The April 10th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Richards to replace Weaver in rotation, Halos not considering trades and much more...

The Story: Garrett Richards has been tabbed to replace Jered Weaver in the rotation and the Halos are said to not be interested in trade options.

The Monkey Says: Richards is the right choice. 4-to-6 weeks is the perfect little audition for him to show whether or not he can really hack it as a starter. He has been throwing the ball very well this year, so he has a real shot at being a real asset. If he fails, the Angels can shift him back to the bullpen, probably for good. Trading for someone like Harang or Capuano would be questionable since they'd have to be shifted back into the bullpen once Weaver got healthy, thus making them not worth giving up much for.

The Story: Losing Jered Weaver for a month or two isn't really that big of a deal.

The Monkey Says: The claim is basically that they are forfeiting about one win worth of value with him out. That makes sense mathematically, but it feels like his loss costs the Halos much more since Weaver represented the best of a bad rotation. Aces like Weaver are often counted on to come in and stop losing streaks or prevent them, so they don't really have that now which may or may not be a big deal depending on how they play without him.

There isn't much good to be said about this game. The bats should have and could have brought in at least 12 runs, but couldn't. The bullpen, so solid and promising until Sunday night, were tasked with nursing a lead, but couldn't. CJ Wilson kept trying to #throwstrikes, but couldn't.

And that has basically been the story of the 2012 -- I mean, 2013, Angels. They have enough talent to win ballgames, but simply can't, for whatever reason. The Oakland Athletics did their very best to gift the Halos with a nice, welcome-home victory, booting balls around in the 6th inning and allowing the languid Angels zombie-offense a new shot at life.

But Kevin Jepsen felt even more like Santa Clause, serving up an ugly 5-spot in the top of the 7th. Awesome stuff, really. That's all you can say about it.

Oh and the Angels will probably be without Erick Aybar for a little bit. The shortstop experienced a left heel contusion while beating out a base hit. He is listed as day to day, this on the same day the Halos found out they will be without ace Jered Weaver for at least a month.

The good news just keeps on coming!

Athletics 9, Angels 5

Game Notes

-- One encouraging sign over this hellish stretch is that Albert Pujols continues to see the ball well. The slugger has drawn 6 unintentional walks, 9 walks total, in 7 games this season, a huge sign that his plate discipline just might be back in a big way. At any rate, Pujols looks a lot better now than he did at this time a week ago.

-- We ain't in Texas anymore. Josh Hamilton received a much friendlier reception from the Anaheim crowds. Aside from the better vibes from the Anaheim crowd, the fans were treated to very similar results at the plate by Hambone. A strikeout with the bases loaded in the first and a tap-out with the bases loaded in the fourth. Remember when Hamilton was supposed to drive in all those runs? I barely do, either.

-- The bullpen was awful. But you already knew that. Newly acquired Dane De La Rosa was the only arm that didn't look like he was walking a tightrope out there on the mound.

Halo A-Hole of the Game

Enough said. I'm feeling pretty jepped by this dude, tonight.

Every year I like to publish one article which focuses on the predictions of your Angel Minor Leaguers.  Last year, we successfully predicted Kaleb Cowart’s, Kole Calhoun’s, Donn Roach’s and Eswarlin Jimenez’s dominant 2012 performance.  Conversely, I didn’t think hitters in A-ball would ever touch Austin Wood, and to be fair they didn’t.  Still, his lack of control led to a somewhat inaccurate prediction on my part.  Also, Chevy Clarke couldn’t put it all together for a full season in 2012 as I thought he would.  Still it’s hard to argue with a nearly 70% success rate when it comes to predictions.  And I’m not sure we can call them predictions as much as educated guesses based off my experience in scouting. Regardless, here are the minor league movers and shakers for 2013.

1. Dane De La Rosa – He’s a 30-year-old reliever in AAA, so it’s difficult to consider him a prospect as much as he is a minor league journeyman.  Still, blessed with size and a 98 mph fastball, I think Dane De La Rosa will break into the Angels bullpen sometime in 2013. (EDITOR'S NOTE: De La Rosa got called up to the roster after this article was written, also, Scotty might be a wizard.)

2. Randal Grichuk – I don’t think Grichuk or any of the AA prospects this season will be promoted, but I do think we’ll see growth and maturity at the plate from C.J. Cron and Randal Grichuk.  Grichuk specifically will double his walk total from 2012 and hit for enough power and average that he’ll catch a lot more attention headed into 2014.  I expect a quicker adjustment to advanced competition from Grichuk than any of his teammates. 

3. R.J. Alvarez – Sending Alvarez to Advanced-A Ball may have more or less been a strategy to simplify life for the young reliever.  The Angels don’t want to rush him too quickly only to find he’s an unfinished product or that he’s developed some non-productive pitching habits.  Still, I can’t envision Alvarez staying at Inland Empire any longer than a month or two.  His deceptive short-arm delivery, high 90’s fastball and sharp breaking slider should help him mow down the competition.  I expect Alvarez to finish the season in the high minors in 2013, if not in Anaheim.

You know how I said last week that April could be really rough for the Angels? Well, things just got a lot tougher. I'll allow Ken Rosenthal to break the bad news to you:

Weaver, the Angels’ ace right-hander, will be out 4 to 6 weeks after suffering a broken left (non-pitching) elbow, major-league sources say.

So much for the original examination coming back negative. The Angels already had a shaky rotation with Weaver, so things are only going to get shakier without Weaver for a full month. Presumably Garrett Richards will take Weaver's spot in the rotation, but the team hasn't made an announcement yet, so Jerome Williams is a possibility as well. We do know though that reliever Dane De La Rosa has been called up to take Weaver's spot on the roster.

If there is any good news here it is that this injury shouldn't have any long-term effects on Weaver since it is his non-throwing elbow. If anything, it might give him some time in rehab to work on his mechanics and strength to possibly overcome his loss of velocity we saw in his first two starts. Or maybe I am just desperately trying to find a silver lining in an otherwise soul-crushing bit of news. Yeah, probably that.

Ugh.

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When the Angels signed Josh Hamilton I knew it was going to be tough. Tough on Hamilton to meet expectations. Tough on the front office to prove signing Josh was a smart decision. Tough on the fans to embrace a former enemy. Tough on me just to figure out how to deal with Hamilton's presence and all that comes with it.

As a general rule, I try and keep my own personal opinion and beliefs of the non-baseball variety to a bare minimum on this blog. I even specifically tell all the other writers for the site that politics and religion are strictly off limits. After all, this is a baseball blog and it would seem stupid to alienate members of the audience over something that has nothing to do with baseball.

Well, I think I'm probably about to do just that.

In the months since the Angels signed Josh Hamilton and the one actual week that he has played in meaningful games for them, I've come to the conclusion that loving Hamilton and accepting him as one our own might just be impossible for me to do. But because he's an Angel for the next five years, I'm sure as hell going to try, but mostly out of obligation. While there is on rule that says we must unconditionally love every player on the roster, I feel like I'm not doing my job as a fan if I don't at least try. After all, there was a time long, long ago that I gave Jeff Mathis the benefit of the doubt and would jump to the defense of Vernon Wells.

Now it is my chance to talk myself into liking Josh Hamilton. Thus far it isn't going well. It isn't going well at all.

The April 9th, 2013 edition of daily news for the Los Angeles Angels including Hamilton says he'd 'suck anywhere right now,' Weaver a giant red flag and much more...

The Story: Josh Hamilton says "he'd suck anywhere right now."

The Monkey Says: He's trying to deflect but the other quotes suggest he is still very bothered by all of this. He not only doubles down on the "not a baseball town" comments, but he even semi-jokingly suggests that he'd like to believe that the fans were actually booing the Texas front office for not bringing him back. Umm, yeah, not so much, Josh.

The Story: Jered Weaver's loss of velocity is a giant red flag.

The Monkey Says: Weaver has great command, deception and ability to change speeds, but he is practically the slowest thrower in the league right now. He might be able to survive at this velocity with all his other skills, but it is hard to see him dominating like he used to. It is even harder to see him remaining effective by the end of his contract if his velocity continues to decline.

With the first week of the season in the books, the power rankings have already seen a big shake up, mostly because a certain big money free agent can't stop swinging and missing...

RANK	PLAYER	CHANGE	COMMENTS
1		-- 0 Last Week: 1	Mike Trout - Nobody is happier that Josh Hamilton is getting reamed over his strikeout problem than Mr. Trout, who has already K'd eight times this season. Clearly the BBWAA had it right.
2		+1 Last Week: 3	Albert Pujols - Albert doesn't always homer in Arlington, but when he does, he usually homers twice.
3		-1 Last Week: 2	Jered Weaver - Good thing Weaver hurt his elbow on Sunday night otherwise all we would be talking about is how bad he was (again) in Arlington. Bullet dodged, am I right?
4		+3 Last Week: 7	Mark Trumbo - Could barely get the ball out of the infield in spring training, now leads the Angels in doubles and has a home run to his credit as well.
5		+8 Last Week:13	Chris Iannetta - Iannetta might have been the Angels best hitter in the first week which is great because it gives me early ammunition for my campaign to get Mike Scioscia to stop batting him eighth in the order.
6		+10 Last Week: 16	Kevin Jepsen - He may not be as flashy, but from a consistency standpoint, I'm starting to wonder if the Angels might not be better off with Jepsen closing. I know. I can't believe I wrote that either.
7		+3 Last Week: 10	Jason Vargas - Have we decided on calling him Viva las Vargas or Circus Vargas yet? Is it context dependent maybe? Is there another tired Vargas pun that I am not thinking of?
8		-2 Last Week: 6	C.J. Wilson - When the surgeon fixed C.J.'s elbow this off-season, he apparently forgot to fix his "one bad inning ruins an entire start" problem.
9		+2 Last Week: 11	Peter Bourjos - A 1.135 OPS to start the season. Torii who?
10		-5 Last Week: 5	Erick Aybar - It only took three games for Scioscia to order Aybar to lay down his first ill-advised sac bunt to move Mike Trout over to second base.
11		+4 Last Week: 15	Tommy Hanson - Hanson had a solid Halo debut in the boxscore. On the radar gun? Not so much, as he averaged just 87.7 MPH on his fastball according to Pitch f/x.
12		-3 Last Week: 9	Ernesto Frieri - His line this year is already a microcosm of his career. Two inning pitched, four strikeouts but the only hit he allowed was a homer.
13		+4 Last Week: 17	Alberto Callaspo - After a .399 OPS the first month of the 2012 season, it is nice to see Callaspo get out of the gates quickly this year.
14		-6 Last Week: 8	Howie Kendrick - It would seem that Howie has decided that instead of grounding into double plays that this year he will instead strikeout in situations where all he needs to do is put the ball in play to score a run. Just when we think Kendrick is going to zig, he zags!
15		-11 Last Week: 4	Josh Hamilton - Between all the boos, strikeouts and Texas pitching around Pujols specifically to get to Hamilton (and having it work), I can't say that I am terribly enjoying the Hamilton era much in the same way as I can't say that I enjoy having a white-hot poker jammed up my nostril.
16		+3 Last Week: 19	Garrett Richards - He has a real chance to be a big weapon in the bullpen, but as we saw on the game-tying homer he allowed, he still needs to work on maintaining his focus even though he is pitching in shorter stints.
17		+1 Last Week: 18	Sean Burnett - Burnett is barely cracking 88 MPH on the radar gun, so go ahead and add him to the growin list of Angel pitchers with a highly disconcerting loss of velocity.
18		-6 Last Week: 12	Joe Blanton - Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Joervin Blantana.
19		+4 Last Week: 23	Mark Lowe - Josh Hamilton wasn't the only former Ranger who had a rough time against his former team.
20		-6 Last Week: 14	Scott Downs - Guess who has two of the Angels' four losses? Go ahead, guess. Correct! OK, now guess which lefty reliever shouldn't be allowed to face right-handed batters anymore?
21		-- 0 Last Week: 21	Hank Conger - Getting through his first start of the season without any obvious defensive gaffes is a big moral victory for Hank.
22		-2 Last Week: 20	Jerome Williams - Every other reliever in the bullpen made at least two appearances (and all but Frieri made three) before Williams made his first this season. He has to be pretty happy that his salary is guaranteed because right now he is the one on the chopping block if/when Ryan Madson gets activated.
23		+2 Last Week: 25	Brendan Harris - I'm trying to think of a comment for him but all I am blocked by the fact that I can't get over how his headshot looks like he just smelled a fart.
24		-- 0 Last Week: 24	J.B. Shuck - Did you know J.B. Shuck has seven career home runs? No, not in the majors. I mean seven career home runs across his entire career in the majors and minors with exactly zero of them being hit above Double-A.
25		-3 Last Week: 22	Andrew Romine - Romine has struck out in every single on of his at-bats this season! Oh, wait, he only has a single at-bat.

Biggest Riser: Jepsen, up 10 spots

Biggest Dropper: Hamilton, down 11 spots

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