Angels Could Actually Bring Back This Year’s Manager

The Los Angeles Angels are operating right now in a suspended state that represents a unique form of baseball limbo. They have a new owner, an interim GM and a manager who was hired by the former GM as a lame duck rookie. 

That’s about as uncertain as you can get in MLB today, and one of the weirdest possibilities in all this is the one that has current GM John Mozeliak giving Suzuki an extension. This makes no sense in terms of the overall context of the Angels’ situation, but if there’s one basic concept the Halos have mastered it’s making moves that don’t make sense. 

Mozeliak spoke highly of Suzuki when the interim GM was first hired to clean house, but we all thought that was standard noise that would lead to the manager being fired a day or three after the season ended. 

But Mozeliak’s high opinion of Suzuki hasn’t changed, as he noted in comments he made back in August. 

“This is a difficult year. There are definitely challenges,” Mozeliak said in a piece written by Sam Blum and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. “I just appreciate that he wants to try to do things to move this forward. I have a lot of empathy for that, and I have a lot of gratitude for that. I think those are important traits.”

This week Mozeliak endorsed Suzuki again, even though they’re at 56-90, which makes this possibility at least slightly more realistic going foward. 

“Obviously, we’re going to have to address that at some point,” Mozeliak said about Suzuki’s future. “I need some guidance on expectations. But I will say this: I’ve really enjoyed working with him. I find him very impressive. It’s always hard to judge managers, especially when your team is struggling. But there’s a lot going on down there, and I think overall he’s making the best of it.”

Internally, Suzuki is viewed “as a consistent and positive presence whom the players admire,” according to the writers. He’s also navigated what they referred to as a “cluster of chaos.”

This could also be Mozeliak lobbying for Suzuki to have a successful future elsewhere, as that’s a common part of this particular drill. It’s one thing to say you like a manager, and as the writers noted, Suzuki has “made questionable in-game moves [and] struggled to articulate his decision-making processes.”

Angels fans would be generally horrified if this actually happened, but they know how their team operates, and no dumb move is beyond the realm of possibility, especially with Arte Moreno still in charge until 2027. 

“I love it here,” Suzuki said. “I love doing what I’m doing.”