Whicker: Winning doesn’t seem a priority for Angels’ owner Moreno
The Los Angeles Angels have endured a long postseason drought under owner Arte Moreno. Photo: MLB.com
March 12, 2026
By Mark Whicker
Canadian Baseball Network
Arte Moreno, the Angels’ owner, normally speaks to the media once a year.
Even then, he’s overexposed.
His 2026 observations went over about as well as his $245-million signing of Anthony Rendon.
“The number one thing the fans want is affordability,” Moreno said. “They want safety, and they want a good experience when they come to the ballpark. Believe it or not, winning is not in their top five. The moms want to bring their kids. They make about 80 percent of the decisions. Wanting to win is what the purists want. For me, I’ve always wanted to win. It’s just, what’s the cost of winning right now?”
The only way to explain this statement rationally is to assume that winning has escaped the realm of possibility for Angel fans. The aspiration is too huge. It’s like saying you want Taylor Swift to sing at your kid’s birthday party. Not happening. So why waste time dreaming?
The Angels have missed the postseason 11 consecutive seasons. They haven’t actually won a postseason game since Game 5 of the 2009 American League Championship Series, a famine that encompasses Mike Trout’s career. They haven’t had a winning season since 2015.
Moreno agreed to buy the Angels during the 2002 season, although the Disney Company maintained control until season’s end. That was The Rapture, the one time the Angels have played in, and won, a World Series. His remarks are all the more inexplicable because he was there to see it. For most of the season, Angel Stadium was customarily sleepy, with mediocre attendance and relatively little attention, even though the Angels themselves were in the process of winning 99 games and staying close in the AL West despite Oakland’s 20-game win streak.
“What can we do to draw?” asked one exasperated official with the Angels. “We’ve tried everything.”
“You haven’t tried winning,” was the reply.
Lo and behold, the Angels clinched a wild-card spot with three games to go, at Texas. They returned to a new world. Suddenly the seats were full of full-throated fans with red ThunderStixx, which they pounded on any surface available, including each other’s heads. They continued to do it throughout October, up until Troy Percival’s fastball got San Francisco’s Kenny Lofton to fly out to centre field and nail down a world championship.
Thus began the Angels’ Fat Years. They made the playoffs six of eight seasons and got to two ALCS’s. Moreno provided the cash to buy 2004 MVP Vladimir Guerrero and 2006 Cy Young Award winner Bartolo Colon. The management team of Bill Stoneman upstairs and Mike Scioscia in the dugout was considered baseball’s best, and the foundation that had been laid by GM Bill Bavasi and farm director Bob Fontaine was holding up fine.
And every night, the Big A was loud and boisterous. The Angels drew 2.3 million the year they won. They broke 3 million in 2003 and did not stop drawing at least 3 million until Covid-19 arrived in 2020. Along the way Moreno signed Albert Pujols, which added to the buzz and also prompted a new local TV contract. For one of the very few times, the Angels rivaled the Dodgers in credibility and exceeded them in performance, even though Moreno gratuitously renamed the team the “Los Angeles Angels” in hopes of burnishing its brand.
But here’s where Moreno might have been right. The Angels have been a composite 72 games below .500 in the past four seasons, and Trout has been almost irrelevant, thanks to injury or futility or both. In 2025, he did play 130 games, but hit .232 with 178 strikeouts. And the Angels’ attendance went up by about 400 fans per game, and rose from sixth to fifth in the league for a team that won 73 times.
The Angels’ average crowd has been over 30,000 ever since baseball returned to normality. There are no real stars to watch, although shortstop Zach Neto and first baseman Nolan Schanuel are up-and-coming. There is no realistic hope of contention. Yet Angel Stadium is convenient and pleasant, even though Moreno yearns for a new ballpark. It’s far more affordable than Dodger Stadium, and far easier to depart, since it sits among three freeways. Graze on concessions and beer, watch baseball under the stars, and at least appreciate the talent on the opposing team. Then, get home by 10 p.m. Not a bad alternative to the slugfest one endures to watch the Dodgers, and pay from $35 to $50 to park, once you get to the gate. The Angels still have something of a hold on their community, despite their inability to develop starting pitching or find Caribbean talent. The lack of hope is not a deterrent.
A wise person said expectation is the thief of joy. There’s little true joy at Angel Stadium, unless your kid gets his face on the big board, but there’s little discontent either. Booing would be sadistic. But if you’re in Philadelphia or New York or Los Angeles, winning is a prerequisite to peace. Fans there have not checked the back of their tickets, have not noticed that the club has not guaranteed they’ll see a win. There’s anger and bitterness and betrayal when things go south, and there’s a frantic demand to rectify all that by spending off-season money. Fans in Seattle and Toronto may be perched on that emotional precipice in 2026.
And, yes, Moreno has tried to win, with often disastrous results. Rendon, who nursed multiple injuries of various severity and did it mostly in private, is only the worst example. The Angels got some good years from Pujols, but they couldn’t provide enough emotional support for Josh Hamilton, and they got Tim Lincecum several years too late. They spent wisely to get Shohei Ohtani but couldn’t arrange the weaponry to keep him. It takes patience to build through player development, and it takes lunacy to think you can do it without pitching, even though general manager Perry Minasian devoted an entire 20-round draft to pitchers in 2021.
There’s the usual happy talk from the Cactus League, but you’d need a miner’s lamp to see gold in 2026. Taylor Ward finally had a big year in 2025, with 36 home runs and 103 RBIs, and the Angels dealt him to Baltimore (for rehabbing pitching prospect Grayson Rodriguez) because Ward’s contract is up at the end of the season. But then Minasian is the Angels’ fourth general manager since Stoneman retired after the 2007 season, and Kurt Suzuki becomes the fifth full-time manager since Scioscia was invited to leave after two consecutive 80-82 seasons in 2017-18. The Angels haven’t had a 78-win season since.
One of those managers was Joe Maddon, who has borderline Hall of Fame credentials but left unhappily when Minasian allowed the analytics squad to take over the decision-making, to a point that one of them had a locker in the clubhouse. And the player-acquistion process has run aground since scouting director Eddie Bane was fired in 2010.
Moreno turns 80 in August. He is not close to finding a new ballpark site or rebuilding on the current one. He had the team up for sale at one point, then reneged. He bought the team for $174 million and, according to the Forbes survey, could sell it for $2.75 billion, provided anyone has a suitable wallet or interest. It would be “fair” to say Moreno is the only winner the franchise has had in his 23 seasons.
But at least Angel fans can get excited about winning a series, even if it’s not the World. And, yes, safety is something to be prized. There’s no danger of getting swamped by a parade.