There's a Reason Arte Moreno is a Billionaire

[Capital_Dave]

I think a caricature of Arte has developed that he's impulsive and (lately) conservative.  People seem to have this idea that he's our crazy uncle Larry that we just have to put up with.

 

What if he's crazy like a fox?

 

Neither Gordon nor Cespedes nor Upton have come off the market since Arte signaled he wouldn't be spending much more.  The guy wasn't under oath when he said that, and even what he said was couched with words like "probably."

 

I suspect that Arte is playing the long game with these free agents and looking for the market to come back to him.  It's already working -- several other teams (through FA signings, pitcher signings) have *left* the LF market over the last two weeks.  

 

Remember, Arte made hundreds of millions in the advertising signage industry.  He has built his career on lying to people... or at least selling them on a marketing campaign.  He's completely self-made, didn't inherit a penny.

 

Keep your powder dry, we may well come roaring back into the LF market and be the "mystery team" for one of those three left fielders in short order.

[DMVol]

Arte is a smart guy, that goes without saying....but smart guys can be impulsive (Hamilton) or just dumb (Pujols) on occasion....we are all capable of being impulsive or dumb in our decisions and it tends to re-arrange the budget plan for us, same as it does for very rich, very smart guys like Arte....

[eaterfan]

Also, being brilliant at owning an advertising business doesn't make you brilliant at owning other types of businesses. Plus Arte can make good business decisions but bad on field decisions at the same time.

Donald Sterling made a ton of money outside of basketball and he was terrible at winning. He did make a lot of money from the Clippers, though. So he was successful in the basketball business.

Keep in mind all these owners (or a large majority) are billionaires. Still many of them make bad decisions all the time. Arte is no exception.

[ABC]

Arte knows little about constructing a marketing message. He built a media company by growing an outdoor ads company. The marketing messages on them were developed primarily by ad agencies. Arte's company owned the rights to the outdoor ad space and sold it to media buyers. Arte is an old school sales guy, not a marketing genius. Hence his 24-hour take it or leave it offers and weak Angels marketing campaigns.

[Amazing Larry]

I think a caricature of Arte has developed that he's impulsive and (lately) conservative. People seem to have this idea that he's our crazy uncle Larry that we just have to put up with.

You shut your whore mouth!

[laagamer]

[Guest]

There's more to baseball than just business.

[ABC]

The Angels always seemed like a toy for him. It turned out to be another fortunate investment. All of a sudden he is running it like a business, like he did with Outdoors Systems, with serious concerns for the bottom line. I'm wondering if he made some poor investments in the past few years and the Angels are now an asset instead of a toy.

[NachoPop]

As soon as I read that he said they were out i was hoping that it was a partial negotiating ploy. Dont know wether it is or not but it sure wouldnt have helped the negotiations if he had of come out and said they were still willing to go big on a LFer

[HaloNArizona]

The Angels always seemed like a toy for him. It turned out to be another fortunate investment. All of a sudden he is running it like a business, like he did with Outdoors Systems, with serious concerns for the bottom line. I'm wondering if he made some poor investments in the past few years and the Angels are now an asset instead of a toy.

Josh Hamilton, CJ Wilson, and an under performing Pujols = poor investments!

 

When you dump money into aging FA's while losing a draft pick, you screw yourself in the long run.  One thing JD did was try to secure low costs/high rewards assets.

 

Arte, needs to stay out of baseball, allow the baseball people to handle this....invest in the future, not a short term fix.

[Ohtaniland]

Arte is wealthy and he's pushing 70 so maybe his frustration and the reality that Pujols, Hamilton, Wilson and Weaver own 55% of this years budget with little hope of championship level performances from any of them. He's now going to go conservative and still make millions.

[Stradling]

Yk, any thoughts on this?

[UndertheHalo]

They've probably determined a value for these guys (Upton/Cespedes/Gordon) and they aren't gonna go for them if they are outside of that determined value. These players are good, but they are not franchise sign at all costs type players. Moreover it sure looks like the Angels assessment is in line with other organizations in baseball because no one else has scooped them up. The longer this takes the more the odds look good for us perhaps signing one. The price has to be right, with these types of players and I think that's ok. The points in Fletcher's article about future costs are absolutely valid.

Edited December 22, 2015 by UndertheHalo

[DoubleOffTheWall]

I haven't closed the book on Arte yet. He may yet pull a move to improve this team greatly. While he did make poor decisions in the past (signing Pujols and Hamilton), when he left things to the "baseball people", those people also made dumb decisions, like Scioscia screwing Napoli and trading him for Wells, and Stoneman signing GMJ. 

 

As for comparing him to Sterling, that's laughable. Arte's Angels have had more success in his 12 years of ownership that Sterling ever had. Balmer took over and CP3 still ain't seen even the conference finals, and that team is starting to suck more and more. 

[gurn67]

Hopefully, it will end up like the Abreu signing and we get one of them on the cheap once the last one standing realizes he's run out of places to go and either signs an extension or decides to try again next year in a weaker market.

[eaterfan]

I haven't closed the book on Arte yet. He may yet pull a move to improve this team greatly. While he did make poor decisions in the past (signing Pujols and Hamilton), when he left things to the "baseball people", those people also made dumb decisions, like Scioscia screwing Napoli and trading him for Wells, and Stoneman signing GMJ.

As for comparing him to Sterling, that's laughable. Arte's Angels have had more success in his 12 years of ownership that Sterling ever had. Balmer took over and CP3 still ain't seen even the conference finals, and that team is starting to suck more and more.

The point was that there are separate measures for running a team successfully. There is on the field success and there is profitability. And being successful at business doesn't necessarily correlate with both or either. Sterling was just the most extreme example of on field failure while being extremely successful from a money making stand point. Jeffrey Loria was a close second.

[Angelsjunky]

It is a good point by the OP. Clearly Arte is a smart guy and knows his business. The problem is that he doesn't know his baseball, at least not enough to be making big decisions and going out on his own. We've seen nothing but disaster from that. Like many very successful people, Arte erroneously thinks his ability extends into all directions. Thus Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.

[eligrba]

Arte is a smart guy, that goes without saying....but smart guys can be impulsive (Hamilton) or just dumb (Pujols) on occasion....we are all capable of being impulsive or dumb in our decisions and it tends to re-arrange the budget plan for us, same as it does for very rich, very smart guys like Arte....

 

That is why you hire a quality GM to run your organization.  Dipoto did some good things and questionable things.  His time with the Angels reminded me of my golf game.

[eligrba]

It is a good point by the OP. Clearly Arte is a smart guy and knows his business. The problem is that he doesn't know his baseball, at least not enough to be making big decisions and going out on his own. We've seen nothing but disaster from that. Like many very successful people, Arte erroneously thinks his ability extends into all directions. Thus Wells, Pujols, and Hamilton.

 

I have a hard time believing those aquisitions were Arte working alone.  I think that Arte + Scioscia were the decision makers for those players.

[ten ocho recon scout]

The Angels always seemed like a toy for him. It turned out to be another fortunate investment. All of a sudden he is running it like a business, like he did with Outdoors Systems, with serious concerns for the bottom line. I'm wondering if he made some poor investments in the past few years and the Angels are now an asset instead of a toy.

thats actually a really good question. All of these owners have their money spread around in a thousand directions. I think more than a few own teams almost as a write off for other ventures.

[Angelsjunky]

I have a hard time believing those aquisitions were Arte working alone.  I think that Arte + Scioscia were the decision makers for those players.

 

Even worse. You have the owner, who isn't a baseball person, and the manager, who is stuck in the pre-analysis 80s, making decisions on who to sign. That should be the GM's job.

 

GM: "Hey Arte, I think we should sign X."

Arte: "I want Y."

GM: "I wouldn't do that for the following reasons..."

Arte: "I don't care, I want Y."

GM: "I don't feel good about it, for these reasons..."

Arte: "Are you still talking? Get me Y or you're fired."

GM: "But..."

Arte: "Nevermind, I'll do it myself."

 

Or something like that.

[yk9001]

There's a reason he's a billionaire:  He was in the right place at the right time, when the rising tide of the market lifted all boats.

[ksangel]

There's one main reason he's a billionaire

 

"In 1996, Arte Moreno took Outdoor Systems public.  The companies stock soared, and in 1996 he sold the company to Infinity Broadcasting for $8 billon."

 

The Angels are a toy for Arte and he's risen his investment value from $180M purchase price to $500M (per Forbes).

 

 

 

And he's got all of us into thinking we know more than he does and to boot give him all our expendable income.

Edited December 23, 2015 by ksangel

[VariousCrap]

 

I suspect that Arte is playing the long game with these free agents and looking for the market to come back to him. 

 

 

 

This has been money hope since Scrooge Arte made those comments.

[ScottT]

It's not baseball expertise.

 

It's economics.