Daily Links for the LA Angels including Morales may not be ready for Opening Day, Scioscia wants Izturis to leadoff (when healthy), Butcher misses workouts as he recovers from cancer treatment and much more…
The Story: Kendry Morales doesn’t know if he is going to be ready for Opening Day.
The Monkey Says: Oh. Crap. It was reported that Kendry hadn’t been cleared to run full speed yet, but the fact that he himself is questioning whether or not he will be available on Opening Day is pretty frightening. At a minimum, it suggests that Kendry is healthy but way behind the curve in terms of conditioning and general rustiness, but a worst case scenario is that Morales is still having health problems that could hinder him all season… (cue the ominous music) or longer.
The Story: Mike Scioscia says Maicer Izturis will hit leadoff whenever he is in the lineup.
The Monkey Says: And when Izturis is healthy. In fact, I think it might just save everyone the time of always mentioning that caveat if Maicer would just change his name to Maicer Izturis-If-Healthy. Izzy batting leadoff makes the most sense, but this needs to be taken with a grain of salt since Scioscia made similar statements last spring and Maicer ended up getting a mere 28 at-bats in the one-hole in all of 2010.
The Monkey Says: Best of luck to Butcher as we all hope for a speedy recovery.
The Story: Fangraphs “awards” the Angels trade of Vernon Wells as the worst move of the entire off-season.
The Monkey Says: Really? Are people still piling on over this? That is so January. I think it is time we all move on already.
The Story: Ways in which teams screw things up.
The Monkey Says: Oh, looks like we aren’t ready to move on. The Overcompensation aka The Angels Method. I actually view this as progress since it wasn’t so long ago that the Sitting on Your Hands method was synonymous with the Angels.
The Story: Grading the Angel off-season.
The Monkey Says: Does it ever stop? Seriously, the overall grade of “C” is rather reasonable, I think. The Angels did get better, so they certainly deserve a passing grade, but they didn’t get much better in the present and might have totally hosed their future, so I think that all balancing out to be a C makes sense.
The Story: Erick Aybar is healthy and ready to roll.
The Monkey Says: It definitely sounds like the team is giving Aybar a bit of a free pass for his down 2010 due to his various injuries, but they still have lofty expectations for their starting shortstop and he is going to have to meet him if he wants the Halos to make a long-term commitment to him.
The Story: The OC Register unveils their 50 greatest Angels ever, part one (50 thru 41).
The Monkey Says: I love the idea of this list (and am jealous I didn’t get asked to participate), but there is NO WAY Bartolo Colon is one of the 50 greatest Angels ever. One good (and overrated) season does not a great Angel make, especially when his only other three seasons were borderline terrible.
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