Reports began to surface on Tuesday afternoon that Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno is exploring a possible sale of the franchise that he has possessed since 2003.
And if the article that ESPN's Buster Olney wrote on the matter is indicative of how things have been going in Anaheim over the past two decades, this is most welcome news for Angels fans.
Olney reports that even though the Angels' operations department reached a consensus that trading away Shohei Ohtani prior to the Aug. 2 trade deadline was the best course of action for the long-term outlook of the franchise, Moreno immediately put the kibosh on parting with the two-way generational talent.
"It was an example of Moreno single-handedly steering his team, again—and probably in the wrong direction, again," Olney wrote.
The irony, of course, is that one of his anonymous peers told Olney, "He's had enough…he's got a s–tty team that's going to be bad for a long time."
Moreno made this bed with his propensity for egregiously over-paying on long-term deals with hitters already at or near the end of their primes—see: Albert Pujols, Justin Upton, Josh Hamilton, Torii Hunter, Gary Matthews Jr. and Anthony Rendon—but now he wants someone else to sleep in it.
And when that to-be-determined new billionaire inherits this mess, they will need to make a couple of massive decisions in a hurry, because this franchise is at (and possibly already past) a critical crossroads.
The Angels haven't made the postseason since 2014 and last won a postseason game in 2009. Their current winning percentage (.419) is on pace to be their worst since going 47-68 (.409) in the lockout-shortened 1994 campaign. The franchise record of 95 losses in a single season (happened in both 1968 and 1980) is at least in some danger of being broken.
And if you're thinking, "Well, things are bad now, but maybe they're building toward something in the near future," buddy, do I have some bad news for you.
Shortly after the draft one month ago, our Joel Reuter rated the Angels farm system as the worst among the 30 franchises. MLB.com put out updated farm system rankings on Tuesday and also had the Angels in dead last. ESPN was a little more optimistic in putting the Angels at 27th in its post-trade deadline farm system rankings, but still, not great!
But could a couple of offseason trades possibly rescue them from their October-less abyss?
They Could Trade Away Shohei Ohtani
As previously mentioned, the best time to deal the hitting/pitching unicorn was at the trade deadline. Maybe the haul wouldn't have quite matched what the Washington Nationals got for Juan Soto, but many teams surely would have paid a pretty penny for (at least) 1.5 years of Ohtani's services.
L.A..'s return on an Ohtani trade this offseason would be considerably lower. He only has one year left before hitting free agency. He is arbitration-eligible for that one year, but the cost for that one year is certain to skyrocket well beyond the $5.5 million that he's making this season from that two-year, $8.5 million deal he signed after an extremely disappointing 2020 campaign.
After winning AL MVP in 2018 and finishing top 10 in 2019, Mookie Betts avoided arbitration with a record-setting one-year, $27 million deal in January 2020. Ohtani won AL MVP last year and is well on his way to a top-two finish this year, so it wouldn't be a surprise if he gets $30 million in 2023 (before signing a long-term deal with an average salary that eclipses $40 million).