The July 8th, 2015 edition of Los Angeles Angels news including Pujols to enter Home Run Derby, Salmon, Chance and Witt to be inducted into Angels Hall of Fame and much more…
The Story: Albert Pujols will enter the Home Run Derby, but Mike Trout is leaning towards not participating.
The Monkey Says: Pujols being in the field probably makes it easier for Trout to take a pass since there is already an Angel involved and because Trout wouldn’t want to avoid stealing Albert’s thunder since this will be the last time Pujols participates. Everyone wins!
The Story: Tim Salmon, Dean Chance and Mike Witt will be inducted into the Angels Hall of Fame on August 22nd.
The Monkey Says: Congrats to all of them, they deserve it. However, the Angels PR and marketing folks drop the ball again here. If they were smart, they’d induct them all separately so that each player not only gets their own night of appreciation, but so that the team has three different home games that they can market as special events. I imagine the Tim Salmon night, in particular, would be quite popular.
The Story: The Angels are making minor changes to the roles of a few members of the front office.
The Monkey Says: Rico Brogna is being reassigned to the pro scouting department and will no longer act as the player information coach. Jeremy Zoll is having his role as the replay video coordinator changed as well, but it doesn’t appear to be fully determined what his new role will be. Scioscia claims nothing is really changing, but it seems pretty clear that two guys who were instrumental in communicating between the coaches and front office are being minimized and likely eventually pushed out of the organization.
The Story: With his delivery fixed, Andrew Heaney could be special.
The Monkey Says: Bookmark this report for the next time someone tells you Mike Butcher should be fired.
The Story: Mike Trout insists that his lack of recent steal attempts is only because Albert Pujols has been hitting so well.
The Monkey Says: I actually believe him, even though he’s tried using this excuse before when Pujols wasn’t nearly as productive.
The Story: Mike Trout plans to continue wearing an elbow pad for the time being.
The Monkey Says: Let’s just hope this is him being annoyed about getting plunked in the same spot so often and not because he actually is nursing an ailment. He’s already been hit seven times this season and his career-high is ten, so it would be easy to understand if he was just frustrated about it.
The Story: The most productive low-authority hitters of all-time.
The Monkey Says: Included only because of Casey Kotchman just nearly missing the cut off. Man, I was so in on Kotchman when he came up. I don’t think I ever drank the Kool-Aid so much for a prospect as I did for him.
The Story: Checking in on the dark horse Cy Young candidates.
The Monkey Says: Darn, everyone else is catching on to the step back Garrett Richards has taken this season. He can still right the ship though, right? Right? RIGHT?
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