The January 13th, 2012 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim including Francisco Cordero could end up in Anaheim by default, Angels finish their organizational meetings, official spring training reporting dates and much more…
The Story: Could Francisco Cordero fall into the Angels laps?
The Monkey Says: If he does, I hope they move out of the way at the last second and let him go splat on the ground. I’ve been saying ALL off-season that Coco Cordero is washed up. His velocity has dropped off dramatically and his strikeout rate has fallen even further. The only reason anyone thinks he is still anything other than a scrub is that he has a career’s worth of experience collecting saves, and saves are just a BS stat, so I think it is safe to say that I will be apoplectic if the Angels sign him for any amount of money.
The Monkey Says: There is nothing that will immediately come out of this, but it will be curious to see if there are any noticeable changes in the way prospects are handled. Dipoto hasn’t been shy about his thoughts on “controlling the count” being the key to success for both batters and pitchers. There is only so much that can be done with prospects already far along in the system, but at the lower levels we could see dramatic shifts in philosophy.
The Monkey Says: My favorite part of that report is that the Mariners’ reporting dates are a full week before everyone else. C’mon, Seattle, do you really think that is going to give you some kind of edge?
The Story: A profile for Angel prospect C.J. Cron.
The Monkey Says: Just great stuff here with respect to the breakdown of Cron and his swing issues. Also interesting to see the suggestion that Cron might be best suited to spend a fair amount of time in the minors as many, myself included, believe he is a guy who could rocket through the system since he was an advanced prospect out of college who is essentially a DH and thus doesn’t have to prove himself defensively really. I’m not saying this profile is wrong (in fact, Ryan Ghan is much more informed and qualified than I am in this area and thus probably more correct), I just always find it interesting how there can be such diverse opinions on prospects.