Kevin Pillar is calling on Angels owner Arte Moreno to sell the team.
Days after Moreno said fans care more about affordability than winning, Pillar joined a growing number of critics of the boss in Anaheim.
“He doesn’t realize what he has, because if he really cared about winning, it would be such a destination for players to want to come and play,” the former MLB outfielder said during an appearance on the “Foul Territory” podcast.
“He just needs to get rid of the team because he really doesn’t really care about, you know, the Angels and, obviously, franchise values are going way up again.
“[Moreno] said he wasn’t actively shopping [the Angels], but I think there’s a lot of people interested in buying. So hopefully someone just kind of blows them away with an offer here soon, and we could kind of move past the story.”
Moreno on Friday told reporters that the “number one thing fans want is affordability” and that “winning is not in their top five,” citing an internal team survey.
The owner added that “moms” preferred the affordability aspects of events like baseball games.
“Moms make about 80 percent of the decisions,” he said. “They want to be able to bring their kids and be affordable, and they want safety, and they want to have a good experience, so they get all the entertainment stuff or whatever. The purists, you know, it’s just straight winning.”
Pillar, who played 13 big league seasons before retiring last July, spent part of the 2024 season with the Angels.
Moreno’s comments didn’t sit well with new interim Major League Baseball Players Association executive director Bruce Meyer, either, telling The Athletic over the weekend that the union and players “took notice.”
“The bottom line is players are competitors. They grew up competing every day. They go out, and they try their hardest to win every game. And players want to see owners doing the same thing,” Meyer said.
Despite an embarrassment of superstar talent over the years, Moreno’s Angels haven’t done much winning under his ownership.
After Moreno bought the team in May 2003, just months after their 2002 World Series championship, the Angels made the playoffs in five of the next seven seasons, but have struggled since.
Since 2010, the Angels have made just one postseason appearance, wasting a big chunk of the careers of MLB legends like Mike Trout, Shohei Ohtani and Albert Pujols.
The Angels have finished below .500 in 10 straight seasons, and it doesn’t appear to be getting much brighter in Southern California.
After years of big free agent contracts and one of the higher payrolls in the sport, Moreno slashed salary to around $155 million, which includes deferred payments to injured third baseman Anthony Rendon.
Moreno cited the loss of the team’s local TV deal as the reason for the money-saving moves.
“Will [payroll] get back to $200 million? Probably,” Moreno said. “We’ve got to get our TV thing worked out, and we just have to improve our brand.”
In August 2022, Moreno announced that he was exploring selling the Angels, but ended that process just months later, citing “unfinished business.”
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