The lessons the Los Angeles Angels can teach

On August 10, the Angels lost 3-1 to the Red Sox, dropping four games out of first place. They weren’t out of the AL West race yet, but you wouldn’t have blamed anyone in the stands or front office who kept an eye on the other teams in the wild card hunt.

Since then: 22-6, a remarkable run that allowed them to make up 12 games on the A’s in a month. They have the best record in baseball by a healthy margin, and they’re a strong finish away from winning 100 games, with seven games coming against the Rangers and Astros. They’re good. Oh, how they’re good.

The last time the Angels were in the playoffs, Bobby Abreu and Vladimir Guerrero hit in the middle of the order. Chone Figgins was good. Brian Fuentes was a closer. Brandon Wood was still a prospect. It’s not like the Angels are working on a Royals-like drought, but it’s been a while since they’ve had a season this fun.

They can teach us things, too. Two lessons, in fact, that can help us understand baseball better in the future.

Not mine, of course. I projected the Angels to win close to 100 and the Rangers to lose 100 in this preview, and DON’T CLICK THAT LINK. It’s rude, You’re in this article now. Why would you click that link? It’s like walking away from someone mid-sentence. Just take my word for it that I nailed my predictions, which I usually do.

Other people’s prognostications, though, are awful and useless. To prove this point, I’m going to have a conversation with an Angels fan from March.

I’m from the future. Ask me questions about your baseball team.

Ask me questions about your baseball team.

He is not. He’s fine -- basically the same player from last year, but healthier and with a little more power. But he’s not the Pujols the Angels were expecting, and the contract still looks like a typo.

He’s better! Better. But hurt a lot and not nearly as valuable as the Angels were hoping.

Bad. Well below average.

Meh.

No.

No. Two steps backward.

They did! Tyler Skaggs had some ups and downs, but he looked promising until his elbow blew out.

And Garrett Richards was one of the most electric arms in the league. He was robbed of an All-Star appearance, and he was the best pitcher on the staff.

Until his knee blew out.

Raul Ibanez hits .157/.258/.265 in almost 200 plate appearances, playing more than 20 games in the field. Ernesto Frieri loses his job and gets traded to the Pirates, who release him. They use 31 pitchers (and counting) on the season because of injuries and ineffectiveness.

He’s lost about 50 points off his on-base percentage and his strikeouts have dramatically increased.

That’s for 2002, you jackal. I hope when you die, there’s nothing but a white room with a Sandfrog CD playing on a loop for eternity.

Anywho, there’s no first-place team that can quite match the hard luck and good fortune of the Orioles -- the other team in the AL running away with their division -- but the Angels come close. A contending Angels team in 2014 had a very specific blueprint: Pujols or Hamilton the player the Angels were hoping for; C.J. Wilson the pitcher they were hoping for; an electric and dominant Jered Weaver. And so on.

None of it happened. Yet the Angels might still be the best team in baseball. Preseason predictions are just the dumbest. I can’t want to make them next year.

Let’s talk about Matt Shoemaker, who is probably the Angels’ best pitcher with Garrett Richards out. He’s an absurd figment of baseball’s imagination. Consider:

Yet here he is, the Angels’ win-day pitcher. The Angels are 15-4 in the games he’s started, including the last six in a row. He shouldn’t even be replacement level, but he’s thriving for a team that lost two of its promising young pitchers.

Because he exists, Mike Trout is more valuable. Do you see how that works? It’s true, you know.

The problem with Trout over the last two years, the reason he wasn’t as valuable as he is now, is that the Angels didn’t have anyone like Shoemaker, fluke developmental stories that bounced the right ways. Mike Trout is more valuable now because the Angels’ bullpen is four or five deep. He’s more valuable now because he’s surrounded by a deep lineup, filled with the kind of players whose numbers won’t impress anyone in a future era with increased offense, but are stealthily outstanding in the pitcher’s haven of Angel Stadium.

All of that is fixed, so Trout is the frontrunner for the MVP award. Because the Angels backed into an unexpected, undrafted success story and had other things go their way, now it’s Trout’s time. Good for him. I knew he could get better.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for a tea party where time stands still at tea time, and we all tell each other riddles before leaving to play croquet with the Queen because thinking about MVP voting gets me high and makes me think I’m in a Lewis Carroll story.

The Angels are good. Good enough to teach us a couple things. Unlike a lot of good teams, though, it’s hard to see exactly how they got here unless you squint. This wasn’t how they were supposed to contend. Instead, they’re blowing the rest of the league away.