The Los Angeles Angels changed the pitching staff after a 72-90 finish in 2025, bringing in Mike Maddux, Dom Chiti, and Darryl Scott. Well, it changed nothing. Now sitting at an MLB-worst 46-74 and buried 13 games out of the final AL Wild Card spot, the Angels have already waved the white flag at the deadline.
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On Tuesday, John Mozeliak responded by firing the pitching coaches he inherited, pointing to their failure to properly implement the organization’s technology and data. That explanation has only added another layer to a season already defined by dysfunction. Now, MLB insider Ken Rosenthal has weighed in on what really pushed Mozeliak to reverse course and clean house.
“This is a team, clearly, that needs a lot of help. They’ve recognized that,” said Ken Rosenthal on Foul Territory. “That is kind of step one: recognize the problem, and then step two: act on it. It seems that they are doing that. And obviously, when you change coaches after saying you wouldn’t, something that resulted in friction happened, and that is what happened here.”
The Angels are now on their seventh pitching coach in nine seasons, a staggering level of turnover for a franchise still searching for answers. And this latest purge was not supposed to happen. After replacing Perry Minasian, John Mozeliak reportedly assured the coaching staff that there would be no further changes before the season ended. That promise did not last long. Something clearly changed once Mozeliak got a closer look behind the curtain.
According to Ken Rosenthal, Mozeliak saw enough to change course, suggesting the issues ran deeper than he initially expected.
Despite a 4.48 ERA and an MLB-high 513 walks, performance was not the main issue. Mozeliak instead pointed to the staff’s inconsistent use of technology and data.
“There was just this undercurrent of trying to get ourselves to be using all the different tools that you see a lot of pitchers use today. The word ‘tech’ will probably be used a few times, and really trying to leverage that in how we help players grow. I think there was some level of frustration with the inconsistency of that,” Mozeliak told The Athletic.
Following the firings, Mozeliak made it clear that the issue was not a lack of resources, but a lack of implementation. He said the Angels’ research and development staff was already providing useful data, yet the pitching coaches were not using that information and the available technology as consistently as the organization wanted. That included tools such as TrackMan for pitch shape and bullpen analysis, along with biomechanics to study delivery and body positioning.
Reid Detmers offered a telling example, saying he only began using TrackMan regularly in bullpen sessions after the All-Star break. For Mozeliak, that exposed a larger disconnect between the front office’s resources and the coaching staff’s methods. He wanted that gap closed, and his history in St. Louis has already shown he is willing to make changes when coaches are not aligned with the organization’s direction.
Mozeliak’s decision in Anaheim also carries some history. In October 2021, while serving as the Cardinals’ president of baseball operations, he surprisingly fired manager Mike Shildt despite St. Louis reaching the postseason for a third straight season. Shildt had gone 252-199 as manager and won NL Manager of the Year in 2019, but Mozeliak said the two sides had developed “philosophical differences” over the direction of the club.
“This was not a reflection simply on wins and losses,” Mozeliak said at the time. “It really was more at a higher level of where we saw the team going, where we wanted it to go.” He also stressed that “the leadership downstairs needed to be on the same page.”
That history gives the Angels’ latest purge a familiar feel. Mozeliak has shown before that strong results do not always outweigh a lack of organizational alignment. In St. Louis, that divide ended Shildt’s tenure. In Anaheim, the disagreement centered on technology, data, and player development, suggesting Mozeliak is once again prioritizing fit with the front office’s vision.
With Mozeliak and the pitching staff clearly not on the same page, the firings are hardly shocking given the Angels’ 46-74 record. What is striking is the organization’s shifting stance on technology.
In 2023, the Angels dismissed minor-league pitching coaches Buddy Carlyle and Dylan Axelrod amid concerns over too much reliance on tech. Now, coaches are being fired for not using it enough, underscoring just how much the organization’s development philosophy has changed.
As the Angels remain dead last in the league, Mozeliak spoke about his next area of focus.
John Mozeliak’s next steps
The Angels are staring at an 11th straight losing season, and one 3-2 win over Texas does little to hide the bigger mess. They have been outscored 581-488, and Mozeliak knows the pitching staff is not the only problem. With the offense also sputtering, his next target is clear.
“Hitting is hard in this game,” Mozeliak told MLB.com. “When you’re looking at successful teams, they tend to have a real identity of what they are offensively. … We’re not really clear yet on what we should look like, and I think that’s like one of the next steps.”
As a team, the Angels are hitting .235, fifth-worst in the league. On Tuesday, they snapped their 3-game skid with a stumbling offense. They scored all three runs in the bottom of the third inning. It started with Zach Neto’s RBI single, followed by a sacrifice fly on which Neto scored, and ended with Trout scoring on Grissom’s double.
Tim Leveque and Michael Wuertz got a decent first result against Texas, but one night changes little. With Kurt Suzuki’s contract expiring and Mozeliak already tearing into the pitching structure, the real question is whether this was just a coaching purge or the start of a much bigger housecleaning before 2027.