MLB’s 10 biggest surprises and disappointments from April

The 2016 MLB season is a month old and some things are playing to form. The Chicago Cubs have baseball’s best record, while teams like the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, and Milwaukee Brewers look like they’re in for long seasons.

But which teams have been pleasant surprises? What teams have been bitter disappointments?

Of course, the season is only a month old, but that’s a big enough time frame to take a look at MLB’s 10 biggest surprises and disappointments.

Note: All stats and records are effective through the end of play on April 30. 

Surprise: Chicago White Sox

The 2016 White Sox entered the season with far more talent than the 2015 squad, and realistically a playoff spot would not have been a far fetched prediction.

But at 17-8, Chicago has the American League’s best record. That is surprising.

The pitching in particular has been unexpectedly brilliant. The Sox rotation is of course led by ace Chris Sale, and there’s nothing remotely shocking about his 1.66 ERA and 0.68 WHIP. Jose Quintana’s 1.47 and 1.11 marks, however, are surprising. The same can be said for Mat Latos, whose 1.84/1.09 ERA/WHIP indicates that he might be revitalizing his career.

What’s especially scary about the White Sox is that they’ve achieved their success getting very uneven performances from two of their better hitters, Jose Abreu and Todd Frazier. The two have combined for a solid 10 home runs but have a mediocre composite .229/.301/.417 slash line. When they get going, the Chicago offense is one of the more potent ones in all of baseball.

Disappointment: Houston Astros

Entering the season, the Astros looked like one of the league’s best teams and appeared a real threat to reach the World Series. They didn’t come close to resembling that kind of team in April.

Unfortunately, Houston has found plenty of times to lose consecutive games.

On May 1, the Astros tied with the Minnesota Twins for the worst record in the American League (7-17), and only the Braves have a worse record in all of baseball.

Unfortunately for Houston and its fans, their 2016 performance thus far resembles its 2011-2014 futility, when the best record was 70-92. Naturally, the Astros look nothing like 2015’s team that went a solid 86-76, made the playoffs and gave the Kansas City Royals a serious battle in the first round before ultimately losing in five games to the eventual champs.

Whether it’s the downright miserable .213/.241/.275 slash line with no home runs produced by Carlos Gomez, the flat out mediocre 4.41 ERA/1.41 ERA/WHIP from reigning Cy Young Award winner Dallas Keuchel, or the dismal 9.00/2.00 ERA/WHIP generated by newly acquired relief ace Ken Giles, the first month of the 2016 season has been a bad one for the Astros.

May baseball can not get here fast enough for this team.

Surprise: Baltimore Orioles

The Orioles were an ordinary 81-81 in 2015 and didn’t do a heck of a lot to improve in the offseason. Still, their play has been extraordinary. Baltimore sits atop American League East with a 14-9 record and has been led by one of baseball’s best players, Manny Machado.

In addition to his normal brilliance with the glove, Machado has been stellar at the plate with 20 runs, seven homers, 16 RBI, and a .344/.394/.667 slash line.

Perhaps more surprising is the Orioles pitching staff. While Baltimore’s starting rotation has been well below average, it finished April with the second-lowest bullpen ERA in the majors.

With an offense that includes Machado, Chris Davis, and Adam Jones, continued pitching like that will absolutely make the Orioles a playoff team.

Disappointment: Toronto Blue Jays

Prior to 2016’s first pitch, the race for the best offense in baseball was really a race for second. The discussion about the best in the game really started and ended with the Blue Jays.

A month into action? Not so much.

Toronto’s 29 home runs ties them for seventh in the league. Not bad, but certainly not great. After that, they rank 13th in runs scored (100), 23rd in batting average (.232), 14th in on base percentage (.314), 15th in slugging (.395) and 15th in OPS (.709).

The Blue Jays have only a -2 run differential on the season, so it’s not outlandish to think that they can turn this around. Still, this is a team that will heavily on their bats, and so far this season, it has boasted a highly underwhelming offense.

Surprise: Philadelphia Phillies

The 2016 campaign was expected to be another rebuilding one for the Phillies. It may well end up that way, but you wouldn’t know it to look at their first month, as Philadelphia closed April at 14-10.

Maikel Franco is emerging as a genuine power hitter, entering May slashing at .267/.320/.467 with five home runs. Odubel Herrera is developing into a good top of the order bat. He posted a staggering .462 OBP in April and backed it up with four steals.

Vince Velasquez and Aaron Nola have given Philadelphia reason to be encouraged with its pitching staff. In four starts, Velasquez posted a 1.78 ERA and 0.87 WHIP, while Nola finished April with a 3.55 ERA and 0.88 WHIP in five starts.

A -17 run differential indicates that the Phillies are over performing and might be in for a fall, but a good start gives the Philadelphia faithful reason for optimism surrounding their baseball team for the first time in a while.

Disappointment: New York Yankees

One thing we can usually count on from New York is a lot of offense. Even when the Yankees aren’t that great, the Bronx Bombers generally score runs.

The 2016 season has broken from tradition in a big way. The Yankees are actually one of the worst offenses in the league, which is a complete 180 from what we’d normally expect.

https://twitter.com/jareddiamond/status/726582314654928896

No team enters May with fewer runs scored than New York. Even if this wasn’t expected to be a typical Bronx Bombers team, they do have some experienced veteran bats like Alex Rodriguez, Mark Teixeira, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran. They should be able to score more than a few more runs.

What’s worse is that as an old team, things aren’t likely to get better for the Yankees as the season progresses. If they’re not hitting now, there’s no reason to think that New York will start hitting once the grind of the season really starts. That’s just not how things work.

Surprise: Oakland Athletics

The A’s finished 2015 at 68-94, posting only one winning month. One month into the 2016 season and they’ve already matched that total.

Oakland’s success thus far can best be attributed to their success in late innings with the bullpen. Small market teams like the A’s really need a good bullpen to succeed. They generally can’t afford the best hitters or starting pitchers, but bullpens are a little more even in that regard.

The Athletics’ recent history is great proof of that.

They had the third best bullpen ERA in 2012 (2.94), sixth in 2013 (3.22), and third in 2014 (2.91). Not coincidentally, they made the playoffs in all three of those seasons, going a combined 76-66 in one-run games. Conversely, during 2015’s 68-94 trainwreck, Oakland’s 4.63 bullpen ERA was the third worst in the league and their record in one-run games was a terrible 19-35.

Thus far, they’re 5-3 in one-run games and their 2.58 bullpen ERA is the league’s sixth best total. If Oakland’s bullpen stays that good throughout the rest of the season, they’ll have more than just one winning month.

Disappointment: Minnesota Twins

We’ve gone over some disappointing teams here, but none have quite as bleak of an outlook as the Twins, who enter May 9.5 games behind their division leader. The  Brewers are as far back in the National League Central, while the Braves are the only team further back, as they trail the National League East leader by 11. That’s not exactly great company to keep as far as 2016 is concerned.

The difference is that unlike Milwaukee and Atlanta, the Twins had reasonably high expectations entering the year. Going 83-79 and narrowly missing the playoffs, Minnesota looked like a team on the rise in 2015.

The Twins’ problem is their all-around poor performance. They’re in the bottom half of the league in team batting average, OBP, slugging, OPS, runs scored, ERA, and WHIP.

A team that has some strengths to rely on can get hot and back into contention after a bad April, even if they’re awful in some other areas. That team could at least theoretically focus on improving their weaknesses while still relying on their strengths.

But a team that’s below average everywhere has nothing to rely on — they need to get better everywhere. Unfortunately for Minnesota, that’s the window they find themselves in right now.

Surprise: Seatttle Mariners

One way or another, the Mariners are just winning games.

They’re even winning games despite a dismal month from Robinson Cano. While the second baseman does have eight homers and a strong .516 slugging percentage, he’s done little else right, sporting a .226 batting average and .301 OBP.

Seattle’s pitching staff has been on point. It has MLB’s fifth best ERA. Due in large part to the continued brilliance of Felix Hernandez, the Mariners have the sixth best starting pitching ERA (3.27) in baseball. Their bullpen has been even better, as their 2.53 ERA is tied for the fourth best mark in the league.

Cano doesn’t need to get on base like he did with the Yankees, but if he develops more consistency in that regard the Mariners have the makings of a playoff team. A team that has King Felix fronting its rotation in the playoffs would be a dangerous one.

Disappointment: National League West

With perennial contenders like the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants established and the Arizona Diamondbacks making big improvements during the offseason, the National League West was supposed to be strong, at least at the top. Things don’t always go as planned.

The five teams with losing records don’t even tell the full story about the mediocrity of this division. The Dodgers, Giants, Diamondbacks, Colorado Rockies, and San Diego Padres were a cumulative 17-28 in non-division games in April. So, the only reason these teams are all as close to .500 as they are is that they’ve gotten to play each other.

While that makes for an interesting race (only 2.5 games separate first from last place), the play in the division has been downright ugly.