LA Angels owner unwilling to spend more money

I have read a lot of reports today that the Los Angles Angels of Anaheim cannot spend any more money. That is not entirely true. There is no salary cap in baseball so Angels owner Art Moreno could spend all the money he feels like. However, he is no longer willing to spend more money on his payroll. Given teh current economic climate, and the success of his team on the field I think we can all understand why he may be pulling in the purse strings a little bit.

The 2011 Angels payroll sits at just north of 141 million. They just decided to eat 9.5 million dollars when they released Scott Kazmir. They are also paying Gary Matthews over 11 million dollars to play Triple A ball in the Cincinnati Reds system. This once again proves it is not as much money a baseball team spends but how it spends it. The Angels currently find themselves with several bad contracts after several years of being in win now mode.

The real pickle here is the Angels so not appear to have much Major League ready talent in their farm system. That probably means they will become sellers as we progress towards the 2011 MLB trading deadline. However, they sit just three games back in the easiest division (because it contains only four teams) in baseball to win.

I am not a big fan of teams giving up on their seasons this early, but I certainly understand where their owner is coming from. His General Manger has got him into a number of bad deals, and their 33-37 record is hardly worth the 141 million dollars being spent on the payroll. Sure, a 162 game schedule usually lets the cream rise to the top but the guys that own our sports teams are businessmen first and sports fans second. Except for maybe Mark Cuban.