Angels Lack Of Moves At GM Meetings Represent Arte Moreno’s Final Insult

Baseball's GM meetings are gearing up in Las Vegas, and there will be plenty of gambling on free agents. Some teams are frantic about making plans and moves going forward with the lockout about to start in a matter of weeks, but the Los Angeles Angels won’t be among them. 

That’s because the Halos don’t have a GM. They don’t have a manager, either, but they do have a new ownership group that’s got the resources to make moves, except for one little detail: 

They can’t -- at least not just yet. 

Consider this the final insult from departing owner Arte Moreno to the Angels loyal but beleaguered fan base. Moreno knows full well the timeline for teams that need to make moves going into the offseason, but instead he set terms that would prevent them from doing this. 

It’s almost laughable to think this might have happened unknowingly. Instead, the calendar year restriction will apply, with the Angels unable to make moves until after the first of the year, when the players will be officially locked out. 

Could this have been done differently? Possibly. There was a flurry of activity just over a week ago, when a rushed version of the owners’ vote on new owner Stan Kroenke seemed to be moving up to the week of Nov. 16. 

We still don’t know exactly what happened with that, but the possible vote was quickly walked back, then denied. The initial report came from Jeff Fletcher of the Orange County Register was the one that had the vote being pushed up, but subsequent reporting from the LA Times was part of a flurry of activity that led to this sequence of events. 

The flurry of activity the Angels do need is about baseball moves, starting with the hiring of a president of baseball operations, then a manager. These two additions will now be occurring separately, according to the new reporting, and then there are the baseball moves that need to happen after that. 

Those moves are substantial. The Angels have at least four positions on the diamond that are undetermined right now, along with the makeup of their entire bullpen. There are two or three starters in place, but the organization has been in disarray for so long that it’s tough to assume anything at this point. 

All of this is right in keeping with Moreno’s style. He has a gift for doing exactly the worst possible thing at the exact wrong moment, and that’s what’s happening this week with interim GM John Mozeliak reportedly “collecting information” at this week’s meetings.