Whats Next After Angels Fire GM Perry Minasian, Hire Interim GM John Mozeliak
ANAHEIM, Calif. When Perry Minasian was hired as the Angels general manager after the 2020 season, the team was coming off a fifth straight losing season and a sixth straight year missing the playoffs. Five-plus years later, that playoff drought is now at 11 seasons with no sign of a turnaround in 2026. With the Angels in last place in the American League West, seven games back in the division and 6.5 games back of a wild-card spot, team president Molly Jolly made a change. Minasian, who went 392-500 during his tenure, is out as the Angels GM. Its not especially surprising that Minasian was fired the Angels never had a winning record or finished better than third place during his tenure but the timing of the news came as a surprise an hour before Fridays opener against the As, with two weeks to go before the draft and barely a month to go before the trade deadline. I asked Jolly if there was any consideration to waiting until after the draft to make the move. "There was consideration given to both scenarios, before and after," she said Saturday. "My choice was to make a decision sooner rather than later." John Mozeliak, who spent 30 seasons in St. Louis, including 18 running the Cardinals baseball operations department before stepping down at the end of the 2025 season, was announced as the Angels baseball operations consultant and interim GM. Mozeliak, who was introduced Saturday at a 30-minute press conference, will oversee the teams baseball operations strategy and assist in the search for a new long-term GM. Heres more on whats next for the Angels, Mozeliak and the teams GM search. Whats Next For The Angels? Manager Kurt Suzuki, who was hired before this season on a one-year contract and will remain in place this year, along with the rest of the coaching staff, according to Mozeliak was the fourth full-time skipper under Minasian over five-plus years. None of them have been able to work miracles. Under the watch of owner Arte Moreno and the direction of Minasian, the Angels never built the requisite depth or infrastructure around superstar Mike Trout to make the postseason and never committed to the full rebuild that could meaningfully steer the team toward future contention. The most glaring misstep came in late July 2023. Instead of trading Shohei Ohtani to get a haul that could reshape the farm system, the Angels dealt more prospects away in an effort to go for it. On July 26, 2023, they traded for pitchers Lucas Giolito and Reynaldo Lpez. Four days later, they added outfielder Randal Grichuk and first baseman C.J. Cron. The Angels were five games back in the division and four games off a wild-card spot at the time. The moves immediately backfired. They went 8-19 in August and then waved the white flag, trying to ease their financial burden as the season spiraled by placing many of the players they acquired on waivers. Manager Phil Nevin was out after the 2023 season. So was Ohtani, who went up the road to Los Angeles and immediately won two World Series. The Angels stayed irrelevant over the ensuing years, finishing in last place each of the last two seasons under manager Ron Washington and interim manager Ray Montgomery. They went from having a perennial top-10 payroll to the 15th-ranked payroll at the start of this season. They are again in last place, trending toward their 12th straight season without playoff baseball. "A lot of things we can use to sort of determine if the organization is healthy or not, but I think for me, where Molly and I are connecting on this, we understand wins and losses matter, but how do you get to a place where that becomes consistent?" Mozeliak said. Its an ambitious endeavor, as the future does not inspire much confidence. The poor farm system Minasian inherited never got better, and his free-agent moves over the past few years fell well short of sparking change. Despite picking in the top half of the MLB Draft every year since 2019, the Angels still rank among the lowest-ranked farm systems in MLB. They currently have one player, 2025 first-round pick Tyler Bremner, who ranks among the top 100 of most prospect rankings. The Angels proclivity for selecting college players who can help quickly, then zooming them up to the big leagues rather than letting them develop, has not yielded many success stories. Shortstop Zach Neto, who was called up after just 44 minor-league games after being selected in the first round in 2022, is one of the few over the past few years. The trajectory of pitcher Ryan Johnson, a 2024 second-round pick, is more emblematic of the apparatus. He made the Opening Day roster before he had ever played in a minor-league game last season, then recorded an ERA over 7.00 before getting optioned. Johnson has an ERA over 8.00 in six appearances this season. There are, however, some interesting pitchers on the team who could draw trade interest. Reid Detmers, a 2020 first-round pick, is enjoying a career year and ranks sixth in the American League in strikeouts. Jos Soriano is right behind him, ranking seventh in strikeouts with a 3.32 ERA. Both are under team control through 2028. But would Moreno actually let a new GM sell at the deadline and start a full rebuild? As of Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after taking the job, Mozeliak said he had not met with Moreno and wasnt certain about deadline strategy. "Mr. Moreno is the owner; my job is to have a healthy relationship with him," Mozeliak said. "I think the short-term focus for me is just, what does that communication line look like and making sure he understands what our direction is, and Im looking forward to that. "Ive worked with lots of different owners at different levels in sports, and I understand how they go about it," he continued. "The one thing you have to understand, and I dont know Mr. Moreno I have not met him [since taking the job] but I can tell you this: He does care. He does want to win. He probably is a little bit too much of a fan than not, and thats a hard thing because sometimes on the business side of this game you have to make decisions that sometimes arent fun to make. But as an owner, I can see how that gets a little blended. "But I assure you guys I wouldnt be sitting here if I didnt think he truly loved this team and cared about this city and wanted this to work." Whats Next For Mozeliak? This was an interesting move for the long-time Cardinals executive, who expressed a desire to take some time away from the game after last season and recognized the need for a change in St. Louis. The Cardinals reached the postseason 10 times under Mozeliaks guidance, winning six division titles, two National League pennants and the 2011 World Series. In recent years, however, the team failed to develop the swing-and-miss pitchers required to succeed in the current game, an oversight that current president of baseball operations Chaim Bloom is seeking to fix. After making the playoffs every year from 2019-22, the Cardinals went three straight years without a postseason appearance. Mozeliak was ready for a breather, and enjoyed getting one. "I could go to bed when I was tired," he said. "I didnt have to wait until the last minor-league team played. It was just a very different lifestyle, but I still did miss a lot of aspects of the game. Just walking around the clubhouse today, seeing some of my old friends and people Ive worked with, its energizing." He plans to spend the next couple months assessing his new organization from top to bottom. He preached patience. "We need a little time to sort of work through this,"Mozeliak said. "But when we come out on the other end of this tunnel, we hope to be in a very successful place." Mozeliaks contract goes through December, and he said he "absolutely" plans to have a new general manager in place by then. As for whether Mozeliak will have a long-term role with the club after he oversees the leadership change this year, that remains to be seen. "Im not necessarily, when my contract ends, going to completely walk away," Mozeliak said. "Depending on who ends up getting hired, what the team looks like, there could be a position or a role that makes sense for me to stay around. In the meantime, I just think I could be very helpful in really bridging the gap for someone like Molly, who is coming from the business side to oversee baseball operations. We mutually agreed that this could be beneficial for both parties. "I dont want it to sound like, Oh, Im just coming in here to do a quick hit and get out. But on a personal level, Im just not ready to give away my life again for 80 hours a week, 100 hours a week, to just do baseball. I did like my time away a little bit. Every baseball exec deserves a sabbatical. For some reason, the industry doesn't give that to them. Having said that, I don't know what the future holds." Whats Next For The GM Search? Mozeliak said he has a "short list" of candidates that he has already started preparing, but a leadership change sounds unlikely until the trade deadline passes. "With the draft coming, trade deadline coming, candidates that we will be looking at, you cant be asking permission now," Mozeliak said. "But once you get past the trade deadline, I think its fair game. So, my intentions would be to start beginning that process post-trade deadline." As for the draft, which is now just two weeks away, Mozeliak plans on letting scouting director Tim McIlvaine take the reins. "Even when I sat in that seat for 18 years as general manager, I never scouted amateur players," Mozeliak said. "I felt that was their responsibility. So theyre going to have a lot of autonomy to do it. The only real impact Im going to have is first off understanding their process. I think the Cardinals have proven we had a very good one over time, and try to mirror that if we can. Short notice, but well do the best we can to replicate that."
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