The July 3rd, 2015 edition of Los Angeles Angels news including Stoneman hopes he has enough energy to be GM, Pujols named AL Player of the Month and much more…
The Story: Bill Stoneman hopes he has the energy for the GM job.
The Monkey Says: I think he’s just being humble, I think. I also think it won’t really be a problem because he basically confirmed what I originally suspected which is that he’s just going to let Matt Klentak do most of the work.
The Story: Albert Pujols was named American League Player of the Month for June.
The Monkey Says: That’s what happens when you hit a metric ton of homers.
The Story: What the heck is going on with the Angels?
The Monkey Says: Jonah Keri drops some bombs on just how well the Angels coaching staff worked and the kind of battles they fought with the front office. Let’s just say the this is going to be the prime piece of evidence for the Fire Mike Butcher crowd.
The Story: The Scioscia-Dipoto rift wasn’t simply about old school vs. new school.
The Monkey Says: Sure, there is always gray areas. Scioscia wasn’t a total Luddite, but he also clearly needed a lot of convincing to incorporate the analysis of the front office. Moura speculates that there had to be more going on. He’s right, but I don’t think it is any real mystery. Scioscia just didn’t like that someone else was trying to tell him what to do.
The Story: Bill Stoneman is the calming presence the Angels need.
The Monkey Says: Please. What they need is a new owner. Nothing is ever going to be calm so long as Moreno meddles in matters that should be left to baseball operations. Nothing will ever be calm so long as he continues to back Scioscia in every dispute, which constantly disrupts the power structure of the organization. Stoneman isn’t going to do anything but placate Scioscia, even if it means the Angels making bad decisions.
The Story: The Angels and Mike Scioscia failed where the Pirates and Clint Hurdle succeeded.
The Monkey Says: The Pirates are the shining example of converting a traditional manager into a modern one and succeeding. That only worked because Hurdle had no power in the organization and needed to evolve to keep his job. Scioscia evolved a little bit, but only just enough to keep Arte Moreno happy with him.
The Story: You can be the future GM of the Angels!
The Monkey Says: Nestled in this delightful Grant Brisbee piece is the salient point that as undesirable as the position might seem, GMs are fired so infrequently that the Angels might be able to hire a strong candidate simply due to the scarcity of openings. There was a similar opinion three and a half years ago, but the Angels ended up hiring Dipoto, who was widely considered a top GM prospect, despite that. However, fool me once…
The Story: Jerry Dipoto put his house up for sale about a month ago.
The Monkey Says: This could be a coincidence, but it could also be a sign that Jerry was already formulating his exit strategy.
The Story: Josh Hamilton is acting like playing the Angels is just another game.
The Monkey Says: Umm, yeah, that’s bullshit. He’s going to be trying to destroy them but he has to maintain his holier than thou appearance.
The Story: The Angels traded $879,500 of international bonus pool slots to the Rangers for Jason Hoppe. They also traded $239,400 in slot money to the Mets for Gaither Bumgardner.
The Monkey Says: The Halos are already handcuffed by their signing of Roberto Baldoquin, so they were limited to handing out small bonuses anyway. They still have a little less than $2 million left to spend, which will actually be kind of hard to do since they can’t sign any one player for more than $300,000.
The Story: Projecting the second halves for the biggest underperformers of the first half.
The Monkey Says: They projected the overperformers too, but the Angels didn’t have any of those. They do have Chris Iannetta though and there is a somewhat optimistic outlook for him.
The Story: What to expect from Andrew Heaney.
The Monkey Says: TLDR; he should be pretty good, but not an ace.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
