John Mozeliak was out of baseball. The challenge of trying to ‘solve’ the Angels brought him back

On his final day as the St. Louis Cardinals president of baseball operations, John Mozeliak was asked if he could see himself one day running another baseball team.

He chuckled before quickly denying the notion. “I don’t envision myself doing that,” Mozeliak said last October. “Could I have some connection to the game at some point? Possibly. But I do think that for the next couple of months, I’d really like to just catch my breath and step away.”

Eight months later, the former long-time executive of one of the National League’s winningest franchises is back at the helm of a different organization. After 30 years with St. Louis, including 18 as the organization’s top executive, Mozeliak was named the interim general manager of the Los Angeles Angels on June 26.

“It was not something when I walked away from St. Louis that I thought I would be doing this quickly,” Mozeliak said Thursday in a phone interview with The Athletic. “But it became something where I felt really energized about going back.”

Mozeliak’s new job is no easy feat. He was tasked with helping rebuild a perennial losing franchise while working for deeply involved owner Arte Moreno — who doesn’t exactly have a reputation for being easy to work with.

The Angels are a far cry from what Mozeliak oversaw in St. Louis: 15 consecutive winning seasons, 10 postseason berths, six division titles, two National League pennants and a World Series championship in 2011. He was, and remains, very close with Cardinals chairman Bill DeWitt Jr., with their relationship mirroring more of a family partnership than a business one.

But the challenge of stepping into an organization with virtually no familiarity sparked something in Mozeliak. The firing of former general manager Perry Minasian in late June came as a surprise, not because of the Angels’ annual struggles but because of the timing. The MLB draft was just over two weeks away, with the trade deadline quickly behind it. That Minasian was not replaced internally, but with Mozeliak — a name synonymous with St. Louis for so long — sent shockwaves through the industry.

“We were both compelled to really try to do things a little differently here,” Mozeliak said, speaking of his initial conversations with Angels team president Molly Jolly. “My excitement started to grow because it just became really like a compelling and interesting project to be a part of. It became something where I went from not wanting to really work in baseball anymore to definitely wanting to try to solve this.”

Mozeliak’s rejuvenation is evident in his operations. It’s been nearly seven weeks since the 57-year-old joined the Angels. Since then, he’s navigated the draft, giving full autonomy to the Angels’ scouting department. A couple of weeks later, he shipped out seven big leaguers from the roster and picked up nine minor-league prospects at the trade deadline. And earlier this week, he fired pitching coaches Mike Maddux and Darryl Scott along with bullpen coach Dom Chiti, citing inconsistency in implementing and applying available technology to assist pitchers.

These decisions signal a stark change in operations for the Angels. Mozeliak has jump-started the overhaul with transparency and aggressiveness not seen in the final years of his tenure with the Cardinals.

“Sometimes being in the same place for so long, for lack of a better word, you might become stale,” Mozeliak said. “I feel a little more energized, I feel like the challenges are different, and it’s allowed me to have a little bit more of a bounce in my step compared to where I was a year ago.”

It would be disingenuous to say Mozeliak punted on his final season with St. Louis. He walked away on his own terms, completing the final year of the three-year extension Cardinals ownership awarded him after the 2022 season, the last time St. Louis made the playoffs. But it’s fair to categorize those three years as the most disappointing of his tenure. In 2023, the Cardinals suffered their first 90-loss season in over three decades. Mozeliak sensed a fiercely loyal fan base was beginning to sour on both him and the organization. The Cardinals needed a change in leadership. So Mozeliak agreed to spend the next two seasons helping the Cardinals transition to new leadership under Chaim Bloom, hoping those efforts would help avoid a complete teardown.

“With the Cardinals, we were in agreement that it would make a lot of sense to try to find a potential successor to have in-house that would know the organization,” Mozeliak said. “And then be able to really hit the ground running from Day 1 and not have the painful rebuild or major restructure in terms of the front office.”

The Angels are 48-74 and 14 games back in the American League West. They have not reached the postseason since 2014. Mozeliak does not have the luxury of working behind the scenes of an organization before taking it over. Perhaps that works in his favor. He’s been able to make decisions without emotional attachment or sentiment, something that can (and did) become difficult after spending significant time with the Cardinals.

He’s also perceptive to the frustration of the Angels fan base, which has clamored for a semblance of a plan for the better part of a decade.

“In fairness, I’ve always tried to be as transparent as possible in St. Louis, but there were times when some of the things that we were working on, you could only disclose so much,” Mozeliak said. “I’m new to this area, and I do want people to understand that I’m not trying to hide something. So transparency is definitely something that I think is important in this whole process, because this fan base deserves that. They want to know that the change is real, and also why it’s happening.

“I feel like an explanation for such a dramatic shift in how we’re doing things here should be discussed and told.”

That’s why Mozeliak felt it was important to navigate the trade deadline in the way that he did. He rarely traded players not on expiring contracts while leading the Cardinals (granted, he only had two selling seasons). And if his plans to trade a player resulted in that player being removed from the starting lineup, he certainly would not have reached out through the team’s media relations team to provide a statement explaining why — like he did with Jorge Soler.

It’s part of Mozeliak’s aggressive approach as he begins to lay out the blueprint for the Angels’ future, one he still plans to hire a general manager to carry out. He had hoped to begin that process in earnest this month. But the extensive work required for the draft and trade deadline has slowed those plans — though Mozeliak said there isn’t a rush. He also downplayed suggestions that he could stay on longer than what he originally signed up for.

“My timeline still has some flexibility, because I don’t want to recommend or do anything until we’re ready,” he explained. “I have an agreement through the end of this year. In terms of what the future looks like, that still hasn’t been determined.”

Mozeliak has not started a formal interview process, but he began compiling names for the general manager position. While he did not disclose candidates, one person widely believed to be of interest is Cardinals scouting director Randy Flores, per multiple league sources not authorized to speak candidly given the sensitivity of the information. Dan Kantrovitz, the vice president of scouting for the Chicago Cubs, could also be of interest. Kantrovitz previously worked in St. Louis, including as the club’s scouting director under Mozeliak from 2012 to 2015.

But some rival executives believe Mozeliak could stay on beyond his contract, or even ditch the interim tag altogether. A pending work stoppage could complicate the search, as well.

For all the uncertainty, Mozeliak remains committed to ensuring his transformation of the Angels mirrors the early success with the Cardinals.

“When I stepped away, the St. Louis Cardinals did not miss a beat,” Mozeliak said. “They were able to just keep moving. What I’d like to see ultimately happen here is that we’re able to do something very similar to that.”