The Angels Finally Escape Arte Moreno — But Baseball Will Never Forget the Ohtani-Trout Years He Wasted

The sale of the Los Angeles Angels closes the book on an ownership era that somehow turned two generational superstars into six years of irrelevant baseball.

There are bad ownership tenures, there are disappointing ownership tenures, and then there is what Arte Moreno ultimately allowed the Los Angeles Angels to become.

On Tuesday, the Angels finally received the organizational reset their fans have been begging for. Kroenke Sports & Entertainment, led by Stan Kroenke, reached an agreement to purchase a controlling interest in the franchise from Moreno. The transaction is expected to close during the first quarter of 2027 and remains subject to Major League Baseball approval. Financial terms were not formally disclosed, although multiple reports have placed the price around $4 billion, which would represent a record valuation for an MLB franchise. (The Guardian)

For Angels fans, however, the number attached to the sale is almost secondary.

The bigger story is that the Arte Moreno era is finally ending.

And when baseball eventually writes the history of his ownership, one question will tower above everything else:

How did you have Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani on the same baseball team and accomplish absolutely nothing?

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A Window Most Franchises Could Only Dream About

Think about what the Angels possessed.

Mike Trout was already the defining player of his generation when Ohtani arrived from Japan in 2018. Trout had won two American League MVP awards before Ohtani ever stepped into an MLB batter's box and would win another in 2019. Ohtani would then evolve from fascinating two-way experiment into something baseball had essentially never seen before, winning AL MVP awards in 2021 and 2023.

At one point, the Angels weren't merely employing two All-Stars.

They had two players capable of being considered the best baseball player alive at the same time.

And from 2018 through 2023, the six seasons in which Trout and Ohtani shared the organization, Los Angeles went 401-469. The Angels never finished above .500. They never made the postseason. They never even gave baseball the opportunity to see Trout and Ohtani together on a playoff stage. (Sporting News)

That should be almost impossible.

Superstars are supposed to be the difficult part.

The Angels already had them.

What Moreno's organization failed to construct was everything around them.

The Problem Wasn't That Moreno Wouldn't Spend

This is where the Moreno story requires some distinction.

Calling him simply "cheap" would actually miss the point.

Moreno spent money.

He just repeatedly spent it in ways that failed to create a sustainable winning baseball organization.

The Angels handed Albert Pujols a 10-year, $240 million contract as he entered his 30s. Josh Hamilton received $125 million over five years. Anthony Rendon received seven years and $245 million. The organization continually chased recognizable names and expensive offensive players while roster depth, player development and especially pitching never developed into the infrastructure necessary to contend consistently. (Yahoo Sports)

That might be the greatest indictment of Moreno's ownership.

The Angels often operated like an organization interested in acquiring stars rather than constructing teams.

There is a difference.

One sells tickets.

The other wins championships.

Trout's Prime Was Allowed to Disappear

Mike Trout's career might eventually become one of baseball's greatest "what if?" stories, and that should haunt the Angels.

Trout reached the postseason exactly once under Moreno, in 2014, when Los Angeles won 98 games before being swept by Kansas City in the American League Division Series. He has not returned since. (Baseball Reference)

Consider what that means.

One of the greatest players baseball has produced spent nearly the entirety of his prime playing October baseball from his couch.

There were seasons in which Trout was producing at a level that should have been the cornerstone of championship teams. Instead, his individual greatness frequently became the only reason anyone outside Southern California was paying attention to the Angels.

Then Ohtani arrived.

And somehow the situation became even more embarrassing.

Because now the Angels had a second opportunity.

They had been given another generational player without having to surrender Trout to get him.

Instead of recognizing the rarity of the moment and building aggressively around the two of them, the organization continued stumbling through losing seasons.

Ohtani Leaving Was the Final Verdict

Perhaps nothing summarizes the Moreno era better than what happened after Ohtani finally left Anaheim.

For six years with the Angels, Ohtani never participated in a postseason game.

He signed with the Dodgers after the 2023 season and immediately entered an organization constructed around championship expectations.

The contrast was brutal.

Ohtani had spent years producing extraordinary individual accomplishments for a franchise that could not surround him with a competitive enough roster. His departure wasn't simply the loss of a superstar. It was the conclusion of an organizational failure that had been unfolding directly in front of everyone.

The Angels didn't lose Ohtani because they never had an opportunity to convince him.

They had six years.

Six years to demonstrate that Anaheim could become a destination where the greatest player in baseball could compete for championships.

They couldn't do it.

Did Winning Really Come First?

It is impossible for anyone outside Moreno's head to definitively say that he didn't care about winning.

But fans are entitled to judge an owner by his decisions.

And over time, Moreno gave Angels fans plenty of reasons to question exactly where winning ranked among the organization's priorities.

There were expensive contracts without coherent roster construction. There were years of insufficient depth. There was instability. There were failed attempts to solve longstanding pitching problems. There was a franchise increasingly dependent upon individual stars to provide relevance while the standings repeatedly delivered the same answer.

The result is staggering: the Angels have not made the playoffs since 2014 and have now endured losing seasons every year from 2016 through 2026. Moreno's ownership began much more successfully — the club won five AL West titles from 2004 through 2009 — which makes the deterioration that followed even harder to excuse. (Los Angeles Times)

This wasn't simply an owner inheriting a hopeless small-market operation.

Moreno bought the Angels in 2003 for roughly $184 million, shortly after the franchise had won the 2002 World Series. More than two decades later, he is departing with a reported sale price near $4 billion while leaving behind a team that has become synonymous with wasted potential. (Yahoo Sports)

Financially, Moreno won spectacularly.

On the field, Angels fans paid the price.

Two Generational Players. Zero Playoff Appearances Together.

That is the line that should follow Moreno's ownership forever.

Not the valuation.

Not the attendance figures.

Not the splashy contracts.

Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani played for the same organization for six seasons, and the Angels never even posted a winning record.

Baseball teams spend decades searching for one franchise-changing player.

The Angels had two.

One became arguably the greatest player of his generation. The other became a baseball phenomenon unlike anything the modern sport had experienced.

And the organization turned that extraordinary combination into fourth-place finishes, losing records and meaningless September baseball.

There are no excuses sufficient to explain that.

Injuries mattered. Baseball is unpredictable. One superstar cannot carry 25 other players. Even two cannot.

But that's exactly why ownership exists.

The owner's responsibility is to construct the organization capable of turning extraordinary talent into sustained success.

Moreno failed at that responsibility.

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Now Comes Kroenke

Stan Kroenke's arrival at least gives Angels fans something they haven't had in years:

a reason to believe the organization might finally think bigger than its next marquee signing.

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment already operates the Los Angeles Rams, Denver Nuggets, Colorado Avalanche, Arsenal, Colorado Rapids and other sports properties. The Rams, Nuggets and Avalanche have all won championships during the current decade. (The Washington Post)

That doesn't guarantee anything for the Angels.

Baseball is different. Organizational development takes time. There are stadium questions, player-development questions and a roster that cannot be repaired simply by changing the name on the owner's suite.

But Kroenke isn't inheriting an impossible job.

He's inheriting a baseball market that should never have been allowed to become this irrelevant.

Southern California is overflowing with baseball talent. The Angels possess decades of history, a recognizable brand, an enormous media market and a fan base desperate for competence.

They don't need another marketing campaign.

They need a baseball organization.

The Lasting Legacy of Arte Moreno

There is an incredible irony to the ending.

Arte Moreno will walk away extraordinarily wealthy from an investment he made more than two decades ago.

The Angels reportedly will change hands for billions more than Moreno paid for them.

From a business perspective, it is difficult to imagine a more successful investment.

From a baseball perspective, it is difficult to imagine a more painful missed opportunity.

Because franchises come across windows like Trout and Ohtani perhaps once in their existence.

The Angels somehow found themselves standing inside one.

And instead of bursting through it, they watched it close.

Ohtani is gone.

Trout's prime years are gone.

The postseason opportunities that should have accompanied them are gone.

Those seasons can never be recovered.

So as Arte Moreno prepares to leave the Angels behind, fans shouldn't remember the size of the check he receives on the way out.

They should remember the opportunity he had while he was there.

Two generational superstars. Six seasons together. Zero playoff appearances.

For an owner whose organization had everything necessary to become one of baseball's defining teams, there may be no more damning legacy than that.