay.

“I think Ohtani’s had fun here,” Moreno says. “He wants to win. I think he likes the lifestyle of Southern California. But as he said, ‘I just want to win.’ So obviously everybody who puts the uniform on wants to win a World Series. I don't care if you're on the team ranked 30th out of 30, everybody that goes on that field, they're trying to win.”

Come July, teams will call the Angels again trying to get Ohtani in a trade. I ask Moreno if he will again refuse all offers for Ohtani.

“I will say it on the record,” Moreno says. “We will not trade Ohtani while we are contending for a playoff spot.”

“Will you make the same promise if the team is not in contention?”

“I’m not going to answer that, and I’ll tell you why,” he says. “We expect to be a playoff contender. Everything in our plans putting this team together is about getting to the playoffs. So, I’m not going to sit here and wonder what happens in an outcome we’re not planning for. That would be like a fighter going into the ring and thinking, ‘What if I lose?’ If he does that, he will lose.”

---

“Mr. Moreno!”

A man climbs over a row of seats toward Moreno.

“I know you take a lot of heat, but I just wanted to shake your hand and thank you,” the man says. “I know you want to win.”

The man identifies himself as a veteran. Moreno replies that he, too, served in the military. At age 19 in 1966, not long after playing high school baseball in Tucson, Moreno was drafted into the Army and shipped off to Vietnam. While serving there he vowed when he came home he would earn a college degree and become a millionaire by age 40. He came home in 1969 and started to make good on his promises.

As he began building his wealth, Moreno spent money on baseball. In 1986 he joined friends in purchasing the Salt Lake City Trappers, a rookie league team. In 1996 he became one of the original investors of the Diamondbacks. Holding a 5.3% stake in the club, Moreno offered to buy controlling interest after the 2001 season but was rebuffed by then-owner Jerry Colangelo. Moreno sold his share about a year later. Six months after that, Moreno, one of 11 children of Mexican immigrants, became the first Hispanic owner of a major U.S. sports team when he closed on the Angels sale.

Recent years have tested his love of owning a baseball team. In addition to the seven straight losing seasons, there was the 2019 death of Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs and the subsequent 22-year prison sentence of an Angels communications director, Eric Kay, for providing the drugs that led to Skaggs’s death. After two COVID-19-marred seasons, attendance at Angel Stadium rebounded last year to just 2.4 million fans, the first time under his ownership the Angels did not draw three million fans with the ballpark fully open. Angel Stadium is the majors’ fourth oldest ballpark. The collapse of the plan to buy the ballpark from the city of Anaheim was followed Aug. 22 by Moreno’s announced plan to sell the team. He expected it to be sold quickly.

“Typically, a deal you should be able to do in four to six months,” he says. “But because we have no debt, we don’t have any banks, we don’t have any partners, it’s not that complicated. Plus, we have 20 years of historical [data], all the way back to Disney.”

Major League Baseball controlled the timing. It took three months for MLB to vet potential bidders and to prepare financial documents to show them. By late November bidders began taking “walk-throughs” around Angel Stadium. The more time passed, the more time Moreno had to question his decision.

“By that time, it really got into looking at offers and talking to people,” Moreno says. “I just had the whole personal talk with myself. You know, you have a lot of time to think about it.

“I’m walking these [bidders] around the stadium. We’re on the field, looking

around the stadium and I’m thinking, How many guys ever get a chance to do this?

“During the pandemic, I started playing golf. I started going every day to play golf because there’s nothing else to do. I did the same thing. You know, go play golf, have some beer with my buddies ... and it’s good for a while but ... I’m telling my wife this, and she finally says, ‘Let’s go to dinner. I want to talk. I can tell you’re miserable.’”

They talked it over. Carole told him, “I want you happy. Do what you want to do.”

“If I’m going to stay,” Arte told her, “I have to make a decision that we have to do better. We’re just not doing well enough.”

On Jan. 23, 124 days after putting the team up for sale, Moreno took the Angels off the market. He said in a statement, “[As] discussions advanced and began to crystallize, we realized our hearts remain with the Angels, and we are not ready to part ways with the fans, players, and our employees.”

Moreno could not give up his front-row seat next to the Angels dugout. He is happy to be back in it at Diablo Stadium, this time for an exhibition game against Team USA as it prepares for the WBC. His wife, son and close friend since high school are sitting with him. The sun is shining. The cooler under his seat is filled with cans of light beer chilling in shaved ice. The stands are full. The Angels’ payroll is 18% higher than last season, topping $200 million for the first time in Moreno’s ownership, though still below the first tax threshold.

“Hope,” Moreno says. “It is the most important element in sports when it comes to your fan base. You hope your favorite player gets a hit. You hope your team wins. Fans have to have hope.”

Like September in a vineyard, it is the ripest time of year for hope. Problem is, this is the sixth and possibly last season that Trout and Ohtani play together. Every one of the previous five began with hope and ended with a losing record. Giving himself a second chance at ownership, Moreno, as he told Carole, knows he must do better. Hope, sweet though it be, is not enough.