Angels interim GM John Mozeliak gives fans a

In 2012, when Mark Walter and his companions purchased the Dodgers, group president Stan Kasten declared mediocrity would no longer be acceptable.

Would the Dodgers improve their minor league system? Yes. Would the Dodgers improve their major league roster? Also yes. Would spending in one space preclude spending in another? Absolutely not.

“These fans expect and deserve a team that can win,” Kasten said then.

So do Angels fans. For the first time this decade, with the arrival of John Mozeliak as interim basic supervisor, they’ve official hope.

Mozeliak, whose St. Louis Cardinals groups reached the playoffs more often than not in his 18 years operating baseball operations there, is right here to end baseball’s longest postseason drought, or at least steer the Angels in that direction.

At first, I used to be shocked to hear him say he doesn’t consider the Angels need to rebuild. Under proprietor Arte Moreno, the Angels have resisted rebuilding, preferring to add lower-tier free brokers and rush faculty gamers to the major leagues in an effort to discipline a aggressive roster. That has failed: For the first time in franchise historical past, the Angels might end in last place for a third consecutive season.

But, when Mozeliak and I sat down in the Angels’ dugout the other day, he explained that the trail ahead in Anaheim shouldn’t be tanking. It needs to be appearing just like the major-market group the Angels are — and have been, during Moreno’s first decade of possession.

“The one thing you have to realize about the Los Angeles Angels is: they do have resources,” Mozeliak said. “From Mr. Moreno to the market size, this is a place that could be a very, very special place.”

In Moreno’s first decade, under Bill Stoneman and Mike Scioscia, the Angels have been a participant development machine. In 2003, in his first winter as proprietor, Moreno signed the best place participant on the free-agent market in Hall of Famer Vladimir Guerrero and the best pitcher on the market in four-time All-Star Bartolo Colon.

The questions Mozeliak asks and solutions now are the same ones Kasten did with the Dodgers. Can the group deploy assets to improve scouting and participant development? Yes. Can the group do the same with the major league roster? Also yes.

“There are many franchises in the game of baseball that cannot do that,” Mozeliak said. “They have trade-offs. They have to make a decision: If I’m going to give you $20 million for your infrastructure, that’s $20 million less for your payroll.

“This place is different.”

The Dodgers parallel only goes so far. Walter and Kasten inherited a core of Clayton Kershaw, Kenley Jansen, Matt Kemp and Andre Ethier. Mozeliak will work with Mike Trout and a long-touted “young core” that has shown by now it isn’t the muse of a championship-caliber group.

No one expects Moreno to spend just like the Dodgers do (and even Walter’s fellow homeowners need a wage cap in an attempt to stop the Dodgers). Yet, in St. Louis, Mozeliak constructed winners without the Cardinals homeowners ever paying a luxurious tax.

The first step in revitalizing the Angels comes Saturday, in the draft.

“We’re going to take the best available player,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he isn’t in two latest Angels trends: paying less to a first-round decide in order to unfold the financial savings around longer pictures in the decrease rounds, or concentrating on a polished faculty participant in half because he might get to Anaheim in a hurry.

“I’m not wedded to a high school player or a college player,” Mozeliak said. “I want the best player.”

The second merchandise on the agenda: the Aug. 3 commerce deadline, which might afford Mozeliak the chance to acquire prospects for such gamers as pitcher Reid Detmers and Jose Soriano and outfielder Jo Adell.

In 2020, Moreno nixed a commerce that would have introduced Andy Pages – then a Dodgers prospect, now an All-Star – to the Angels.

In 2023 and 2024, Moreno rebuffed commerce affords for Shohei Ohtani that might have returned the likes of Junior Caminero or Jackson Merrill. No participant of that caliber can be coming in return for what the Angels have to offer now.

Mozeliak said the Angels mustn’t think about a commerce proposal in isolation, without contemplating how to flex their major-market muscle groups to fill whatever gap a commerce may create.

“If we understand what we’re doing today can help make us stronger tomorrow, and then look at potentially what we could do on the free-agent market,” he said, “that should be something we are doing in parallel thinking.”

Mozeliak said he doesn’t consider any participant needs to be untouchable. As if on cue, Trout walked by.

Trade Trout? That’s not taking place, proper?

“That’s not happening,” Mozeliak said.

In his hours of conversations with Moreno, Mozeliak said, the subject of whether or not the proprietor may promote the group “never came up.”

Does Moreno seem in staying for the long haul?

“Absolutely,” Mozeliak said.

Mozeliak said he had offered Angels President Molly Jolly with a 100-day plan for what the group calls a consulting function: run baseball operations on an interim foundation; do a deep dive into how the Angels do issues now and how they’ll do them better; suggest a new basic supervisor. Maybe he stays in that function, or in a supporting function, or he merely leaves when his contract expires in December.

“I’m certainly confident in what we need to do, and I’m certainly confident this is a market that could be amazing,” he said. “It’s exciting times for me. I’m energized.

“I’m smart enough to know that one person cannot change everything. But one person can begin change, and that’s what I’m going to start to do.”

Distinguished executives, including the likes of Dave Dombrowski and Andrew Friedman, have wished no half of the Angels. Then again, Mozeliak is only dedicated for six months. If Moreno doesn’t do what Mozeliak believes needs to be finished, and if Mozeliak is just not allowed to start that change, he can just stroll away.

“I think I have that authority,” Mozeliak said, “and I think he understands that he can embrace change, because that is what is going to be required.”

Based on Moreno telling you that?

“Yes,” Mozeliak said.

The last time the Angels employed an skilled basic supervisor from outdoors the group: 35 years in the past, when they also regarded to St. Louis for Whitey Herzog. That didn’t work. Herzog received a energy wrestle in the entrance workplace, then give up anyway, amid disputes with possession.

This may work, or may not. But suppose back to 2020, when then-Angels president John Carpino said this: “Obviously, we’re not doing it the right way. We’re not winning games. So something is not right in our organization.”

Carpino retired in April, without ever explaining what was not proper in the group or, based on the standings, repairing it.

Jolly changed him and, within two months, secured Moreno’s approval to rent the architect of a World Series championship group to determine what was not proper in the group, and to repair it.

In one daring step, the Angels admitted that they had a drawback and set out a path to remedy it. With three months to go in this wretched season, the MVP of the 2026 Angels is abundantly clear: Molly Jolly.