Angels owner Arte Moreno may have just handed MLBPA huge win ahead of CBA talks

Most MLB owners operate in the background while their front office handles their work, and fans don't usually have particularly strong feelings towards them. Fans may want them to spend more, but the majority of owners operate in good faith and give what resources they can to help the team put as strong a product on the field as is feasible. Unfortunately, most owners are not Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno.

At this point, Moreno is a walking meme that is just keeping ownership of the team for the sake of vanity. Moreno has actively played a part in LA's lack of a decent pitching development program, a host of legal issues with the city surrounding the Angels' stadium deal, restricted spending on talent (especially, again, pitchers), and when spending was authorized, it rarely went well, as was the case with Anthony Rendon.

Those reasons and more are precisely why Angels fans largely cannot stand Moreno. When word got out that he was considering selling the team a few years ago, as well as hints more recently, it was honestly surprising that there weren't celebrations in the street at the time. Unfortunately, not only did Moreno decide not to sell the team, but he may also attract the ire of other owners after his comments about the cost of winning and why he isn't prioritizing putting a contending Angels team on the field.

Arte Moreno's comments accomplished the rare feat of pissing off Angels fans AND team owners all at once

The comments themselves were asinine at face value. Moreno claimed that fans don't really care about winning, according to "surveys," and instead care about having entertainment and security at the park. Yes, fans want those things, but they aren't going to use their hard-earned money to support a team whose owner can't be bothered to support the team like they should and is still cutting costs. Hell, Moreno's comments still make him look bad, as he probably won't even staff up Angel Stadium enough to accommodate the fans that do show up.

Moreover, Moreno's comments are going to come back to bite him and the other owners in the upcoming CBA talks. Owners are going to argue for a salary cap and talk about how much it is costing to field a competitive team, and that many teams simply can't compete with the Dodgers of the world. That argument may have some merit, but it looks significantly worse when one of the guys pushing that narrative is lining his pockets and openly declaring that he isn't even trying to field a winner.

Unfortunately for Moreno, MLBPA has already noticed his comments, and it is clear that they are going to be used against owners when the inevitable lockout comes. Now, not only does Moreno have a roster that just had their suspicions confirmed that they are being treated as just a step above the roster from "Major League," but future free agents won't want to play for the Angels while he owns the team, AND he may have made a likely protracted labor battle even worse.

It is hard to pull off all of that with just a few words to reporters, but somehow Moreno turned the trick.