The February 8th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim including optimizing the Angels' batting order, the Halos have the best defense in the league and much more…
The Story: Optimizing the Angels' batting order.
The Monkey Says: I'm pretty sick of this topic, but the point about Hamilton being such a free-swinger making him a poor fit behind Mike Trout does make a lot of sense. All the crap about fastball percentage and "quality of fastballs" is pure nonsense though. Just put Callaspo there because he can get on base and work deep counts.
The Story: The Angels have the top-ranked defense in all of baseball.
The Monkey Says: No argument here. They have an above average or much better defender at every position save maybe catcher, and even then Chris Iannetta probably isn't much worse than average.
The Story: Josh Hamilton is the very definition of a streak hitter.
The Monkey Says: That was true last year, but not previously. In fact, Hamilton hadn't had a single month where his OPS was under .800 since July of 2009. So, one could argue that he was actually quite consistent before he started having all that weird stuff going on with caffeine and chewing tobacco.
The Story: C.J. Wilson has been named the Head & Shoulders "Mane Man" for MLB.
The Monkey Says: This ranks pretty high on the list of stories I don't give a shit about. Alas, I link to it because it inevitably means we are going to be subjected to a terrible TV commercial starring C.J. in the near future. Sigh.
The Story: Kole Calhoun is #86 on the "names you should know" for 2013.
The Monkey Says: This is kind of like a top prospect list, except for prospect-ish players who are ready to actually make an impact in the majors this season, which is a pretty cool idea.
The Story: A look at Kole Calhoun's highly productive minor league season.
The Monkey Says: At some point Calhoun is going to be such a widely accepted sleeper that he is going to jump the shark and somehow end up being overrated.
The Story: A look at how Mike Trout's unexpected power will likely contribute to him regressing in 2013.
The Monkey Says: Does it have to though? Not everyone thought Trout would top out at 25 homers. There is reason he was drawing Mantle comparison, you know. I agree that regression is the most likely outcome, but I'm not totally sold that Trout has already exceeded his power ceiling.
The Story: Torii Hunter ranks as the seventh-best acquisition in Angels history.
The Monkey Says: Yeah, but he's the best baseball acquisition in the history of Del Taco.
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