NEW YORK — Now that we don’t have the Wilpons to kick around anymore, for the first time in a long time New York baseball fans can be thankful for two of the most committed owners in the sport in Steve Cohen and Hal Steinbrenner. If only this was the case everywhere else in baseball.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by the preponderance of tanking in recent years and the continued reluctance of many of the revenue-sharing recipients to spend that money on players, there remains a bunch of distressed franchises in baseball in desperate need of ownership change. Here are our nominations for the five worst owners in baseball who all need to go:
Peter Angelos, Orioles
The family patriarch, 92-year-old Peter Angelos, who bought the team in 1993, has been incapacitated in recent years. But while he was in control he did everything he could to destroy one of the model franchises in baseball — alienating so many of the Orioles legends, refusing for years to invest in Latin America, overruling his economic adviser and signing Chris Davis to a ridiculous seven-year, $161 million extension, all in the name of just five postseason appearances in 28 years.
The Orioles are now being run by Angelos’ sons John and Louis. In 2018, they fired GM Dan Duquette, along with Buck Showalter as manager, and turned over the baseball operations to analytics devotee Mike Elias, who had formerly worked under the king of tanking Jeff Luhnow in Houston. Under Elias’ leadership, the Orioles immediately embarked on tanking and have had two 100-plus loss seasons in the last three years and another likely last-place finish this year.
Dick Monfort, Rockies
We’re talking flat-out incompetence here. After he and his brother Charlie took over controlling interest from original Rockies owner Jerry McMorris in 2005, Monfort and his equally incompetent former GM Jeff Bridich made one disastrous decision after another — none worse than Bridich getting into a family feud with Nolan Arenado shortly after signing Colorado’s franchise player to an eight-year, $260 million extension. Instead of intervening and settling their differences, Monfort let the situation fester until finally trading Arenado to the Cardinals for a bunch of non prospects.
Monfort has been vilified by the fans and media in Colorado and rightfully so — and this offseason he showed there is no end to his incompetence by signing the declining Kris Bryant to a mind-boggling seven-year, $182 million contract. Bryant has already missed half of the Rockies’ games with a back issue.
Bob Nutting, Pirates
Bob Nutting bought controlling interest in the Pirates in 2007 and is about to embark on his 12th losing season out of 16 thanks to one tear-down/sell-off after another. Last year, a dreadful 101-loss Pirates team drew only 859,498 fans, the first time since 1995 they were under one million and their lowest attendance since 1985. The fans of Pittsburgh are fed up with Nutting constantly trading off the Pirates’ best players for next to nothing in lieu of paying them.
In every deal, the Pirates were fleeced, but their payroll has remained consistently in the bottom five of baseball at the same time Nutting has happily collected his estimated $30 million in revenue sharing every year. In recent years, Nutting has not been seen around PNC Park, nor has he spoken to the media. The fervent wish in Pittsburgh is that his next press conference will be to sell the team.
Bob Castellini, Reds
The 80-year-old Castellini bought controlling interest in the Reds in 2006 and immediately proclaimed he bought the team to win and that anything else would be unacceptable. Except in his 16 years as owner, only eight teams in baseball have lost more games than the Reds, who are also one of only seven teams not to make the LCS over that span. Like Nutting, Castellini is another owner who loves that estimated $30-40 million in revenue sharing he gets every year but doesn’t so much love putting it into payroll. He also loves meddling in the baseball operations of the Reds, much to the team’s demise. In 2013, he ordered the firing of Dusty Baker as manager when Dusty refused to fire his batting coach and the Reds haven’t been the same since.
Compounding that were the whining tone-deaf remarks by Castellini’s son, Phil, in response to the fan and media criticism: “Well where you gonna go? Start there. Sell the team? To who? Be careful what you wish for. You want to be more profitable, compete more in the current economic system it would be to pick it up and move it someplace else.” When Marge Schott sold the Reds in 1999 it was hard to imagine the Reds ever having a worse owner, but Castellini is sure giving her a run for it.
John Fisher, Athletics
In Oakland, the sell-off of the A’s best players before they reach free agency has been an annual exercise, but this winter Fisher, who became the A’s majority owner in 2005, took it to another level, trading away a combined 66 home runs and 183 RBI in first baseman Matt Olson and third baseman Matt Chapman, and 23 wins in starting pitchers Chris Bassitt and Sean Manaea while making no effort to re-sign free agent Mark Canha. The moves effectively reduced the A’s payroll from $90 million to about $47 million.
Fisher substantially hiked the price of season tickets on top of the $30 for parking, and in case you haven’t heard, there’s a fan boycott going on in Oakland. The A’s are averaging a major league-worst 7,928 fans and in a recent series against the Mariners, less than 5,000 fans attended any of the four games. A major league official, speaking with the promise of anonymity, was asked last week just how Fisher is viewed by the rest of the owners: “John is a guy who doesn’t much care about baseball. He’s in the game to make a profit.”