Angels New Owner Has Stadium, Land Issues To Address

The Los Angeles Angels have a new owner, and Stan Kroenke is reportedly a brilliant businessman. He’s won championships in nearly every sport imaginable, and now he gets to take on the formidable task of rebuilding the Angels. 

But Kroenke won’t be able to do much for the next few months. MLB is about to go into lockdown when the lockout happens on Dec. 1, and at this point we have no idea how long it will last. The best guess is late spring, but the owners have been known to do dumb things, and they’re reportedly standing in solidarity in their efforts to get a salary cap this time around. 

So what will Kroenke do with that time? He’ll almost certainly do some interviewing and hiring, presuming he takes the recommendations of interim GM John Mozeliak with a grain of salt, which he absolutely should. 

But there’s another issue that needs to be addressed, and it happens to be the land around the stadium that's right in Kroenke’s area of expertise. He’s made his billions in part by building stadiums and developing the areas around them into multi-use facilities, and Angels Stadium is badly in need of an overhaul. 

This is a well-known fact. For evidence, look no further than the experience of starter Yusei Kikuchi, who reportedly hurt his finger in what passes for the Angels weight room because there was no air conditioning. 

Whether you believe the injury report part of this, it’s absolutely astounding that a big league weight room would have this kind of issue, and shortly after it surfaced the Angels reportedly took out an ad for an HVAC repair person, which may have actually resulted in a hire.

It would be shocking if Kroenke didn’t at least start in on the stadium upgrade right away, and there’s also that lucrative land deal for the land around it that’s waiting to happen. Former owner Arte Moreno botched that possibility a few years ago and managed to tick off the entire city of Anaheim in the process, but Kroenke is a different animal when it comes to getting things like this done. 

So why should Kroenke do this now? Simple. The Angels will be overhauling their roster, and they need to attract free agent talent that doesn’t make the grade just because it's players who would be available and cheap. 

There’s nothing that says this can’t happen now, especially since there won’t be any baseball activities taking place. It’s a logical scenario that makes too much sense not to happen, especially given Kroenke’s track record of success in this area.