From the same L.A. Times article in which the Angels’ offer to Adrian Beltre was reported, Arte Moreno claims that the Angels never made an offer to Carl Crawford. Why? Never had the chance, he says. By the time they got to talking to him in Orlando last week he had an agreement with the Red Sox. Alternatively, Moreno says, he was too expensive and if they signed him the payroll would have been out of whack and he would have had to raise ticket prices. Really: he makes the argument that an increased payroll would have led to higher ticket prices, as if those prices aren’t set by supply and demand.
Both of these explanations run counter to what ESPN’s Gordon Edes reported last week. He had two different sources, one claiming that the Angles matched the $142 million offer but did so too late. Another says that all they made was a $108 million offer which was obviously way too light.
Know what it all sounds like to me? It sounds like the Angels, despite all of their early-offseason talk about wanting to spend big and make a splash, have real payroll constraints that they don’t want to exceed and which were never compatible with Carl Crawford in the first place. Disingenuous? Perhaps. Or maybe they just misread the market and didn’t figure contracts would be going loco like they have been. A third possibility: they just moved too damn slow. Whatever the case, Angels fans can’t be a happy lot right now, as their primary offseason target now plays for Boston and their secondary target -- Mr. Beltre -- has not accepted their allegedly big offer yet.
Know what would make this just perfect? If some other team signed Beltre and, wouldn’t you just know it, the Angels matched the offer ten minutes too late. Darn the luck.