Daily Links for the LA Angels including Angels settle four arbitration cases and exchange numbers with Weaver and Napoli, Halos still looking for leadoff options, Trumbo and Cowart moving up the prospect lists and much more…
The Story: Kendry Morales avoided arbitration with a one-year, $2.975 million deal.
The Monkey Says: The Angels are getting Kendry at a relative bargain here as I originally had him pegged at closer to $4 million. No doubt his injury last season played a part in this deal.
The Story: Erick Aybar signed a $3 million contract for 2011, avoiding arbitration.
The Monkey Says: Considering the down season Aybar had, this seems like a few hundred thousand too much, but it might also be the organization trying to let Erick know that they still believe in him.
The Story: Howie Kendrick and Reggie Willits also avoided arbitration with one year contracts.
The Monkey Says: Howie is set to make $3.3 million and Reggie will earn $775,000. Unfortunately, the Angels weren’t able to come to any long-term deals with their young arbitration eligible players which makes me wonder if they are even certain that they know which players they want to commit to long-term.
The Story: The Angels exchange arbitration figures with Mike Napoli and Jered Weaver.
The Monkey Says: The Angels offered Napoli $5.3 million while Mike is asking for $6.1 million, a gap that they should be able to overcome. As for Weaver, he asked for $8.8 million while the Angels offered $7.365 million, a pretty significant difference that only leads me to believe that his case might actually go the distance.
The Story: The Angels are still looking for leadoff options.
The Monkey Says: Ken Rosenthal continues to link them to Podsednik and Damon, but I just can’t get excited about either, especially Podsednik. In fact, I have the flu right now and I fell asleep watching MLB Network as they talked about the Angels showing interest in Podsednik. I ended up having one of those fever dreams that they had signed him to a two-year deal for $10 million and being incredibly pissed about it. So I guess I know where my subconscious lies in regards to signing Podsednik.
The Story: What would it really take for the Angels to trade for Evan Longoria?
The Monkey Says: This is brilliant. For all of us who get annoyed by the myopic fans that think we can just trade three mediocre prospects for Superstar X, this article here goes to show just how horribly wrong they are.
The Story: Mark Trumbo ranks amogst the top ten first base prospects.
The Monkey Says: And yet it sounds like the Halos have no plans of giving him a shot at the majors this year. Then again, I think Trumbo is pretty overrated and should be someone the Angels actively look to shop.
The Story: Kaleb Cowart is already in the top of third base prospects.
The Monkey Says: Considering that Cowart has all of 26 professional at-bats, this really goes to show just how well thought of last year’s first-round draft pick is.
The Story: 18 holes of golf with Victor Rojas.
The Monkey Says: Rojas does a fine job of towing the company line and being optimistic about the Halos, not that we should expect anything less.
The Story: Projecting Joel Pineiro’s 2011 season.
The Monkey Says: I was a big doubter of Pineiro when the Angels first signed him, but he proved me wrong last season and based on the slew of projections for this coming season, we have plenty of reason to be bullish about Pineiro.
The Story: Fire Mark Gubicza?
The Monkey Says: Really? No, just no. Look, I know Gubby can be corny and a bit of a company man, but there are a lot worse analysts out there. And now that he has some established chemistry with Victor Rojas, I tend to think that the Angels have one of the better announcing teams in baseball.
The Story: Breaking down the ZiPS projections for the Angels in 2011.
The Monkey Says: Great stuff here, especially the part about Bourjos becoming a good enough hitter to justify him staying in the bigs and Fernando Rodney projecting as the worst pitcher in the pen (which probably won’t stop Scioscia from making him the closer).