April Surprises

People tend to overreact to small sample sizes.  Baseball season lasts six months, so what happens in April won't necessarily look the same when we get to September.  So far we've seen certain players and teams get off to hot starts while others have been massive disappointments.  While it may be too early to know which trends are legitimate and which ones are a mirage, it's still interesting to look at some of the surprises from the early season schedule.

• The Red Sox are the best team in baseball.  Not bad for a team that few expected to even make the
  
  playoffs, but Boston seems to have turned things around after suffering through last year's nightmare season.  The Sox have the league's best record (18-7) and best run differential (+40).
• Clay Buchholz (5-0, 1.19 ERA, 1.01 WHIP) leads a rotation desperate for redemption and has put himself in the early season race for the AL Cy Young.
• David Ortiz is the hottest hitter in baseball.  Now this is a small sample size, even by April standards, considering Ortiz started the season on the DL.  Since his return, he's hit .516/.529/.871 with 2 HRs and 5 doubles in 8 games.
• Boston benefited from a four game sweep at home of the lowly Astros.  But is Houston really that bad?  Ok, yes they are, but that was to be expected from a team what has a combined payroll that costs less than what A-Rod is getting paid this year to not play for the Yankees.  Despite having few household names in their lineup, their offense hasn't been as awful as you might think.  Their 98 runs scored is better than 13 other teams. 
• That number is partially inflated by one 16 run game against Seattle pitchers not named King Felix, but it still counts.  Their offense probably won't remain league average for long, but they might not be as bad as expected.  The pitching on the other hand is as bad as advertised.  148 runs against is easily the worst in the league.
• One of those teams that has scored less than Houston - the powerhouse Angels (97 runs scored).  Prized off-season acquisition Josh Hamilton is batting .219 and already has 29 strikeouts and just 5 walks.
• Speaking of under performing Angels - Mike Trout is batting only .263/.330/.424.  Sophomore slump! Panic!  Nah, he'll be fine.  He's Mike Trout!
• Another sophomore that is currently not going through any sort of slump is Bryce Harper.  He's hitting .360 with 9 HRs to put him in the running for early season favorite for NL MVP and he's only 20 years old!  The same age Trout was last year when he should have won the MVP.
• The guy that is the leading candidate for April NL MVP is Justin Upton (.307, major league leading 12 HRs).  Maybe Arizona shouldn't have given up on him following a sub par season.  Especially since he's only a year removed from being a top 5 MVP candidate.
• The top candidate in the AL would be... Chris Davis??  Hard to argue against a guy hitting .349 with 9 HRs and 28 RBIs, which leads the AL in both categories.  He hit 33 HRs last year, so the power is legit, but he's also a career .263 hitter, so let's not get too carried away.
• Arizona and Colorado are tied atop the NL West with identical +19 run differentials.  Wait, weren't we just bashing the Diamondbacks for giving away Upton?  Weren't the Rockies supposed to be one of the league's wost teams?  What's going on out west?
• The Giants won the division last year and went on to win the World Series behind Buster Posey's scorching bat.  Their MVP catcher has rebounded from a miserable start, but being good - not great- isn't enough to carry this team.  Not when Matt Cain has a 6.59 ERA and Tim Lincecum's struggles from last year haven't gone away.
• The Kansas City Royals lead the AL Central.  It's only by half a game over Detroit and the Tigers will almost certainly reclaim their place at the top of the division soon enough.  But give credit to the Royals for a great start.  It seems like we've waited years for their young players to break out and make this team a playoff contender and we might finally be seeing it.  Now if only Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas would start hitting (0 HRs between their two corner infields - ouch!).
• I wasn't high on expectations for James Shields leaving a pitcher friendly stadium and a great defense behind him in Tampa, but he's off to a good start (3.09 ERA) and gives the Royals the closest thing they've had to an ace since Zack Greinke.
• Young pitchers are taking the league by storm.  Matt Harvey (1.54 ERA, 0.69 WHIP, 39 K's) and
  

  

  Matt Moore (1.13 ERA, 0.88 WHIP, 38 K's) have been the best pitchers in the league so far.  In only his second season in the US, you can put Yu Darvish (1.65 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 49 K's) in the conversation too.  Add in the dominant performances from aces that we expected this from - Verlander, Kershaw, Felix.  A lot of great pitching so far, but that's to be expected early in the season. These guys are good, but bats will start to heat up when the weather does.
• It's not all young guys getting it done.  Jake Westbrook leads the majors with a 0.98 ERA.  Wait, are we sure that's right?
• Not all aces have gotten off to great starts this season.  Matt Cain, David Price, R.A. Dickey, Cole Hamels, Chris Sale and Gio Gonzalez are all off to disappointing starts.  Far too early to write off any of them - they should all be fine.  Well, most of them anyway.
• Jason Grilli leads the NL in saves (10).  This may surprise you because the 36 year old has never held the closer role before and has a career 4.25 ERA.  It also may surprise you because you probably didn't expect the Pirates to have won 10 games already (they actually have 15 and lead the NL Central!).  Grilli had a sub-3.00 ERA with 90 K's last season, but there were concerns about his ability to handle the closer role and he was expected to be a short leash.  He has quickly put those concerns to rest.  Saves may be one of the league's most overrated stats, but Grilli has backed up his performance by only giving up 1 earned run and striking out 17 through 11 innings so far.
• Last season Rays closer Fernando Rodney set a record with a sparkling 0.60 ERA.  After a fairly mediocre career, he came out of nowhere to earn himself some Cy Young votes.  So far this year he has a 4.32 ERA.  That's just the wild unpredictability of relief pitchers.  This is why fantasy baseball experts tell you NEVER to pay for saves!
• The Toronto Blue Jays are the season's biggest disappointment so far.  They were the trendy pick to win the AL East, with many picking them to win the World Series after a busy off-season that saw them raid the Marlins roster and bring in the reigning NL Cy Young.  Yet there still seemed to be some lingering question marks floating over this team (which I eluded to even while reluctantly picking them to win the division).  R.A. Dickey (4.50 ERA) has struggled switching to the hitter friendly AL.  Jose Reyes is already on the DL until July and Josh Johnson just missed his last start due to arm troubles.  This news shouldn't be surprising for either fragile player.  Jose Bautista is bashing HRs (7) but hitting below the Mendoza line and Edwin Encarnacion hasn't been much better.
• The Yankees have remained competitive so far despite missing Derek Jeter, Curtis Granderson,
  

  

  Mark Teixeria and Alex Rodriguez.  Robinson Cano has been great, of course, but putting on pinstripes has apparently rejuvenated the careers of washed up former stars Vernon Wells and Travis Hafner (6 HRs each!).
• Also giving them a boost is that Mariano Rivera seems to be fully recovered from the torn ACL that kept him out all of last season.  He's back and just as good as ever... which shouldn't even be possible for someone at age 43.  The Chicago Bulls are still waiting for Derrick Rose to return from the same injury and he's half Mo's age.
• Carlos Santana has always had a knack for getting on base thanks to his ability to take pitches and earn walks, but he's never been a high average hitter.  He's a career .255 hitter in his first three seasons in the majors.  So of course he finishes the month of April leading the AL in hitting (.388).
• Brewers SS Jean Segura has an NL leading 7 stolen bases, but that doesn't count the time that he improbably stole first base!  He started by stealing second base.  Later in the inning he got caught in a run down trying to steal third, but managed to safely make it back to second.  The problem was, teammate Ryan Braun had already moved up to occupy the base.  Sorry, no room for two at second base.  So Segura kept running - all the way back to first.  The league later admitted their blunder by stating Segura should have been called out, but at the time, nobody knew what to make of it.  As it turned out, it wouldn't matter because Segura was called out when trying to steal second for a second time that inning.
• Remember when the A's were that scrappy team from Moneyball?  Well now they lead the majors in runs scored (138).  They are doing it with somewhat of an updated version of the old Moneyball formula, but the basic premise remains the same.  Find guys that get on base and hit home runs.  By being smart with platoon splits and putting their guys in the best position to succeed they've maximized the talents in their lineup and turned a collection of undervalued assets into an offensive force.
• The Miami Marlins rank last in the majors in runs scored, AVG. and SLG.  How much more of this can Giancarlo Stanton take before he forces his way out of town?  He's got the ability to hit 50 HRs, but with this lineup around him he might still struggle to knock in 100 RBIs.
• The Baltimore Orioles made the playoffs last year thanks in part to a great deal of success in one run games.  Their 29-9 record was the best winning percentage in one run games since the 1800s!  A great bullpen deserves some credit for that, but it primarily comes down to luck.  This year the O's have gotten off to a 15-10 start despite being only 4-5 in one run games.

Every year we see new stars break out and old ones fade.  Teams come out of nowhere to contend while others become massive disappointments.  Maybe some of these surprises we've seen will turn out to be a sign of things to come.  Maybe we'll soon write them off a hot streaks (or cold spells) of a small sample size.

Just remember - it's still early.  There are plenty more surprises in store the rest of the way.