The July 30th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Downs trade reaction, Angels a franchise in transition and much more…
The Story: The Angels traded Scott Downs for basically nothing.
The Monkey Says: Cory Rasmus isn't nothing, but he also isn't much of anything. As the post says, "these guys are everywhere" and it doesn't take a genius to see that Dipoto has been picking similar power arms with command issues off the scrap heap all season long. This poor return has upset some fans, but the fact of the matter is we are in an era where teams realize how little value an individual reliever can provide over two months, so smart teams aren't going to pay very much for a reliever no matter how good they are.
The Story: Albert Pujols' injury signals a time of transition for the Angels.
The Monkey Says: Are they really? The team obviously isn't going to be competitive the rest of the season, but there is no reason to believe they won't try and reload and contend again next season. Columnists everywhere were in a big damn rush to bury the Halos after this weekend, but it isn't as if they are going into a five-year rebuilding period.
The Story: The Angels may not do much dealing beyond the trade of Scott Downs.
The Monkey Says: I don't buy it. There is too much that this team needs to do to be contenders in 2014. It is possible that they would be better off waiting to make deals in the off-season, but there is also a good opportunity to take advantage of desperate teams now and fill needs now instead of waiting it out in the winter. As we saw last off-season, Dipoto likes to act fast and not play the wait-and-see game, so I imagine that will prompt him to make at least one semi-major move before the deadline.
The Story: The Angels called up Nick Maronde to take Scott Downs' place on the active roster.
The Monkey Says: Maronde will take over as the lefty specialist. He had a rough go earlier in the year, but he went to Double-A and seems to finally have ironed his command issues out having walked just three batters this month. There are reports that his velocity was down though, so there is no guarantee that he is going to be effective in this stint much less flash the dominance he did during his September call up in 2012.
The Monkey Says: Hawpe was useless and there was no real reason for him to be on the roster anymore. As for Stange, he is one of those "guys" referenced in the first link. He will get an audition for now as the Angels need fresh arms after having the bullpen taxed so much in recent days, but at some point one would hope that they call up another bench player instead of carrying on with this stupid eight-man bullpen thing.
The Story: Jason Vargas threw a bullpen session yesterday.
The Monkey Says: It still sounds like he is a week or two away.
The Story: Will Albert Pujols' contract and drop off in production scare teams from handing out similar deals?
The Monkey Says: Ten year deals are a bad idea in general, so I don't think you'll see many of those anyway, but I don't think giving out $200+ million is going to go out of style anytime soon. Everyone talks about being more fiscally responsible, but few teams actually follow through on it when it comes down to crunch time in free agency.
The Story: Jered Weaver is adjusting to reduced velocity.
The Monkey Says: Apparently he is using his curve more, which means he is slowly turning into a junkballer. This is not encouraging but it is worth noting that Weaver's velocity is slowly coming back up a tick or two, so don't write him off just yet.
The Story: The Angels are "committed to winning" and not giving up on the season.
The Monkey Says: Oh, really? Someone should've told that to them before they blew all these recent leads. Their season would be in a lot better shape and that commitment wouldn't look so empty and foolish.
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