A New Era in Anaheim? Is Arte Moreno Finally Changing How the Angels Are Run?

Frustrated after over a decade of losing with no end in sight, Angels fans have taken to the streets, stadium, and digital landscape with chants of "sell the team!" directed at owner Arte Moreno. One fan even went so far as to hire a plane to fly a banner over a Freeway Series game in Los Angeles.

And while a sale of the organization would be the best path forward for the Angels, perhaps there is a middle ground that can be explored: running the team competently. Is Arte Moreno finally attempting to do that?

In looking at two key hires, the answer might be yes.

Molly Jolly is a far more qualified president than John Carpino.

In looking at the resumes of these two the better candidate is quite obvious. And in true Arte Moreno fashion he chose the wrong one for a long time.

Molly Jolly has an MBA for UCLA's Anderson School of Management on top of her bachelor's degree in Economics and Accounting from College of the Holy Cross. One of her educational empasis was human resources.

Prior to working for the Angels, Jolly was a financial manager at ARCO who handled mergers then was a Director of Finance at the Walt Disney Company. In her role at Disney she was in charge of the finances of both the Anaheim Ducks and the Angels.

John Carpino started working with Arte prior to Moreno buying the Angels. Carpino was in home marketing and billboard sales following graduating the University of Arizona with a Bachelor's degree. When Arte bought the Angels they were fresh off the 2002 World Series championship and Carpino was put in charge of tickets sales and sponsorships.

Really, Carpino's primary qualifications for the job of president were being Arte's friend and selling tickets to a team that was winning a ton of games. In short, Jolly has been hired by some of the biggest names in the business world but Carpino has only been hired by Arte.

To say Jolly is a massive upgrade is a huge understatement.

John Mozeliak is a huge upgrade over Perry Minasian.

Again, let's take a look at the basic resumes and remember the goal is to hire a competent leader for an organization with a market valuation in excess of $2 billion.

Candidate one has an extensive background in scouting and has worked as an assistant general manager but never run his own show. If hired, he would be the fourth consecutive general manager to take the job without previous experience in the position. If given the position he will be supported by one of the smallest analytics and scouting departments in all of baseball.

Candidate two has over 30 years experience in the front office including 18 as head of baseball operations. Under his watch his former team made regular postseaon appearances including two World Series, winning one.

It is easy to tell the former is Perry Minasian and the latter is John Mozeliak. And it is also easy to see this is a massive change in hiring practices for Arte Moreno. Or, perhaps, did the actually qualified Jolly make this hire.

Arte could still sabatoge quality hires.

We need to look back no further than the dismissal of Jerry Dipoto to see evidence that Arte can occassionally make a good hire but still have it end in disaster. Rather than embrace the more analytic side of the game as others were doing, Arte jettisoned Dipoto from the organization. All he has done in Seattle is win more games and build a better farm system while spending far less money.

Moreno skimping on player development, front office staff, and scouting budgets is well known. Not even the best executives can perform at a high level without proper support in place. Whether or not Moreno allows these two to maximize their potential will determine the success or failure of the Angels organization.

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