The March 19th, 2015 edition of Los Angeles Angels news including Richards pitches intrasquad game, Trout heavy favorite for MVP and much more…
The Story: Garrett Richards threw three innings in an intrasquad game yesterday.
The Monkey Says: He will move on to pitch in a minor league game Monday and all reports around his performance are positive. It is looking like he just needs to build up his stamina before he is officially ready to go, which should be some time in mid-April. Also, C.J. Wilson pitched in that same game, which is good news as far as him not falling behind schedule goes.
The Story: Oddsmakers have Mike Trout the heavy favorite to win AL MVP.
The Monkey Says: He has 1/1 odds, which seems like a pretty good bet to me, actually.
The Story: The early results of the more “aggressive” approach for Mike Trout are very good.
The Monkey Says: The results are always very good, so I’m not sure we can exactly call this cause-and-effect. We don’t even know how much more he is swinging or if he is seeing fewer pitches now. This is just a small sample size story.
The Story: Dave Cameron tackles the franchise cornerstone question.
The Monkey Says: No, he did not choose Adam Jones over Mike Trout.
The Story: Why wasn’t Kole Calhoun a prospect?
The Monkey Says: MWAH is referenced in the piece, so, yay! Anyway, my own perspective on the question is that Calhoun was overlooked because he doesn’t have any flashy tools. What wasn’t recognized was that he had several above average tools and that the package of them make for a pretty good player. He probably also got overlooked because he came up when the Angels farm system was at its nadir. A third factor not mentioned is that Calhoun’s performance was frequently written off because he was old for the level of competition at almost every stop along the way.
The Story: Projecting team defenses.
The Monkey Says: The Angels project poorly largely because of their situations at catcher, second and third. I think Freese can outperform that projection a little bit, but I doubt Iannetta can for his position. The real issue is second base where it seems unlikely that the Halos won’t be getting much defense or offense. At a point, it might behoove the Angels to just stick Taylor Featherston there since he is potentially an above average glove. He may not hit much, but the same can be said for Grant Green, Josh Rutledge and Johnny Giavotella and none of them can field. At least with Featherston, they get some kind of guaranteed production. The only alternative would be to trade for someone like Aaron Hill.
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