It’s hard to envision a Major League Baseball owner who’s endured more criticism in the past five years than Arte Moreno.
The Los Angeles Angels principal owner has previously come under fire for failing to send his radio announcers on the road, which an ESPN LA radio host described as a “huge middle finger to the fans.” Another middle finger to the Halos’ faithful was wasting the best years of Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani while making little to no effort to retain the latter, who went across town and joined the Dodgers.
You could have made the argument about the Angelos, but they’ve since sold the Baltimore Orioles, which is why we saw Jim Palmer recently make light of an ownership decision to suspend play-by-play voice Kevin Brown.
Moreno, however, finds himself in no position to follow suit suspending a critical voice — but that’s only because it was a former team broadcaster who made some unflattering comments about the very ownership group he used to work for.
On the Angels Win Podcast, Victor Rojas, who was the play-by-play broadcaster for the team and even interviewed for the organization’s vacant general managerial position in 2020, laid out a scathing critique of the organization. A familiar voice to Angels fans for his years behind the mic, Rojas’ argument essentially boils down to this: if they haven’t figured it out by now, it’s time for a complete overhaul.
“It’s this vicious cycle that you continue to go at. I’ve said this ad nauseam,” Rojas said, as transcribed by FanNation’s Halos Today. “At some point, you have to make a decision that’s different from what you’ve been making for the last 13 or 14 years because the same stuff that continues to happen to the organization on and off the field are really generated from the same people. What does it hurt to wipe the whiteboard down and start anew, something fresh?”
Don’t get Rojas wrong — he loves Chuck Finley and Torii Hunter. But the decision to have Finley and Tim Salmon on the Angels staff as “advisors” last season, which saw them in uniform and in the dugout as extra eyes and ears, saw the former Angels broadcaster describe it as “eyewash.”
Hunter actually received “serious consideration” for the managerial gig that went to Ron Washington. He was offered to be the club’s first base coach but ultimately declined. Now, he serves as special assistant to GM Perry Minasian.
“That’s false hustle stuff from the organization, saying ‘Hey, look, we’re doing something. We’re bringing back guys.’ Well ****, why didn’t you do that for the last 12, 14-15 years?” asked Rojas. “Why don’t you have a Fan Fest? Why haven’t you had an Old Timers’ thing in Tempe during the offseason, where Joe Schmos can pull a hamstring playing against Chuck Finley in Tempe at Tempe Diablo Stadium? You know what I’m saying?
“All those things have been there for you to do, and yet you’ve never done it. It’s like, why? What’s the point? How’s that working out for you? Clearly, it’s not working, so ******* wake up and do something about it. At some point, somebody’s got to wake up and clear the cobwebs. We’re having the same friggin’ conversation that we had a year ago. And last year, you had Shohei.”
Rojas didn’t mince words when discussing the front office practices that have hamstrung the organization for nearly two decades. Now that he’s no longer the team’s broadcaster but still has a voice in the spot for ESPN’s college baseball coverage, he has carte blanche to take aim at his former organization as much as he pleases.
This newfound freedom has given Angels fans a much-needed voice, calling for a significant change in leadership and a complete overhaul of a front office that seems stuck on repeat. Whether Moreno listens to those calls remains to be seen, but clearly, the frustration has reached a boiling point, and the pressure is on the Angels’ owner to finally deliver a winning product.
