Their communications on LOA 17-02 didn't specify explicitly, but by my reading it would seem you can elect to go direct to the new category... as someone with a non-mloa absence exceeding 6 months appears to be able to do. NNP 17-15 had this excerpt:

Pilots Returning from a Leave of Absence

The PWA provides that a pilot who returns from a leave of absence of at least six months may
either return to the category he held at the beginning of the leave (so long as he would not
have been displaced from that category during his absence), or transfer to a category in
which an AE was awarded during his absence he could have held. USERRA law further provides
this benefit to a pilot who returns from a military leave of absence of any length.