Josh Hamilton is a major league baseball player with an addiction problem which apparently began when he was 21 in 2002. He had a long history of addiction to booze and drugs in the early 2000s which cost him three years of potential major league service. He has had a couple of relapses since he first came up to the big leagues in 2007, but he played at a high level for five years with the Rangers. After the 2012 season he became a free agent and signed a 5-year, $125M contract with the LA Angels.

Mostly due to injuries, Hamilton has not performed for the Angels to the same high level he had in the past. Then, this spring, he self-reported a relapse of his drug and alcohol addiction to MLB. Because he self-reported, an outside arbitrator ruled he had not violated the terms of his treatment program.

This infuriated Arte Moreno, the owner of the Angels. Mr. Moreno seemed to see a way of ducking the remaining $83M the team owed Hamilton if only the arbitrator had ruled the other way.

Angels management was livid, with President John Carpino saying the ruling “defies logic” and Moreno pointedly refusing to say Hamilton would play for the Angels again.

Additionally, Moreno conveniently forgot what Hamilton’s contract language said:

Moreno also said Hamilton’s contract contained language that would protect the Angels from a relapse, an assertion vigorously denied by the players’ union. An attempt to enforce any such language almost certainly would have resulted in another arbitration hearing.

When the Angels signed Hamilton in 2012 — to a five-year, $125-million contract — Moreno said the contract contained no such language.

Now comes word that the Rangers will take Hamilton off Moreno and the Angels’ hands, trading cash considerations for him. It looks like Moreno will still be on the hook for $60 or $65 million bucks while the Rangers will pay the balance of Hamilton’s salary.

Sorry, Arte, but I think you deserve to get the economic shaft here. If you’ve got an employee that has an addiction problem (not a steroid problem, which at this point in MLB’s experience would merit immediate firing), I think you owe the guy help and support, not a blast of angry public words and a blatant desire to wash your hands of the man. You willingly entered into that contract, knowing he was an addict. You can’t hope to look good when you bail out on the guy and throw him overboard like this.

If I were a baseball free agent at the end of this season, I’d look twice at the Angels and perhaps go elsewhere for less money if I could be sure I’d get treated like a human being rather than a hunk of raw material, as Moreno apparently sees his employees.