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In two months as the Angels’ interim general manager, John Mozeliak has reoriented the team’s draft selection priority from “closest to the majors” to “best available,” traded one-third of the major league roster to seed a barren minor league system, fired three coaches and completed a restructuring of the front office.
On Monday, he has scheduled the first meeting of the new leadership group in baseball operations.
We’ll get to that restructuring, but none of the decisions so far resolve two of the most compelling questions in Anaheim: Who is going to be running the Angels next year? And, with this year’s Angels flirting with the first 100-loss season in franchise history, are the Angels going to be much better next year?
Bill Shaikin writes that with the arrival of John Mozeliak as interim general manager, the Angels have legitimate hope they can finally will.
“With the starting pitching we have, if we have the ability to be more consistent with our offense, you can definitely squint and see a better club out there,” Mozeliak told me. “But it’s going to take a few pieces to do that.”
Uh oh. That sounds discouragingly like the Angels of the past decade: We’re undermanned, but we want to be competitive, so we’ll sign a few lower-tier free agents and hope we can sneak into the playoffs with an 83-win season. In the real world, the Angels clinched their 11th consecutive losing season before the calendar turned to September.
Mozeliak has said he did not believe that the Angels need to rebuild, that the resources available to a team in the second-largest market in the majors should preclude outright tanking. In theory, that should mean that Mozeliak could trade José Soriano for shortstop Arjun Nimmala, 20, now the Angels’ top prospect, comfortable that owner Arte Moreno could buy a quality free agent to replace Soriano in the starting rotation.
In reality, Mozeliak cannot rightly tell Moreno that the Angels are one or two free agents from winning. And, as Mozeliak said, “It’s not the most robust free-agent class of all time.”
The Angels rank 26th among the 30 major league teams in runs scored, so Mozeliak might well focus on offensive upgrades. Standout names among free agent hitters this fall: Luis Arraez, Gleyber Torres, Jake Bauers … Taylor Ward, anyone?
With the infusion of talent from the draft and the trade deadline, analyst ratings for the Angels’ minor league system have risen from among the worst in baseball to middle of the pack. It’s a start. If next season is about building, why not just play the kids?
Rookie Denzer Guzman is batting .218, with a .263 on-base percentage and a .341 slugging percentage.
“We’re starting a 22-year-old at third base,” Mozeliak said. “Most 22-year-olds are finishing their senior year in college. He’s competing. There’s a lot of upside in him, but that requires a little patience.”
Of the 12 prospects Mozeliak acquired at the trade deadline, he said he anticipated two — designated hitter/catcher Moises Ballesteros and infielder Nacho Alvarez Jr. — would have a chance to make next year’s team. The Angels also would prefer not to replace Soriano from a blossoming corps of young arms.
