Halo Headlines: Colon and Feldman both pass through waivers, Hamilton’s resurgence just what Angels needed

The August 26th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Colon and Feldman both pass through waivers, Hamilton’s resurgence just what Angels needed and much more…

The Story: Bartolo Colon and Scott Feldman both pass through waivers and are free to be traded.
The Monkey Says: Remember how everyone was saying no starting pitcher of consequence would pass through waivers? Yeah, well, nobody knows anything. It would seem that the money owed to both players after this year scared everyone, including the Angels, off. That doesn’t mean they won’t pursue either player, but that they might have to figure out what to do about the post-2014 money in trade talks. It also means that while the Angels can’t be blocked, they will now have to compete openly with other interested teams, if there even are any. If Jerry Dipoto does make a deal, I would imagine it would come before Wade LeBlanc’s next start, otherwise the utility the new pitcher would provide drops quite a bit.

The Story: Josh Hamilton’s resurgence is just what the Angels needed.
The Monkey Says: Yes, the offense needed a boost, but it could’ve come from a lot of sources, like Trout, Kendrick or Pujols snapping out of their respective funks. I think I am more offended by the idea that Hamilton is having a “resurgence.” This is his third “resurgence” this year, so maybe we should all calm down and not overreact to him having one good week.

The Story: Should MLB create a trade exemption for teams that lose a player to injury after the deadline?
The Monkey Says: An interesting idea, but one that I am sure would be exploited. It would seem to me that the simpler explanation would just be to move the deadline to mid-August if not the end of August.

The Story: Joe Thatcher is running again, but at least two weeks from a return.
The Monkey Says: They haven’t missed him much, but they are going to start playing more AL West teams soon and those lineups are loaded up with left-handed sluggers that they’ll surely want to neutralize.

The Story: Hank Conger and others talk about the differences in pitch framing and pitch bl0cking.
The Monkey Says: It is surprising that the correlation between framing and blocking isn’t stronger, but Conger is kind of a perfect example of a guy who is great at framing but mediocre at blocking.

The Story: Mike Trout and Josh Hamilton’s homers off Sonny Gray were the only two homers he has allowed via his curveball this year.
The Monkey Says: And yet the Angels still lost the game. That, my friends, is a wasted opportunity.

The Story: MLB teams get the NHL jersey treatment.
The Monkey Says: A nice idea, but the issue I have is they went with navy blue as the Angels’ main color instead of red. It throws the whole thing off.

The Story: A look at some of the rookie ball arms in the Angels system.
The Monkey Says: There are some intriguing names starting to come up but I happen to like Wesely more than others. Two or three years from now, people might actually be saying some nice things about the Angels farm system.