Latest embarrassing Angels mistake can wind up costing them in multiple ways

The Los Angeles Angels chose to take a risk at this year's trade deadline, trading some of their few good prospects in exchange for one-year rentals in an effort to push them to the postseason. As we all know, that plan failed spectacularly thanks to an 8-19 month of August that all but pushed the Angels completely out of postseason contention.

In a desperate attempt to get back under the luxury tax, the Angels placed six players on waivers. The Halos wouldn't get anything in return for some of their best players, but would ideally clear enough money to get back under the tax.

It turns out, they couldn't even do that correctly. Five of the six players were claimed with Randal Grichuk the lone exception. Despite clearing around $5 million, the Angels are still reportedly slightly over the tax according to Perry Minasian as this awful deadline gets even worse.

LA Angels continue to mismanage everything as they fail to get under the luxury tax

The one goal the Angels had with these transactions was to get under the tax. Sure, these moves open some time for young players too, but the luxury tax was clearly the sole focus here. Arte Moreno doesn't want to be in the tax for a team that isn't going to make the postseason, and there're other implications too.

Now that the Angels failed to get under the tax, if they lose Shohei Ohtani in free agency, their compensatory pick will fall after the fourth round. Had they gone under, that pick would've been after the second round. Big difference there.

Additionally, the Angels will be taxed more next season if they go over the tax again since they'd be a repeat offender. This only impacts Arte Moreno, but with how adamant he is with refusing to go over the tax to begin with, how likely is it that he goes over the tax two years in a row with him being taxed more on every additional dollar he spends?

This is obviously another failure by the Angels front office as they failed to accomplish their one goal that came from waving the white flag as adamantly as they did. I guarantee you they wouldn't have waived everyone if they were already under the tax or had no shot at getting below it.