The May 30th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Angels exploring trades for left-handed relievers, Hamilton to re-start rehab assignment and much more…
The Story: The Angels are open to adding a left-handed reliever via trade.
The Monkey Says: Earlier this year, I examined the idea of going sans-southpaw, but the Halos just aren’t well equipped enough to pull that off, especially with De La Rosa such an unknown. It seem highly likely that they will make an acquisition at some point before the deadline.
The Story: Josh Hamilton will re-start his rehab assignment on Friday.
The Monkey Says: They seem to be wanting to take it a bit slower this time around, suggesting that will return only by the end of their current road trip. Hopefully he can avoid getting jammed again before then.
The Story: Wade LeBlanc is not considered a candidate to stick in the bullpen as a lefty reliever.
The Monkey Says: Probably because he isn’t good against lefties. That being said, I very much like the idea of shifting Santiago to relief and targeting a starting pitcher via trade rather than trading for some extraneous LOOGY a non-contender throws away.
The Story: Mike Butcher believes the Tommy John explosion is due to year-round baseball and throwing from the opposite side of the rubber.
The Monkey Says: I’m sure that means a lot to many of you, coming from Butcher, however, the Halos have had incredibly few pitchers go under the knife for TJ in the last twenty years, so it is possible Butcher and the organization know something other teams don’t.
The Story: Albert Pujols and Erick Aybar are some of the hardest players to strikeout with a fastball.
The Monkey Says: They are hard to strikeout, in general. I’m not sure this actually tells us anything about them, but it is a fun stat.
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