First off, the full disclosure:

Every single person at Baseball Prospectus picked the Angels to finish dead last in the AL West. Not a single contributor picked them to even beat out the pitching-poor Rangers for third in the division. Hundreds of people filled out questionnaires at Baseball Prospectus Pizza Feeds before the season began, and offered their forecasts for each of baseball's divisional races. Precisely one person picked the Angels to finish above third place. Before the season started, the buzz was about the AL West being a three-horse race between the Rangers, A's, and Mariners, with the Rangers' participation depending on whether or not they could cobble together a rotation based around recent free-agent acquisition Chan Ho Park.

And yet, with two weeks to go, the A's having run off a 20-game winning streak, and no other evidence of Hell having frozen over, the hottest team in baseball, and the leader of MLB's toughest division is the Anaheim Angels.

How have they done it?

The short answer is pitching, and lots of it. The Angels lead the AL in Fewest Runs Allowed with 594. The Angels pitching staff, led by pitching coach Bud Black, has been absolutely lights out all season long, led by a tremendous (and largely inexpensive) bullpen. While the Orioles have been spending their bullpen cash on the likes of Buddy Groom, Angels GM Bill Stoneman's Baseball Operations team, including Ken Forsch and Donny Rowland, have put an incredible supporting cast in front of Troy Percival, largely by picking up guys that have been written off by scouts. The Angels Pen:

Pitcher	IP	ERA	Where they were in 2001
Troy Percival	53.1	1.69	Closing for the Angels (39/42 Saves, 11 K/9)
Brendan Donnelly	43.1	2.28	Written off as a Triple-A reliever at age 29, despite allowing only 59 hits in 70 innings and striking out 11 per nine innings in two hitters' leagues
Scot Shields	40.2	2.21	Rotation filler at Triple-A Salt Lake before pitching well in a brief callup to Anaheim
Ben Weber	71.1	2.52	Solid groundball middle reliever in Anaheim (2.65 GB/FB ratio)
Lou Pote	47.1	3.23	Solid groundball long reliever in Anaheim (2.24 GB/FB ratio)
Al Levine	59.2	3.77	Solid groundball middle reliever in Anaheim (1.82 GB/ratio)

The trend isn't hard to spot. The Angels front office understands that it makes sense to bet on pitchers who either strike a bunch of guys out, or who induce a ton of groundballs.

"We looked for guys with a lot of movement on their pitches," says Angels assistant general manager Ken Forsch. "Donnelly, Shields, and Weber all have fastballs that move down. Somebody who might throw 91-92 without that kind of movement can get batted around more often than someone who throws with more movement. If you have a good cutter or a hard slider, that's what we look for in the pen. The only guy we have that doesn't have that kind of movement is Percy. (Troy Percival)" And, of course, Percival gets the job done fairly well with his four-seam fastball at 95+.

Of course, somebody has to take the mound to start the game, too. Everyone knows the A's troika of Tim Hudson, Barry Zito, and Mark Mulder, but the Angels' top three haven't been far behind:

Pitcher	IP	ERA
Tim Hudson	224	3.01
Barry Zito	211.2	2.64
Mark Mulder	185.1	3.74
Jarrod Washburn	191.2	3.24
Kevin Appier	177	3.86
Ramon Ortiz	204.1	3.88

One piece of irony: Before the 2002 season, the Angels, believing they needed another starter to shore up the rotation, signed Aaron Sele to a 3-year, $24 million contract. Sele's been a disappointment, with a 4.91 ERA in 25 starts. There were lots of danger signs around Sele before the season began. His strikeout rate had dropped to 5.8 per nine innings in 2001 from 8.1 per nine innings in 2000, he was leaving the best pitchers' park in the American League, and benefited from starting in front of baseball's best bullpen.

The Angels pitching has been the best in the league, but the offense hasn't exactly been dead weight. The Angels are fourth in the AL in runs scored (794), but they've gotten there not because of big seasons from names you expect, like Troy Glaus and Darin Erstad, but because of better than expected seasons across the board from a number of players.

Here are the OBP and SLG of the Angels' offensive contributors for the last two years, along with their age for the 2002 season:

Player	2001 OBP	2001 SLG	2002 OBP	2002 SLG	2002 Age	Imp./Dec.?
Adam Kennedy	.318	.372	.353	.469	26	Improvement
Garret Anderson	.314	.478	.338	.548	30	Improvement
David Eckstein	.355	.357	.378	.410	27	Improvement
Orlando Palmeiro	.360	.347	.366	.352	33	Neutral
Tim Salmon	.365	.383	.382	.501	33	Improvement
Scott Spiezio	.326	.438	.376	.440	29	Improvement
Darin Erstad	.331	.360	.313	.388	28	Neutral
Brad Fullmer	.326	.444	.345	.503	27	Improvement
Bengie Molina	.309	.351	.277	.318	27	Decline
Troy Glaus	.367	.531	.353	.458	25	Decline

The Angels have put together an offense of a bunch of players at or near their peak. Reasonable expectations are that at least one or two of these guys should have a big, somewhat surprising season, and none of these players with the exception of Salmon, was a candidate to completely collapse.

"Things just kind of jelled at the right time," said Forsch. Stoneman and Forsch gave their team several chances to catch lightning in a bottle, and they've done exactly that. Adam Kennedy's flashed some very nice extra-base power, Garret Anderson's come into his power peak nicely, and Scott Spiezio and the now-injured Brad Fullmer are having seasons above their career norms, but not outside of the realm of reasonable expectations. In short, the offense has been somewhat fortunate, but more importantly, it's been thoughtfully designed to take advantage of good fortune. As Branch Rickey said, luck is the residue of design.

Defensively, the Angels have been a solid club, to the surprise of a great many scouts.

"The scouts told us Eckstein didn't have the arm to play shortstop," said Forsch, "but he's adjusted real well. He has the quickness to cut balls off and get rid of the ball, and he gets everybody by half a step. (Infield coach) Alfredo Griffin has been great in terms of improving our infield defense across the board."

The Angels are a strong club across the board. They pitch well, hit well, and play defense well. The structure and performance of the team is indicative of a plan that's both well crafted and well executed. A lot of analysts, including this one, underestimated this club at the start of the season. For us, it means eating crow. For the A's, Yankees, and Twins, the same mistake will result in a rapid exit from the playoffs.

You can check out more work from the team of writers of the Baseball Prospectus at baseballprospectus.com. Gary Huckabay can be reached at ghuckabay@baseballprospectus.com. Baseball Prospectus is a registered trademark of Prospectus Entertainment Ventures, LLC.