The November 8th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including bloggers vote Mike Trout AL Best Player, Conger amongst best pitch framers and much more…
The Story: SB Nation bloggers votes Mike Trout the AL Best Player.
The Monkey Says: And he won in a landslide that should be very similar to the size of the landslide in which he is going to lose the real AL MVP award to Miguel Cabrera. Just to twist my favorite knife some more, J.B. Shuck did not even finish in the top five of AL Best Rookie voting.
The Story: Hank Conger among the best at framing pitchers outside the strike zone for strikes.
The Monkey Says: I keep wondering if Scioscia is aware of this as he supposedly loved Mathis (who coincidentally was amongst the worst framers in 2013) for his receiving skills, yet Conger doesn't seem to get much love for his defense from Sosh.
The Story: Jerome Williams and Chris Iannetta were responsible for the third-worst called ball in 2013.
The Monkey Says: Speaking of framing, Iannetta sucks at it. Stabby McStabberson somehow hasn't received the same hatred from Scioscia that Napoli had despite similar problems with receiving skills.
The Story: Should reaching on an error count towards Mike Trout's OBP?
The Monkey Says: Or anyone's really. While some errors are just plain flubs, there is certainly evidence that guys like Trout can force errors with their speed. One of the reasons some people actually make in support of bunting is that it is a play that results in a lot of errors, so one would think that there is value in trying to create errors. I say count the errors.
The Story: Reviewing the 2013 season of the Angels bench players.
The Monkey Says: The bench sucked. It likely cost the Angels several wins because of just how badly Dipoto ignored the bench. None of the bench players even discussed in this post had any real impact on the team until the season was already lost. Instead the Halos flushed hundreds of innings down the drain on Brendan Harris, Brad Hawpe and Chris Nelson. Let's not make that same mistake again, Jerry.
The Story: Wilson Sporting Goods named J.B. Shuck the Angels Defensive Player of the Year.
The Monkey Says: Yeesh, and we thought that the Gold Glove results were comically awful.
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