SI:AM | Mike Trout ‘Super Excited’ After Arte Moreno Finally Sells Angels

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. I always feel happy for fans who get to celebrate the departure of a lousy owner.

In today’s SI:AM:
💰 Angels sold to Rams owner
🧠 Inside the mind of Curt Cignetti
🏀 WNBA power rankings

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No more Moreno

All the fans who have chanted “sell the team” at Angel Stadium this season are getting what they asked for. Arte Moreno, who has owned the Angels since 2003, has reportedly agreed to sell a controlling interest in the franchise to Stan Kroenke for an MLB-record $4 billion.

Moreno had earned a reputation as one of the worst owners in baseball, somehow managing to both spend recklessly and be frustratingly cheap—all while constantly meddling in baseball operations. He went over the heads of his front office staff to sign aging veterans to ill-advised contracts (like $240 million for Albert Pujols and $245 million for Anthony Rendon), while at the same time pinching pennies in other areas (like signing current manager Kurt Suzuki to a one-year deal, something virtually unheard of in MLB). Moreno had entertained the possibility of selling the team in 2022, but shelved the idea after about four months.

It’s a testament to Moreno’s ineptitude as an owner that the Angels employed both Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani—two of the greatest players of this generation—for six years and were 68 games under .500 during that span. Ohtani may be gone, but Trout is still under contract with the Angels through the end of 2030, and he’s excited by the prospect of a new beginning under Kroenke’s leadership.

“Just a fresh start,” Trout told reporters yesterday before the Angels lost to the Yankees. “You kind of felt that way. It was needed. No hard feelings to Arte, but I’m super excited. The guys are excited. There’s a good vibe around the clubhouse, vibe around the stadium.”

Trout used the phrase “fresh start” multiple times in discussing the move and pointed to Kroenke’s success in other leagues as a reason to be excited.

“It’s obviously been frustrating the last, I don’t know how many years it’s been,” Trout said. “But just to hear the news like this, I’m super excited to have this change.”

Kroenke, like Moreno, had once been viewed as a failure of an owner, but that reputation has been turned on its head in recent years. Kroenke’s Rams won Super Bowl LVI after the 2021 season, the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in ’22, the Nuggets won the NBA Finals in ’23 and Arsenal won the Premier League last season. Even the Colorado Mammoth, the National Lacrosse League team Kroenke owns, won a title in ’22.

Kroenke has his work cut out for him in turning the Angels around, though. Beyond the current state of the roster, which was stripped down by interim general manager John Mozeliak at the trade deadline amid yet another losing season, the franchise also has to figure out its stadium and broadcast situations.

Angel Stadium, which was built in 1966, is the fourth-oldest ballpark in the majors. Moreno had long wanted to purchase the land around the stadium from the city in hopes of building a new stadium, but a $320 million deal for the land fell through in 2022 after Anaheim’s then-mayor became embroiled in a corruption scandal.

The Angels are also one of nine MLB franchises that terminated their contracts with Main Street Sports Group, the owner of the FanDuel Sports Network, before the season. The team had originally signed a 20-year, $3 billion broadcast deal with Fox Sports in 2011, but Angels games are now shown on a team-owned network.

It’ll be a challenge to rebuild a competitive roster around an aging Trout while also angling for stadium upgrades (or a new one altogether) without a steady stream of revenue from an RSN deal, but Kroenke certainly seems better for the task than Moreno.

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The top five…

… things I saw last night:
5. Japanese singer Yuta Kishi’s impressive first pitch at the Dodgers game.
4. Nationals prospect Sam Brown’s diving catch after covering a lot of ground.
3. Guardians second baseman Angel Genao’s strong jump throw on a ball hit up the middle.
2. A picture-perfect diving play by Cubs shortstop Nico Hoerner.
1. All the twists and turns of a bonkers game between the Giants and Pirates. Pittsburgh scored nine runs in the third inning to take an 11–5 lead, then San Francisco scored five in the eighth to tie the game at 12 before the Pirates won in walk-off fashion after a throwing error by third baseman Osleivis Basabe.

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