interim general manager

In 2012, when Mark Walter and his partners bought the Dodgers, team president Stan Kasten declared mediocrity would no longer be acceptable.

Would the Dodgers improve their minor league system? Yes. Would the Dodgers improve their major league roster? Also yes. Would spending in one area preclude spending in another? Absolutely not.

“These fans expect and deserve a team that can win,” Kasten said then.

So do Angels fans. For the first time this decade, with the arrival of John Mozeliak as interim general manager, they have legitimate hope.

Mozeliak, whose St. Louis Cardinals teams reached the playoffs more often than not in his 18 years running baseball operations there, is here to end baseball’s longest postseason drought, or at least steer the Angels in that direction.

At first, I was shocked to hear him say he does not believe the Angels need to rebuild. Under owner Arte Moreno, the Angels have resisted rebuilding, preferring to add lower-tier free agents and rush college players to the major leagues in an effort to field a competitive roster. That has failed: For the first time in franchise history, the Angels could finish in last place for a third consecutive season.

But, when Mozeliak and I sat down in the Angels’ dugout the other day, he explained that the path forward in Anaheim should not be tanking. It should be acting like the major-market team the Angels are — and were, during Moreno’s first decade of ownership.

“The one thing you have to realize about the Los Angeles Angels is: they do have resources,” Mozeliak said. “From Mr. Moreno to the market size, this is a place that could be a very, very special place.”

In Moreno’s first decade, under Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia, the Angels were a player development machine. In 2003, in his first winter as owner, Moreno signed the best position player on the free-agent market in Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero and the best pitcher on the market in four-time All-Star Bartolo Colon.

The questions Mozeliak asks and answers now are the same ones Kasten did with the Dodgers. Can the team deploy resources to upgrade scouting and player development? Yes. Can the team do the same with the major league roster? Also yes.

“There are many franchises in the game of baseball that cannot do that,” Mozeliak said. “They have trade-offs. They have to make a decision: If I’m going to give you $20 million for your infrastructure, that’s $20 million less for your payroll.

“This place is different.”

The Dodgers parallel only goes so far. Walter and Kasten inherited a core of Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Mozeliak will work with Mike Trout and a long-touted “young core” that has shown by now it is not the foundation of a championship-caliber team.

No one expects Moreno to spend like the Dodgers do (and even Walter’s fellow owners want a salary cap in an attempt to stop the Dodgers). Yet, in St. Louis, Mozeliak built winners without the Cardinals owners ever paying a luxury tax.

The first step in revitalizing the Angels comes Saturday, in the draft.

“We’re going to take the best available player,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he is not interested in two recent Angels trends: paying less to a first-round pick in order to spread the savings around longer shots in the lower rounds, or targeting a polished college player in part because he could get to Anaheim in a hurry.

“I’m not wedded to a high school player or a college player,” Mozeliak said. “I want the best player.”

The second item on the agenda: the Aug. 3 trade deadline, which would afford Mozeliak the opportunity to collect prospects for such players as pitcher Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano and outfielder Jo Adell.

In 2020, Moreno nixed a trade that would have brought Andy Pages – then a Dodgers prospect, now an All-Star – to the Angels.

In 2023 and 2024, Moreno rebuffed trade offers for Shohei Ohtani that could have returned the likes of Junior Caminero or Jackson Merrill. No player of that caliber would be coming in return for what the Angels have to offer now.

Mozeliak said the Angels should not consider a trade proposal in isolation, without considering how to flex their major-market muscles to fill whatever hole a trade might create.

“If we understand what we’re doing today can help make us stronger tomorrow, and then look at potentially what we could do on the free-agent market,” he said, “that should be something we are doing in parallel thinking.”

Mozeliak said he does not believe any player should be untouchable. As if on cue, Trout walked by.

Trade Trout? That’s not happening, right?

“That’s not happening,” Mozeliak said.

In his hours of conversations with Moreno, Mozeliak said, the topic of whether the owner might sell the team “never came up.”

Does Moreno appear interested in staying for the long haul?

“Absolutely,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he had presented Angels President Molly Jolly with a 100-day plan for what the team calls a consulting role: run baseball operations on an interim basis; do a deep dive into how the Angels do things now and how they can do them better; recommend a new general manager. Maybe he stays in that role, or in a supporting role, or he simply leaves when his contract expires in December.

“I’m certainly confident in what we need to do, and I’m certainly confident this is a market that could be amazing,” he said. “It’s exciting times for me. I’m energized.

“I’m smart enough to know that one person cannot change everything. But one person can begin change, and that’s what I’m going to start to do.”

Distinguished executives, including the likes of Dave Dombrowski and Andrew Friedman, have wanted no part of the Angels. Then again, Mozeliak is only committed for six months. If Moreno does not do what Mozeliak believes should be done, and if Mozeliak is not allowed to begin that change, he can just walk away.

“I think I have that authority,” Mozeliak said, “and I think he understands that he can embrace change, because that is what is going to be required.”

Based on Moreno telling you that?

“Yes,” Mozeliak said.

The last time the Angels hired an experienced general manager from outside the organization: 35 years ago, when they also looked to St. Louis for Whitey Herzog. That didn’t work. Herzog won a power struggle in the front office, then quit anyway, amid disputes with ownership.

This might work, or might not. But think back to 2020, when then-Angels president John Carpino said this: “Obviously, we’re not doing it the right way. We’re not winning games. So something is not right in our organization.”

Carpino retired in April, without ever explaining what was not right in the organization or, based on the standings, repairing it.

Jolly replaced him and, within two months, secured Moreno’s approval to hire the architect of a World Series championship team to figure out what was not right in the organization, and to fix it.

In one bold step, the Angels admitted they had a problem and set out a path to remedy it. With three months to go in this wretched season, the MVP of the 2026 Angels is abundantly clear: Molly Jolly.

John Mozeliak is in Anaheim for one clear-cut reason: to set the foundation for the Angels to get back on track.

At his introductory news conference at Angel Stadium on Saturday, the team’s new baseball operations consultant and interim general manager laid out his vision for success — while acknowledging recent woes — alongside Molly Jolly, one day after the first-year Angels president relieved general manager Perry Minasian of his duties amid his sixth straight losing season.

“Obviously, [the Angels] lacked consistency in terms of when you think about winning, right? Because that’s the proxy,” Mozeliak said. “There’s a lot of things we can use to determine if the organization is healthy or not. … Where Molly and I are connecting on this is like, we understand wins and losses matter, but how do you get to a place where that becomes consistent?

“Look at the best clubs in baseball [and] what you admire; whether they’re large-market or small-market, they have a philosophy, they have direction, and they stick to it, right? … That’s ultimately what we need to do here, and that’s hopefully something I can help bring to them.”

Mozeliak spent 18 seasons (2008-25) as general manager of the St. Louis Cardinals, a tenure consisting of 10 playoff appearances and a World Series victory in 2011.

The 57-year-old intends to “audit” the Angels in this new role alongside Jolly, with plans to hire a general manager by the time Mozeliak’s contract is up “sometime in December.”

“I brought on board John Mozeliak to assist me in preparing a baseball operation strategy as well as guide me in the search for a new general manager,” Jolly said, mentioning that her decision to fire Minasian and bring in Mozeliak had brewed for weeks.

“I did this because John has a proven track record of building and maintaining winning baseball cultures, and my goal is to bring that here to the Angels.”

Mozeliak didn’t rule himself out as the long-term answer at general manager and was emphatic about not speaking in absolutes. However, the longtime executive said he’d rather help Jolly “bridge the gap” during the Angels’ transformative period before anything else.

The Angels have plenty of gaps entering Saturday’s matchup with the Athletics. The Angels are tied for last in the American League with a 34-49 record while on the road to a 12th consecutive finish out of the playoffs.

And all of that is before mentioning the “sell the team” chants that flood the right-field upper deck at Angel Stadium at each home game oas ex-Angel Shohei Ohtani thrives with the Dodgers.

Mozeliak understands that the Angels have lacked direction in recent seasons. He asked for patience in rebuilding the team alongside Jolly.

“I knew coming in, this isn’t going to be something where Molly and I had a light switch and everything just starts working perfectly,” Mozeliak said. “It’s not going to work that way. … I would ask for some patience. We need a little time to sort of work through this … when we come out on the other end of this tunnel, we hope to be in a very successful place.”

Jolly said of Angels fans’ discontent, “I know what’s happening. I see it, I hear it. Fans have a right to have their voices be heard. Didn’t influence the decision that I wanted to make, but we all want to win. Our owner wants to win. I do. The fans deserve that, and that’s what we’re going to work toward.”

Mozeliak acknowledged he’d already forgotten some names of Angels personnel he was introduced to Saturday. But he also said that first-year manager Kurt Suzuki and the rest of the coaching staff’s jobs are secure through the season.

“I met with most of them this morning, and I told them they’re all fine for this year,” Mozeliak said. “There’s nothing they have to worry about. We’re not making any coaching changes right now. I really just need to get to know them, right?”

Mozeliak spoke to Suzuki on Saturday and said that he and his staff are “very impressive.”

Across the board, Mozeliak — who hasn’t yet met owner Arte Moreno since moving into this role — is focused on knowing who the Angels are at this point, with an “aggressive timeline” looming in the background.

With that said, Mozeliak shared that he isn’t “overly concerned” with the Aug. 3 trade deadline, nor is he worried about the MLB Draft, which starts July 11.

“My philosophy on the draft is to let the scouting director and his team do their jobs,” Mozeliak said. “The only real input I’m going to have is … understanding their process … and then if there are some financial decisions that are being banked into who we pick and why.”

Jolly brought in Mozeliak to help the Angels hire their fourth full-time general manager since 2012.

And while many might believe not much will change as long as Moreno remains the owner, Jolly said she has “autonomy” to assess the Angels’ baseball operations and is “confident in my authority and scope within the organization.”

Those invested in the Angels will believe it when they see it.

“When I think about the Angels right now, I just look at it as a very opportunistic time here,” Mozeliak said. “New leadership on the business side; we’re going to put a great team on the baseball side.

“But it’s going to be a place that I hope, in a couple years, we’re all proud of.”