Dear Mr. Stan Kroenke:

Congratulations on your agreement to buy the Angels.

The price has not been disclosed. According to reports, it tops the record $3.9 billion recently paid for the San Diego Padres.

Wall Street says buy low and sell high. Financially, you bought high.

In baseball terms? Very low.

You are buying a last-place team more than 30 games under .500. It has not reached the postseason since 2014, nor posted a winning record since 2015. Somehow, the Angels employed Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani together for six seasons without reaching the playoffs.

So here is my first piece of advice: Make winning priority No. 1.

Your predecessor, Arte Moreno, infamously said Angels surveys showed winning was not among the fans’ five highest priorities. That sentence should mark the dividing line between the old Angels and the new ones.

Fortunately, you know how to build a winner. Your Los Angeles Rams won Super Bowl LVI. The Denver Nuggets won the 2023 NBA championship and the Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup in 2001 and 2022. Arsenal won the Premier League in 2026; Arsenal Women won the 2025 UEFA Women’s Champions League. The Colorado Rapids won the 2010 MLS Cup, while the Colorado Mammoth won National Lacrosse League championships in 2006 and 2022.

That is a crowded trophy case. But one conspicuous prize is missing from the Kroenke collection: the Commissioner’s Trophy awarded to the World Series winner.

Your first big deal may not be with a manager or free-agent pitcher — it may be with the city of Anaheim.

Angel Stadium is showing its age. The team’s lease can expire in 2032, and the future of the roughly 150 acres surrounding it remains unresolved. You built SoFi Stadium and turned Hollywood Park into a year-round destination.

You can do something similar in Anaheim: Start by committing to Anaheim and Orange County.

Your acquisition announcement described Orange County as a market of more than 3 million residents with its own “distinct civic identity, corporate base and tourism economy.”

You’re right. I live here.

Moreno spent two decades trying to make the Angels a regional team by attaching Los Angeles to their name, but it didn’t work: The Dodgers already own Los Angeles; give Orange County a team it can call its own.

Commit to keeping the Angels in Anaheim and work openly and fairly with the city on a renovated or replacement stadium and the surrounding property. Then restore the name that tells everyone where this team actually plays: the Anaheim Angels.

But a new ballpark cannot turn a last-place team into a champion. Here comes the harder part: fixing the baseball team. Don’t start by shopping for a headline-grabbing free agent; find the best baseball executive you can and put that person in charge. No one-year experiment. No owner playing general manager.

Moreno spent lavishly on Trout, Albert Pujols and Anthony Rendon, but too little on the machinery that produces sustainable success. Moreno made his fortune in billboards, and sometimes he ran the Angels the same way. He paid handsomely for a few enormous names visible from the freeway. Behind the sign, the structure deteriorated.

Winning organizations spend money in places fans never see: scouts, analysts, minor-league coaches, pitching instruction, international operations and player development. Rebuild the farm system, too, and take care of the people in uniform –– from rookie ball to Anaheim ––with first-class facilities and the resources they need to improve. Set championship expectations and sign the checks. Then let your baseball professionals do their jobs.

Ohtani’s departure is the painful lesson. Given the chance to match the Dodgers’ $700 million offer, the Angels declined. Ohtani drove north and immediately started winning World Series championships.

Sometimes the punchline writes itself.

Do not repeat that mistake: Find some pitching. Create the kind of team a player like Ohtani would believe can win. When the time comes, spend whatever it takes to finish the job.

Mr. Kroenke, I live in Orange County. By geography, the Angels should have been my team. Instead, I have been a season-ticket holder at Dodger Stadium for years. I love my team, and am probably a lost cause.

But Orange County is filled with people like me: baseball fans who, by all rights, should be Angels fans and aren’t. Give them no reason to drive 30 miles north to find an organization that takes winning seriously.

Win the World Series, Mr. Kroenke.

And win Orange County.

Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com and is a lifelong baseball fan.

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