Los Angeles Angels have gained a reputation as one of the stingiest teams in MLB and are not willing to spend a lot of money to sign high-profile players. That reputation only intensified when the Angels didn’t extend superstar Shohei Ohtani and their biggest deal of the offseason was a three-year, $33 million contract for Robert Stephenson.

After the Angels finished the season with a franchise-worst record 63-99, a record that also extended the team’s playoff drought to a decade, Angels owner Arte Moreno said that he predicted the team would contend in 2025 and bring in players who will. allow them to fight for a playoff spot.

Jon Heyman of the New York Post said on Bleacher Report Live that he doesn’t have “confidence” in the Angels actually making it through this offseason.

“I think they’re still licking their wounds about Rendon and Trout,” Heyman said. “And obviously, if you’re not willing to spend on Ohtani, who are you going to spend on? I don’t know. I don’t think they’re going to spend anything.

For Moreno, spending on exorbitant contracts does not necessarily translate into success. After all, the Angels paid their biggest contracts to Anthony Rendon and Mike Trout, two frequently injured players over the past five seasons. Rendon only played in 57 games during the 2024 season, while Trout was limited to 29 due to a torn meniscus.

Rendon and Trout each make more than $37 million per year from the contracts they signed with the Angels in 2019. No other Angels player makes even $15 million per year, per Spotrac.

“Teams that spend the money they spend lose a lot of money,” Moreno said earlier this month, via Jeff Fletcher of the OC Register. “Not a little money. They are losing a lot of money. And some teams are selling stock to maintain their payroll.

Huge contracts may not be the smartest business decision, but the Dodgers and Yankees have spent significantly more than the Angels and are the two teams currently playing in the World Series. They are at the point where Moreno wants his team to be. The Dodgers signed Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Ohtani to contracts worth more than $1 billion during the offseason last year, and the Yankees are currently spending more than $30 million annually on four separate players, according to Spotrac.

The Angels could probably compete at some point without making acquisitions as big as the Dodgers and Yankees, but they need to turn the page on what they did for the 2024 season, as it resulted in their worst campaign of the year. history of the franchise.