The October 10th, 2011 edition of daily news for the LA Angels including Abe Flores fired, Lyle Spencer blames the fans for Mathis' inability to hit, previewing 2012 prospect sleepers and much more...

The Story: The Angels have fired director of player development Abe Flores.

The Monkey Says: The heads continue to roll.  Flores had been director of player development since his predecessor Tony Reagins was promoted to GM.  I know that Gary DiSarcina and Tory Hernandez continue to be mentioned as potential candidates, but that looks less and less likely as the team continues to divest themselves of the other remaining members of the front office.

The Story: Lyle Spencer is convinced Jeff Mathis will "be a fine total player" once he gets away from the harsh fans in Anaheim.

The Monkey Says: I'm going to take the high road and simply say that I hope Spencer gets a chance to prove his case this off-season if/when the Angels non-tender Jeff Mathis.

It's that time of year again, time to fill out some end of season ballots.  As this blog is a card-carrying member of the Baseball Bloggers Alliance (actually, there are no cards, this is the internet, after all), I must fulfill my association mandated duties by casting a ballot for all of their standard season-ending awards.  Yeah, it isn't Angels related, but I think you can all handle it, especially since the Angels news cycle is completely dead right now (which is why there were on Halo Headlines today, literally nothing to link to, probably the first time that has ever happened).

With the Angels promising to cast a wide net in their search for the Tony Reagins' replacement, I figure they could probably use a little help in narrowing down the field of candidates.  Just to make sure they don't make any of the same mistakes with their next GM, I took it upon myself to create a screening questionnaire for all potential candidates.

Fill out the questionnaire yourself.  Who knows, maybe you could qualify to be the next general manager of the Angels?  You can't possibly be any worse than Reagins was.

The October 6th, 2011 edition of daily news for the LA Angels including Angels and Moneyball-Style GMs could be a poor match, grading all of Reagins' moves, a young Angels fan survives cancer and much more...

The Story: The Angels and "Moneyball"-style GMs seem like a poor coupling.

The Monkey Says: It is worth noting that Tony Reagins tried to bring more sabermetrics into the Angel front office decision making process, but to me, this analysis is spot on.  As long as Scioscia is on the bench, the Angels will have to find a GM who can relate to him.  Guys like Beane, Epstein and Friedman definitely know what they are doing, but putting them in a position to constantly have to bend over backwards to get Scioscia to buy into their methodologies would be an untenable situation.

The Story: Grading all of Tony Reagins' moves during his tenure.

The Monkey Says: I think the grade of the Haren trade is a little overly critical, but for the most part these grades are spot on.  Overall, they do demonstrate that Reagins did a fair amount correctly, but he also did a lot incorrectly and on a grand scale.

As per annual tradition in Major League Baseball, each team ends the season by having each player conduct an exit interview with his manager.  Never ones to buck tradition, the Angels have already gone through the same process.  After such a rollercoaster ride of a season, the Angel players surely had some interesting thinks to talk about with the respected manager, Mike Scioscia.  Lucky for you, as always, Monkey With a Halo had secret cameras on hand in Scioscia's office to record those exit interviews so that we could present you with some of the most interesting excerpts from those interviews.  Let's see what everyone had to say:

Step on into Scioscia's office for a little chat, won't you?

The October 5th, 2011 edition of daily news for the LA Angels including Josh Hamilton slams the Angels, Lyle Spencer has another Mathis lovefest on Twitter, T.J. Simers takes some shots at Mike Scioscia and much more...

The Story: When asked about Mike Napoli, Josh Hamilton said, ”I think we’re going to look at who we can get from the Angels next year.”

The Monkey Says: Ex-Angels have been pretty good for the Rangers the last few year, so Hamilton's slam is a pretty good one.  But with Joel Pineiro, Fernando Rodney, Russell Branyan and (hopefully) Jeff Mathis, I dare Hamilton to put his money where his mouth is and sign one or more of those guys.

The Story: Lyle Spencer uses Hamilton's quote as a jumping off point for another Jeff Mathis lovefest.

The Monkey Says: I saw that Twitter exchange and thought Spencer was joking until the last one about Mathis fixing his stroke.  Really, Lyle, it is time to give up the ghost.

When it comes to finding a new general manager for the Angels, I'm not going to sit here and pretend like I have some special insider information on the specific names they might be targeting.  What I can do though, is evaluate the types of GM candidates they might go after and why.  Some options are more realistic than others and some of the more realistic ones might make you want to pull your hair out.  Let's break it down and figure who is who and what is what.

Raise your hand if you a potential general manager candidate for the Angels.  Not so fast, Moneyball Boy!