The January 26th, 2012 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim including the courtship Pujols and Wilson, Jerry Dipoto is Chris Traeger, Angels make an official offer to Luis Ayala, Walden is working on his off-speed pitches and much more…
The Story: The full story behind the free agent courtships of Albert Pujols and C.J. Wilson.
The Monkey Says: This is a great article and just so happens to be the OC Register’s Sam Miller’s debut with ESPN. Great job by him. We’ve seen other articles reviewing the details of Pujols’ signing, but this one goes deeper than the rest in addition to being brilliantly written. This is most definitely worth the read if not for all the juicy details but for the allusion to Jerry Dipoto basically being the real-life version of Chris Traeger.
The Story: The Angels have made a formal offer to Luis Ayala, but nothing is imminent.
The Monkey Says: There is absolutely nothing wrong with Ayala, so it certainly wouldn’t hurt to add him. However, he also probably isn’t the answer that Dipoto was looking for as far as right-handed setup men goes.
The Story: Jordan Walden is working on refining his off-speed pitches.
The Monkey Says: Personally, I think Walden should worry about the change-up later. He needs to get consistent with his slider, which can be devastating when he has it going. The slider is what will be his out-pitch when he goes up against batters that he can’t just blow his fastball by. A change-up is something a reliever normally develops to neutralize opposite-handed batters, but Jordan was arguably better against left-handed batters last already, so it shouldn’t be a priority to beef up this part of his repertoire.
The Story: The Angels will forfeit two picks as compensation for signing Pujols and Wilson.
The Monkey Says: Those picks are the 19th and 78th overall selections, meaning that Jerry Dipoto is really going to have his work cut out for him to get impact players from his first draft.
The Story: Mike Trout, Jean Segura and Garrett Richards are the only Angels in MLB.com’s Top 100 prospect list.
The Monkey Says: That is more or less expected, though C.J. Cron could crack other top 100 lists. What wasn’t expected was for Trout to be the #3 overall prospect. It isn’t necessarily a knock on Trout, but rather a nod to Matt Moore who looked dominant in his brief MLB debut.
The Monkey Says: The key point made here is pretty much that Morales has to come back strong for the Halos to even have a chance at having the same scary heart of the lineup as Texas currently boasts.
The Story: Angels #10 prospect Kole Calhoun.
The Monkey Says: What’s interesting here is the anecdote about Angel minor league coaches lobbying for him to skip a level. Calhoun isn’t a “toolsy” prospect, so even after his huge 2011 performance he might be in a position where he needs to once again win over Angel management as far as what is true potential really is.