TEMPE, Ariz. — Arte Moreno has no regrets about the change of heart that led him to pull the Angels off the market 13 months ago.
The Angels owner said Wednesday that he has no plans to revisit a sale of the team that he’s operated since 2003.
“I am here long term,” Moreno said in an interview with the Southern California News Group. “There are some people that came back and some people that knew I had it on the market (in 2022). I basically said it’s not on the market.”
Moreno added that it was always possible that someone would come back and make an offer that he couldn’t refuse.
“I’m a business person,” he said. “If someone gets really stupid, then you have to go.”
Moreno said a year ago that he had turned down offers, including three that surpassed the $2.4 billion that Steve Cohen paid for the New York Mets. One of the offers was reportedly over $3 billion.
Moreno, 77, paid $183.5 million to buy the Angels more than two decades ago.
Although his ownership was a success initially, with the Angels annually contending and selling more than 3 million tickets per season, the franchise has been struggling on the field lately.
Despite the presence of two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani and Mike Trout, the Angels haven’t had a winning season since 2015 and they haven’t made the playoffs since 2014.
Ohtani signed a heavily deferred 10-year, $700-million deal with the Dodgers over the winter, ending his six-year run with the Angels.
When asked if the Angels were willing to meet that price, Moreno said: “No.”
Moreno, however, would not say whether he believed the Angels had a chance to keep Ohtani at the various points when they made the decision not to trade him. The Angels could have traded Ohtani at the 2022 trade deadline, during the following offseason, or at the 2023 deadline.
“From a fan perspective, they pay for tickets and watch the games and listen to the games, this is a special guy,” Moreno said. “I’d like to…
Read the full article here
