Few teams across Major League Baseball have been in the cellar without the joys of postseason play like the Los Angeles Angels have been during Arte Moreno’s time as owner of the franchise.
However, the clear issues lie with his inability to understand that a successful, or even mid-range organization is built from the ground up and not solely through free agent flair.
When Moreno took over the team in 2003 following the Angels’ last World Series title, hopes for a stable run have been anything but a sure thing. The team has signed numerous highly sought-after players in the offseason and via trades, depleting an already thin farm system.
The Angels and their fans have witnessed Josh Hamilton, Gary Matthews Jr., Vernon Wells, Zack Cozart, Justin Upton, C.J. Wilson, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon sign with the team before regressing.
The countless trades and focus put into the wrong part of roster construction has been the hindrance of the club, via Jeff Fletcher of the O.C. Register:
“The genesis of the (player development problem) was Arte’s unwillingness to make big investments in that area,” a former Angels executive said. “As Arte starts to get more and more excited by the ideas of flashy free agent signings, from (Bartolo) Colon to (Vladimir) Guerrero and leading to everybody since, there was just a shift in spending behavior or how the money was allocated.”
They haven’t won a playoff series during Moreno’s entire tenure and as he continues his search for a potential buyer. The league and Moreno hope the sale should be completed by the start of the 2023 regular season as fans are eagerly awaiting a competent owner to come in and shift gears.
Moreno cares about the Angels, and clearly, he’s willing to dig deep into his pockets to facilitate the high payrolls they’ve amassed, but it has been all for not, and then five feet under that.
Perry Minasian believes Angels’ lack of young talent was tough to overcome
In the past three seasons, the Angels have ranked near the bottom in Minor League rankings according to MLB.com, wrapping up the year with the 30th-ranked farm system. From 2013-2017, they were the worst, and it has accounted for their lack of production from homegrown players.
Baseball America ranked them as one of the bottom-two systems five times in the last 10 years, something that Angels general manager Perry Minasian admitted is a tough hurdle to overcome at the Major League level.
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