To Arte Moreno, for finally relinquishing his death-grip on the Los Angeles Angels, whose classic 1970s-style halo did little to disguise decades of soul-crushing mediocrity. It’s a fact of sports team ownership that the character of the owner tends to shape the organization, which in turn is reflected in the team on the field. In Moreno’s case, his love for top talent appeared to be matched by his refusal to attend to the little details that make a winning team. His approach lavished record contracts on some of the greatest players in the game, only to submerge their talents in a swamp of joyless loser-dom. 

There have been bad owners in baseball before Arte Moreno. What makes him unique is that his approach to the game all-but-ruined the prime years of three of baseball’s greatest stars: Albert Pujols, Mike Trout, and Shohei Ohtani. …