- The Story: Mike Scioscia committed to batting Bobby Abreu second in the order, but little else. The Monkey Says: This is going to be an ongoing situation to monitor as Sosh tries to figure out the order after losing Figgins and Vlad. It is pretty clear that Aybar will usually hit first, but after that, there isn’t much certainty, especially in the middle of the order.
- The Story: The Angels signed 11 of their young players to new contracts. The Monkey Says: These are just the young guys on the roster like Chris Pettit and Trevor Bell who will be getting the league-minimum salary or very close to it.
- The Story: Jered Weaver is looking at adding a two-seam fastball to his repertoire. The Monkey Says: If he does, than we can just consider this an early Christmas present for Angel fans. If Weaver can do anything at all to become less of an extreme flyball pitcher, he could really give his game a HUGE boost and potentially become an elite pitcher in this league.
- The Story: Ron Roenicke got his first dose of the Hideki Matsui media hordes. The Monkey Says: He and the rest of the Angels better get used to it because the Japanese media isn’t going away anytime soon with Godzilla on the team.
- The Story: Three Angels cracked the much-anticipated Baseball America Top 100 Prospect list. The Monkey Says: Don’t get too excited though as Hank Conger was the highest-ranked Angel at #84 with Mike Trout right behind him at #85. Peter Bourjos checked in at #97 but Trevor Reckling was conspicuously absent.
- The Story: Injury expert Will Carroll evaluates the health of the Angels’ roster. The Monkey Says: I’m too cheap to subscribe to BP, but Carroll alludes to an epidemic of arm injuries to the Halos’ top pitching prospects, a very intriguing topic to say the least. If someone not nearly as frugal as I wants to read the whole column and catch me up, it would be appreciated.
- The Story: Bobby Abreu and Kendry Morales both missed the opening of training camp for the full roster. The Monkey Says: Both absences were expected, so don’t panic. Although anytime I hear about immigration issues with Morales I always have the paranoid fear that Castro somehow managed to kidnap K-Mo back to Cuba.
- The Story: The thing Erick Aybar will miss the most about Vladimir Guerrero was the food. The Monkey Says: Somehow I imagine that there is other decent Latin food somewhere in Southern California for the Angels to enjoy in the absence of Mama Guerrero’s home cooking.
- The Story: Hideki Matsui is already impressing Torii Hunter in camp. The Monkey Says: I’m less impressed with the fact that Godzilla is already having to take it easy on his balky needs and camp literally just started.
- The Story: Mike Napoli thinks his shoulder is finally feeling good enough to overcome some of his defensive struggles from last season. The Monkey Says: Let’s hope so, because the Angels have a much more dangerous line-up when Napoli is in it but that is only going to happen if Nap can convince Scioscia that he can be counted on defensively first.
- The Story: Joe Saunders has a golfing date with John Smoltz. The Monkey Says: And here I was thinking that Saunders might actually be more focused on the upcoming season and proving himself again after a disappointing 2009 campaign. What’s next, a curling date with Roy Halladay?
- The Story: Does Jeff Mathis get more strike calls for the pitchers than Mike Napoli does? The Monkey Says: It doesn’t really look like does or at least not by very much. All these studies of Mathis’ defense are quite interesting to look at though because for as valued as his defense is within the organization, Mathis doesn’t really grade out that well in most advanced stats. He’s still better than Napoli behind the dish, but is he really better enough to make up for the gap in offense between the two players?