The April 18th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Angels looking for bullpen solutions, Trout won’t change baserunning approach and much more…
The Story: The Angels are looking for answers in their bullpen.
The Monkey Says: They have had a lot of problems, but the real issue is that it isn’t just one or two guys. Fernando Salas, Kevin Jepsen and Yoslan Herrera have been pretty lousy in middle relief and Ernesto Frieri has had his usual problems with the longball. What would seemingly make the most sense is to trade for an established closer at mid-season so Frieri can be moved into a middle relief role where his homer problems can be worked around. What is more likely to happen though is the Halos churning through the back of the bullpen with guys like Cory Rasmus and Brandon Lyon before eventually turning to youngsters like Mike Morin, R.J. Alvarez and Cam Bedrosian if things get really desperate.
The Story: Mike Scioscia has been meeting with his coaches to try and solve the relief pitching problems.
The Monkey Says: It would not be a surprise if there weren’t one or two new faces in the bullpen in the next week or two.
The Story: Mike Trout won’t change his approach on the bases because of who hits behind him.
The Monkey Says: Nor should he. Getting into scoring position is very important. If that means teams pitching around Pujols and putting another runner on base so they can pitch to a lesser hitter, that tradeoff is probably worth it. Well, it would be if Ibanez, Freese or Kendrick would start hitting. That being said, if he were to change one thing on the bases, it should be him not sliding headfirst all the time. That didn’t work out real well for Josh Hamilton.
The Story: Who are the fastest men in baseball?
The Monkey Says: This is probably the only list ever in which it will be acceptable for Trout to finish behind Dee Gordon.
The Story: Projecting the mid-season lineups for the AL West.
The Monkey Says: That looks pretty familiar except for the part where the author overlooked Mike Scioscia’s bizarre insistence on the catcher always batting eighth. I’m actually not even sure about the methodology of this post or even, honestly, the purpose. It was a really slow news day.
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