Halo Headlines: Yankees may have tampered with Trout, Garza still has ‘good market’

The December 16th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Yankees may have tampered with Trout, Garza still has a 'good market' and much more…

The Story: Yankees president Randy Levine said he would offer Mike Trout a ten-year contract if he was on his team.

The Monkey Says: Reading the full context of the quote, it is pretty obvious Levine was just speaking off the cuff and meant no real harm. That doesn't mean it isn't tampering. MLB is going to investigate the quote and the Yankees will probably receive some sort of slap on the wrist since the quote was ultimately pretty harmless.

The Story: Jon Heyman believes there is still a "good market" for Matt Garza.

The Monkey Says: The Twins are out on Garza after signing Mike Pelfrey, but the Angels and Arizona remain strongly interested. No other team has been linked to them publicly, but it wouldn't be a surprise to see the Yankees, Mariners or Rangers get involved if Garza waits to sign until after Tanaka signs or fails to get posted.

The Story: The Angels lost a great person in Mark Trumbo.

The Monkey Says: There is no denying that, everyone likes Mark Trumbo. In fact, I think his positive clubhouse persona is an underrated reason of why the team chemistry-conscious Diamondbacks targeted him via trade. It is a shame to lose a guy like that, but there are other good guys out there. In fact, Raul Ibanez is regarded as a good guy as well. See, wasn't that easy?

The Story: Hector Santiago talks about finding out about being traded.

The Monkey Says: Speaking of good guys, this Santiago character is shaping up to be one. I don't know what his reputation was in Chicago, but after reading this and perusing his Twitter timeline, he seems like a pretty amiable fella. Maybe these "good guy" types aren't that hard to find. Who knew?

The Story: The Angels rate as one of the offseason winners thus far.

The Monkey Says: As we know all too well, being an offseason "winner" doesn't always mean being a regular season winner. I also find it funny that after getting slammed for the Freese-Bourjos trade and overpaying for Joe Smith that suddenly they are winners because of the Trumbo trade. It was a good trade and the Angels look a lot better than they did six weeks ago, but I think there is some real recency bias in play there.

The Story: A.J. Schugel was officially sent to Arizona to complete the Mark Trumbo trade.

The Monkey Says: They had to wait until the Rule V draft was over to make sure Schugel didn't get taken first, but it was going to be him all along.

The Story: A look at how the proposed lease for the Angels at the Big A could generate millions for Arte Moreno.

The Monkey Says: People are a bit annoyed with Moreno getting the land to develop for his own use, virtually for free, but it doesn't appear that there is much resistance from the Anaheim city council to the proposal. There hasn't been movement in awhile either, but it sounds as if this is going to go through.