The September 10th, 2014 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Angels ‘concerned’ about Josh Hamilton, Thatcher to be activated this weekend and much more…
The Story: The Angels have expressed growing concern over Josh Hamilton’s shoulder injury.
The Monkey Says: He has missed more games than expected and doesn’t seem to be progressing. He still has about three weeks to get right, so the Angels are wise to keep him out of the lineup until he’s fully ready. Still, there is a real chance he is going to be far less than 100% by the time the post-season starts.
The Story: Joe Thatcher will throw a simulated game today and be activated this weekend.
The Monkey Says: That will give him two weeks to shake off the rust so he can be an effective LOOGY in the post-season.
The Story: Mike Trout and Clayton Kershaw are both once-in-a-generation talents.
The Monkey Says: The hype machine for both of the impending award winners is ramping up quickly. Get ready to see a whole lot of Trout porn over the next two or three months.
The Story: The sum of the Angels’ parts are now whole.
The Monkey Says: The funny thing is that the Angels were labeled a “stars and scrubs” team coming into the season, but Trout and Richards are really the only guys that have performed at star level. They’ve gotten contributions from every part of the roster and now it is all paying off.
The Story: The 2014 minor league organizational standings.
The Monkey Says: This is the combined records of all the farm teams for each franchise. The Angels come in 21st. Minor league records aren’t a great indicator, but just looking at the records you can see there is at least some kind of correlation.
The Story: 2015 is the year that Josh Hamilton could really start to hurt the Angels.
The Monkey Says: Even if (ok, when) Hamilton gets worse, it won’t hurt the Angels that much. They can mitigate his problems with left-handed pitching by finding a platoon partner. That would require some folks to swallow their pride, but it would work. They could even throw some money at free agency and upgrade at DH (or move Hamilton to DH and sign a new left fielder) and pick up someone like Josh Willingham or Michael Cuddyer to provide an offensive boost at that position to help offset whatever decline Hamilton suffers.
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