Will the Angels finally practice smart spending now with Anthony Rendon gone?

The Los Angeles Angels are finally getting the Anthony Rendon albatross off of their necks, and fans are anxiously awaiting the results of their organization receiving many millions of dollars back following Rendon's buyout and subsequent retirement. Might the team be a destination for Cody Bellinger or somehow Alex Bregman to replace Rendon now? How about Framber Valdez or Ranger Suárez? The team has more money to spend, so spend it on some big name free agents... right?

The Angels' financials have long been a plague. They had virtually the entirety of the payroll wrapped up in Mike Trout and Anthony Rendon the past couple of seasons, and have been severely handcuffed because of that. The lights are shining on the organization once again with Rendon stepping aside, but the Angels need to show they are going to evolve after making the worst investment of all-time.

Will the Angels finally practice smart spending now with Anthony Rendon gone?

Hey Perry Minasian, here's a novel idea -- how about you try extending Zach Neto? Instead of fixing every problem the Angels have in one fell swoop, knock out some of the low-hanging fruit tasks right in front of you! Giving Neto more money helps everybody -- the Angels will likely get more bang for their buck now then they will in a couple years, and Neto gets to forego arbitration! Win-win! Do that with the Rendon money! After getting a Neto extension done, how about considering the same for José Soriano, Jo Adell, Logan O'Hoppe or Reid Detmers?

The likelihood of handing Cody Bellinger (it was reported the Angels checked in on him) a seven-year deal for hundreds of millions of dollars and everything then working out seems awfully low. Sure, let's give this 30-year-old a comparable deal to what we gave Rendon...it didn't work before but maybe this time it will! Or maybe throw a bag at an aging first baseman like Pete Alonso, those type of deals always work out!

Arte Moreno does not seem like the type of guy to learn lessons, and it seems very plausible he just commits the same sin from 2019 here in 2025. Spending money on your team is a necessity from ownership, but he FINALLY needs to learn to stop meddling and just knock out some smart, easy, not too lucrative deals instead of going crazy over players like Bellinger, Alonso, Bregman.