Mike Trout Doesn't Believe Arte Moreno Should Be Labeled Cheap

Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno has garnered a reputation of being cheap. The Angels did not match the price for star pitcher and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani this offseason, and failed to sign any free agent to fill the void Ohtani left at designated hitter and in the starting rotation — all of which only furthered the narrative around Moreno.

However, Angels center fielder Mike Trout doesn't feel that reputation is necessarily fair or indicative of the owner he knows.

"If you look over the past few years, Arte’s spent money. I saw a graph where we're 11th in spending money. But the big thing is people are saying he’s not signing big guys, and this and that.

— Angels center fielder Mike Trout, via Bob Nightengale of USA Today.

As Trout says, the reality is that the Angels are far from the stingiest teams when it comes to spending on player salaries. While there are some who may believe they should spend more or bring in some other key free agents, they do not rank at the bottom of MLB when it comes to spending.

The Angels have baseball's 12th-highest payroll entering 2024, and the 11th-highest 26-man payroll, per Spotrac. In 2023, their total team payroll ranked sixth. 

One of the players the Angels have spent big on during Moreno's tenure is Trout himself. In 2019, the Angels signed Trout to a 12-year contract extension worth $426 million, making him the highest-paid player in North American sports history at the time.

The Angels might appear cheap because they did not want to match the price for Ohtani — $700 million over 10 years — while the Los Angeles Dodgers committed more than $1.2 billion to free agents across town. Or because they did not replace the assistant general manager position Alex Tamin left vacant over the winter. Or because their international scouting department is relatively small compared to other teams. Or because they shed five veteran players last August in last-ditch effort to get under the competitive balance tax threshold when the team fell out of contention.

In terms of overall player spending, however, the Angels simply aren't one of baseball's most spendthrift teams.