So the Angels made a huge move right after last week’s Weekend Links and fired GM Perry Minasian. He was replaced by somebody with actual baseball operations experience in John Mozeliak.
A hire of a person who is actually qualified for their job is a novel concept for Arte Moreno. Every one of his previous GM’s had no experience at the executive level. The previous team president, John Carpino was a billboard guy who was in charge of ticket sales before being promoted to the position. Selling tickets to the defending world champs who were winning a ton of games had to be as hard as when I sold record low mortgage rates during the pandemic.
The new team president was in charge of the Angels finances (and Ducks) when Disney owned the team and has experience working for successful corporations like ARCO. Mozeliak has 30 years of baseball experience including 18 years of running the Cardinals. Could Arte be changing the way the team operates?
We all have our assumptions, but really time will tell. I think the two most notable things from the press conference were: 1. Arte was not there, 2. Mozeliak stated directly he was hired by Molly. Perhaps Arte has checked out and is more interested in real estate, but the less Arte in the office the better no matter the reason.
There were a lot of reasons to fire Perry Minasian but his disastrous bullpen decisions have to top the list. That and he failed to adapt to the more contact oriented game offensively. His teams struck out a ton offensively but did not get a ton of K’s while on the mound. Being on the wrong side of the strikeout epidemic hurt the team in two ways.
In a recent chat with The Athletic, John Mozeliak stated the Angels have enough resources they do not necessarily have to rebuild. Hat tip to Roy Hobbs for bringing this quote to yesterday’s links:
Mozeliak told The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal on Tuesday that he’s still formulating a Trade Deadline strategy, but he offered a hint at which way the organization might be leaning when asked if he thought the Angels needed to rebuild.
“No. I don’t think in this market you need to do that,” Mozeliak said. This team has resources. Now it’s just making sure we deploy them correctly.”
Resources? Heading into this season the Angels slashed payroll from previous years. By my accounting actual cash outlay is down $80 million from last season. I was not a math major in college, but Soler and Stephenson are a combined $23 million dead weight that ends this off season. Also, all of Perry failed reliever contracts (Romano, Pomeranz, Yates) are off the books just along with Yoan Moncada.
So in all, the Angels are set to spend over $100 million less next year than they did in 2025. But that is a cut, not a resource.
What is the big mystery is the new TV network. No financial details have been released. The Angels own 100% of the network and will even produce and distributed LA Kings games. They are collecting fees directly from cable and satellite companies and also selling games directly through the Angels.TV app.
So if we are keeping score at home, in the new column: team president, head of baseball operations, and TV network. Old is Arte Moreno and Dennis Kuhl, who are still perfectly capable of screwing things up.
Time will tell. And Heyman agrees.
I’m not trying to turn this into an Angels On SI 2.0 here, I swear, but there is a correlation between our discussions on the board and the things I write over there. There’s no better way to know what fans are interested in than hanging out with the best Angels fans on the planet. We chat, I research, and articles happen.
No matter who is the GM, and I can see three quality candidates Mozeliak might poach from St. Louis, they will inherit a team that is younger and more dynamic than the Angels have fielded in recent years. And while the farm is not stacked, there are some intriguing talents who could be here soon.
I really like Klassen. His stuff plus some Maddux magic could be a lot of fun soon.
Klassen was named to the MLB All Star Futures games this week. So was our next center fielder, Nelson Rada. I am so ready to have a plus defender in CF it is hard to put into words.
Hopefully the Angels let kids play the second half of the season and fully assess what they have in store before free agency hits. Watching 70 games of Spring Training that kind of matters would be cool.
Third base is a perpetual hole. Is Denzer Guzman going to be the answer? Love the glove and holding out hope.
Kurt Suzuki is obviously not going to be the long term manager and speculation is already swirling that Albert Pujols relationship with Mozeliak gives him an inside track on the job.
2026 MLB Draft
The Angels will get some new talent next weekend through the MLB Draft. This is a class in which prospects are not in a clear pecking order outside of the top handful.
Even then, there is debate about how the first pick might shake out.
MLB projects the Angels to take a polished college bat that is projected to hit MLB quickly.
Meanwhile the SI crew has the Angels going with a big upside college arm.
I’m not going to pretend to be Turk’s Teeth. Dude is a prospect guru. I really like Dietz as the pick because of his upside. And I like the limited innings on his arm. A fracture is not the same as a ligament injury. But I would not be upset with several position players, either. College baseball has a lot of talent in it and every game I find somebody I would like to have in the Angels organization.
From around the league:
This is just awesome:
Here’s everything you need to know about the Home Run Derby.
FanGraphs is updating their prospect valuation methodology. It will be cool to see how their rankings change.
Enjoy your weekend and link what I missed. Happy 250th Birthday America! I hope you are having fun with family and friends and end the weekend with the same number of fingers you have today.
As with every 4th of July links I’ve ever done. Enjoy this scene from an all time great film.
