John Mozeliak’s future with the Angels may be tied to a sale that isn’t even close to being finished, but the signs around him point in one direction: he’s staying put for now.
Even though Mozeliak was mostly kept out of the loop of Arte Moreno planning to sell the Los Angeles Angels to Stan Kroenke in a deal that should be finalized early next year, the logic around the organization still points to him remaining the face of the team’s baseball operations for at least the next year.
That idea has been reinforced by the way Mozeliak has handled the job since stepping in as interim general manager. The Angels took a different approach to the draft than the one they had used under Perry Minasian, and the class has drawn praise. At the trade deadline, Mozeliak also made aggressive moves by dealing controllable pitchers Jose Soriano and Ryan Zeferjahn.
Since then, he has kept pushing. The coaching staff has been overhauled with new pitching coaches, and the front office has been restructured.
Those are not the kinds of decisions a team usually makes if it views someone as a temporary placeholder. And as the reporting notes, Mozeliak probably would not have come out of retirement if that were all this job was going to be.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale spoke with rival executives, and their expectation is that Mozeliak will remain with the Angels as president of baseball operations.
That would line up with what Mozeliak said when he was hired. He wasn’t looking to be the person handling the daily grind, but he was open to a broader front-office role. The likely setup would have him elevated to the president title while a general manager is hired beneath him, giving Mozeliak final say without forcing him into the day-to-day demands of running the operation.
The timing also matters. November is expected to get busy, and with the CBA expiring on December 1 and a possible work stoppage looming, the Angels need to be organized before the offseason really gets rolling. That’s another reason Mozeliak appears likely to stay.
And there’s the sale itself. Kroenke’s purchase won’t be finalized until January at the earliest, and it could take even longer because MLB owners still need to approve it, possibly after a new CBA is in place. Even if Kroenke eventually wants his own people in charge, that isn’t something that would happen this offseason.
For now, the simplest path looks like the right one: Mozeliak keeps running things. The Angels’ best move would be to make that official sooner rather than letting it drag on.
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