Angels Left Out In Cold As GM Meetings Wind Down

The GM meetings in Las Vegas are in the process of winding down, but the Los Angeles Angels are being left out in the cold despite reports prior to the beginning of the week that this might be changing. 

Those reports had the ownership vote to approve Stan Kroenke’s KSE sports group taking control of the team earlier than expected, but the reports turned out to be false. There have also been reports that the Angels were conducting meetings in Las Vegas, either with or without league approval, but those reports remain unverified at this point. 

As a result, the Angels were left with interim GM John Mozeliak providing updates and “collecting information.” Those updates were largely boilerplate, and the information Mozeliak collected will probably be disposed up via the “delete” button, with the physical version likely landing in the old-school circular file. 

There’s still chance this could change, but the odds of that happening basically make this a lotter ticket. The owners will be meeting in New York next week, and the owners are typically secretive about what they’re up to at these kinds of meetings, so there could be a lightning bolt out of the blue that pushes up the vote. 

So how much does this all mean? Not a lot, as it turns out. A “frenzy” of free agent activity was predicted in Las Vegas, but very few actual signings happened. Meetings to set up more meetings were the order of the week, so the bottom line is that the Angels really didn’t miss much at all. 

What they did miss was an opportunity to meet with various agents and free agents to take the temperature of their interest. That would have had value with an actual president of baseball operations present, but Mozeliak wasn’t that person. 

Some positional candidates could have been checked out, along with some relievers, with the latter being especially needed given the performance of the Halos bullpen this season. 

The Angels could also have met with players and reps of possibilities from Japan and Korea. West Coast teams like the Angels typically have a geographic advantage in this area, and the Halos’ neighbors to the south, the San Diego Padres, have been prominently involved in this process. 

Assuming nothing happens between now and Thanksgiving, the next genuine news in the executive category will be the ownership vote and an executive hire after the first of the year.