3 clues that show John Mozeliak is not leaving the Angels anytime soon

While there are plenty of questions surrounding the Los Angeles Angels going into the offseason, chief among them is who will be leading the front office going forward. Interim GM John Mozeliak has been running the show since late June, and there have been three pretty obvious clues that he’s going to be sticking around beyond this year even if he has tried to stay mum on his future.

Setting aside the fact that Mozeliak replaced Perry Minasian, and sounding aware of what's going on with the Angels is a low bar to clear, the former St. Louis Cardinals executive has given off the impression that his retirement may have been short-lived.

Here's a few clues that suggest John Mozeliak has no intention of leaving the Los Angeles Angels this offseason.

He feels reinvigorated

When Mozeliak stepped down as president of baseball operations with the Cardinals last year, he seemed like a guy who needed a break. The Cardinals declined his final few years and it may have just been a case where he was in the same place for so long that it was best for all involved to get a fresh start.

He said at the time that he didn’t see himself running another team’s baseball operations for a while, but everything he’s said since joining the Angels has made it sound like this new challenge has reinvigorated him.

He now has a new challenge before him where he’s trying to get a team back to relevance after it hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2014. The weather is great, attendance numbers are good, plus the team already has a star player even if he is in decline.

It’s not a bad situation to be in and it seems like Mozeliak has fully embraced the challenge of trying to get the Angels out of the gutter.

How the Angels operated at the MLB Draft and trade deadline

If Mozeliak only wanted to stay on until the end of the year and then look for a new job in the offseason, he probably would not have operated the way he did during the MLB Draft and at the trade deadline. The team shook up its typical draft strategy and then sold off several good players at the deadline.

Those aren’t the actions of an executive who wants out, those are the moves an executive would make if he’s taking a big picture view of the situation and trying to leave his stamp on things early.

Angels' coaching staff changes

Perhaps the biggest clue was the fact that the Angels fired pitching coach Mike Maddux and replaced him with Tim Leveque who was the pitching coach for the Halos’ Double-A affiliate this year but had years and years of experience in the Cardinals organization.

If Mozeliak is already installing guys he knows on the coaching staff, chances are he’s already thinking about the staff he wants to assemble going into next season especially since the results have been great since installing Leveque.

The most likely scenario seems to be a front office reshuffling where Mozeliak becomes the president of baseball operations and hires a GM to serve under him. That is the best set-up for success so Mozeliak can fully see through the vision he has for the Angels.

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