Angels owner explains refusal to meet Crawford’s asking price; team makes ‘significant’ offer to Beltre

“You commit $20 million-plus for seven years to one player, you get to a place where, automatically, you’re going to take the payroll to $150 million, and it just doesn’t give you a lot of room,” Moreno said. "We knew if we add $20 million, it was going to be red ink.

Then here:

Financially speaking, consecutive seasons without the extra revenue generated by playoff baseball would make the Angels a loser. Moreno said the team made money last season – "not a lot, not a lot" – despite missing out on the playoffs. [Cot’s lists 2010 payroll at $121,113,867] This season, however, Moreno authorized off-season additions (free-agent left-handers Hisanori Takahashi and Scott Downs and high-priced outfielder Vernon Wells) that will push the franchise-record payroll to around $140 million. Now, the team in red might need a post-season appearance to avoid finishing in the red for the year.

But Moreno said he doesn’t look at the yearly bottom line solely but the big-picture health of the franchise. And the big picture shows a healthy Angels organization, he said.

"I look at where we are on a year-to-year basis in real time," Moreno said. "But I’m also looking three to five years out, seven, eight years out. I think it takes a long time to build a franchise.

"Right now, we have some dead money coming off the books. We’re going to have a tremendous amount of financial flexibility. We have tremendous depth in our minor-league system."

No doubt the eyes of Angels’ fans will light up at Moreno’s mention of "a tremendous amount of financial flexibility." Big chunks of that dead money will disappear next winter – technically speaking the expiring contract of Gary Matthews Jr. but realistically also including the burden of erratic left-hander Scott Kazmir’s salary.

But Moreno makes it clear that his idea of financial flexibility does not mean the ability to run wild on the free-agent market. His public (and private) comments regarding the big contracts given to free-agent outfielders Carl Crawford (seven years, $142 million) and Jayson Werth (seven years, $126 million) this winter make it obvious Moreno doesn’t see those kinds of commitments to players – like, say, a 10-year, $300 million deal for Albert Pujols – as making good sense.

"What (fans) don’t understand, when I say ‘financial flexibility’ I’m talking about a situation where, when you’re looking three, four, five years out, you’re not so buried by debt that you can’t do anything," Moreno said. "It (financial flexibility) doesn’t mean we’re filled with money. It’s that over a long period of time we have some flexibility to examine our options."

That is after about 2 minutes on Google. I imagine there are some archived news stories right here on this site as well.

A notoriously bad and tremendously unpopular GM who lost his job.

A notoriously bad and tremendously unpopular GM who is rumored to be losing his job.

A notoriously bad and tremendously unpopular GM who retains his job by shilling for a terrible owner.

A controversial GM who somehow avoids criticism despite a recent spate of particularly bad moves (probably due to having a convenient lightning rod for a manager).

Two GMs who work under extraordinary circumstances and are only ever compared to each other.

I agree that Kenny Williams is probably Reagins’ closest comparison, but I also offer that that is not a good thing considering the White Sox’ current position and likely future direction. What I can’t fathom is how anyone managed to lose control over the weak 2010 AL West, despite having nearly twice the payroll space as his chief competitor—who also happened to be bankrupt—and still has yet to regain it, even with a 50% financial advantage.

I do not harbor some congenital hatred for Vernon Wells. He was a fine player in his prime, and he’s had a respectable major-league career. I would have loved to have him on my team seven or eight years ago, when he played the field well and hit much better than the average center-fielder. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

I will even admit to being disappointed when he re-signed with the Blue Jays in 2006. After watching the corpse of Steve Finley in center-field, and then a division title lost in 2006 that might have been recovered with a regular player at the position, I would much rather have seen the Angels wait for a chance to acquire Wells than tie their own shoe-laces together with GMJ. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

I also don’t have a congenital hatred for Tony Reagins. It wasn’t Reagins that turned me against Wells, but Wells that turned me against Reagins. No, I wasn’t butthurt just over Mike Napoli. While I’ve always felt he was under-rated, and certainly undeserving of the snubs Scioscia served him in favor or Mathis, I would have been willing to see Napoli go. So long as the Angels got fair value for him. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

Nevertheless, it was pretty obvious to most people that Vernon isn’t an especially good baseball player any more. There’s nothing unusual about this. He’s always had a fairly limited skill set that doesn’t tend to age well. Reagins seemed to make the classic mistake of assuming that a veteran player, who established his reputation in his youth, had somehow managed to recapture his former glory with one resurgent season. I can’t imagine much worse abuses of the team’s resources. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

Then you’ll say that I’m worrying over Arte’s money, which isn’t mine to concern myself with or speculate about. Well, Arte can roll joints or wipe his ass with his millions for all I care. But I also realize that Arte isn’t spending money on the Angels because he loves me. We fans are very fortunate to have an owner with a multi-decade strategy. He’s willing to sacrifice short-term profit margins for long-term appreciation in value. He’s spending more on payroll than most owners would in his position. I think that’s a good thing. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

Arte still has his limits though. It’s not just that Wells absorbs resources that could be spent on better players (which he does). He also takes playing time and opportunities away from better players. Carlos Beltran, for instance, is a better baseball player. He could really help the Angels right now. But even if Arte can afford him, where’s he going to play? Vernon’s huge salary means he’s going to get every chance to fail this year, and next year, and the year after, and the year after that. I’d rather see better players like Mike Trout have some of those chances. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

It’s not good enough for me if Reagins isn’t the worst GM in baseball (he’s not, so long as Dayton Moore or Ed Wade has a job). It’s not even good enough for me if he’s competent enough to make it into the middle-fifteen of MLB GMs (yes, he’s probably competent enough to make that list, although probably at the bottom). I want my team to have the best goddamned general manager who ever lived. Because I like the Angels, and I want to see them do well.

There might be a pattern here. It’s probably familiar for most of the regulars on this site.