Halo Headlines: Hamilton decision could come next week, MLBPA calls Hamilton leaks ‘cowardly’

The March 6th, 2015 edition of Los Angeles Angels news including Hamilton decision could come next week, MLBPA calls Hamilton leaks ‘cowardly’ and much more…

The Story: A decision on Josh Hamilton’s discipline could come as early as next week.
The Monkey Says: A major factor to be decided is whether or not he’ll be ordered to go to rehab. That will affect how much money he loses (and the Angels save). Also at issue is how strictly the league decides to enforce the prescribed punishment based on his number of times in violation. He could well sit out the whole year, but it could also be a suspension that costs him no time that he wouldn’t already be missing due to his shoulder injury.

The Story: The MLBPA called the leaks about Josh Hamilton’s substance abuse violations “cowardly.”
The Monkey Says: But nothing is going to be done about it. Frankly, I think the league prefers to be able to “leak” info when a player has a PED issue, so they aren’t going to go around shutting down leaks for other violations as it would take away their public shaming mechanism. The MLBPA can certainly fight back, but I’m not sure they’ll be able to really influence that much.

The Story: Hoping for mercy for Josh Hamilton.
The Monkey Says: Mercy would be nice, but I’m not sure the Gooden and Howe parallels are actually, you know, parallels. Those guys were much more active addicts whereas, as far as we know, Hamilton has had just three isolated incidents and isn’t a guy in the throes of addiction that needs to be forced into rehab.

The Story: Garrett Richards will throw live batting practice this weekend.
The Monkey Says: He’s on pace to make his spring debut as early as 3/13, so he really isn’t all that far behind, but the team is going to be careful with him nonetheless.

The Story: Mike Trout exemplifies leadership.
The Monkey Says: This is 100% Trout deification and nothing else.

The Story: The AL West’s most compelling players.
The Monkey Says: I don’t quite see what is so compelling about Pujols. He is what he is at this point. Richards and Shoemaker are much more compelling to me as they really hold the key to the Halos winning the AL West this year.