The May 11th, 2015 edition of Los Angeles Angels news including bad trade suggestions for the Halos, rotation order could get juggled and much more…
The Story: Some trade suggestions for contenders.
The Monkey Says: Note that they didn’t say they were good suggestions. Having to give up both Heaney and Newcomb for CarGo is absurd. I’m not even sure they’d have to give up either one. Even the buzz among Rockies circles now is that he is rapidly losing trade value. He’s been awful this year and was awful last year. He’s owed a lot of money still and has generally been unable to stay healthy. This is not someone you trade big prospects for.
The Story: The Angels are likely to juggle the rotation order thanks to two off days this week.
The Monkey Says: Doing so would allow them to not have Wilson and Santiago back-to-back and Weaver and Shoemaker back-to-back. Those pairs are too similar to be handcuffed together like that all season.
The Story: The Angels acquired reliever Chad Smith from the A’s for cash.
The Monkey Says: A pure depth move, but one I find fascinating. Theoretically, you’d think the A’s wouldn’t want to help the Halos, especially in exchange for the meager asset of cash. Even if they thought the Halos would win him via waiver claims, why not at least try and see if someone else would snake him first. Surely that risk is worth losing out on a few thousand bucks, if that.
The Story: The Angels added Ryan Mattheus to the roster and optioned Efren Navarro.
The Monkey Says: It makes sense given that the bullpen was taxed to call someone up, I’m just not sure why they chose Mattheus. He was pitching well enough for Salt Lake, but this is destined to be a brief call-up and Mattheus is out of options. They will risk exposing him to waivers when they send him down, which will likely happen this week. Losing Mattheus is no great loss, but why take a risk if you can avoid it by just calling up Bedrosian or McBryde?
The Story: Garrett Richards is progressing as he expected.
The Monkey Says: Yep, he’s awesome again. Taking the cautious approach may have been frustrating at times for him, but he clearly didn’t suffer for it.
The Story: Matt Joyce must learn to deal with the shift.
The Monkey Says: So, yeah, he’s basically blaming defensive shifting for his horrid slump. He also says he doesn’t want to try and pull the ball less because he thought it messed with his swing. Well, I regret to inform Matt that, according to the batted ball metrics, he already is pulling the ball less than ever. Ha ha, joke’s on you!
The Story: Albert Pujols says his hamstring is still not 100%.
The Monkey Says: He’s trying to manage it, but hasn’t DH’d as much as he should. I suspect that has less to do with him being stubborn about the injury and more about Scioscia being just about done running C.J. Cron out there.
The Story: Hector Santiago’s confidence has been growing as he throws more strikes.
The Monkey Says: It is true, Santiago has thrown more first strikes but that doesn’t tell the whole story. He has actually thrown a smaller percentage of pitches overall in the strike zone. So, let’s not go getting excited just yet.
The Story: Chris Iannetta can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
The Monkey Says: That light is a train named Carlos Perez and it is coming up fast.
The Story: Wondering if Bryce Harper will ever post a higher WAR in as season than Mike Trout.
The Monkey Says: It really doesn’t matter to me if he does, what matters to me is that we are having this stupid comparison angle come back to life again. How is this not dead and buried yet?
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