New GM Talks Angels Strategy As Trade Deadline Approaches

We know the Los Angeles Angels will be sellers at the trade deadline, but what we don’t know is how far they’ll go. The Angels have a lot of attractive trade pieces, so interim GM John Mozeliak has a lot to think about. 

According to Rhett Bollinger of MLB.com, Mozeliak is still getting a feel for the organization, and he put a lot of his early efforts in working with the scouting department to prepare for the draft, so he wasn’t ready to disclose any details. 

“Not yet, not one that I think I'm ready to share publicly,” Mozeliak said last week. “I'd be lying if I didn't say I've started to, like, noodle around on it, but really a lot of my energy to date has been two things: one is getting to know the people that work here because I wanted to know names, faces, roles, what they do, and so a lot of energy's gone into that. But it’s mostly been the Draft and working with that team.”

Mozeliak does have concrete goals, however. He wants to find out what the organization does well (which could be a long search), and where they need to improve (everywhere?). He did imply, though, that structural changes may be necessary after all the losing lately. 

“I think my early takeaway is there's a lot of really good people that work here,” Mozeliak said. “Do I think we need to better understand roles, responsibilities and how they're being deployed? Yes. Am I prepared to discuss that in a public setting like this? No. 

“But it’s something I know is going to require time and energy. And again, I'm really excited about the people I've gotten to know and talk to because I do think there is a smart group of people here, but how we're deployed and how we're used is something we got to look at.”

Mozeliak also added when he first spoke about this that he hadn’t met owner Arte Moreno, which is unusual, to say the least. He mentioned club president Molly Jolly as his primary point of contact, which is even more unusual given that Jolly hasn’t really had much of a role at all to date. 

“Most of my, or all of my, communication is really with Molly,” Mozeliak said. “Keeping her abreast on what we're doing, what we're working on.”

It’s something of a strange situation, but that’s the Angels in a nutshell. They really do things differently, and this move is no exception.