10 things we’ve learned so far this MLB season

What have we learned a month into the 2017 MLB regular season?

Definitively speaking, April is a weird month for Major League Baseball. You have teams playing in frigid temperatures. Hitting in 35-degree weather with a wooden bat is a pleasant experience for no one. Commanding a curveball in similar weather with cold fingers is just as unpleasant. The teams that play in Texas and California or in domes do not have to face similar adversity, so the numbers across the league can be all over the board.

Still, there are some very clear things we have learned about how the rest of the 2017 MLB season will play out. Here are the top-ten nuggets that stand out after a month of play around the league.

10. Colorado and Arizona are no longer sleepers

The National League was on high alert entering the regular season watching the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks, and they have not disappointed, battling for first place in the NL West. The Diamondbacks and Rockies have shed their ‘sleeper’ labels and are now bona fide contenders in the National League.

The knock on both teams entering the year was their pitching — bullpen for the Rockies, starting for the Diamondbacks. Both have loaded offenses, but have struggled to get outs when it matters most. Arizona is enjoying a bounceback season from their high-priced ace, Zack Greinke, while Colorado is humming along thanks to new closer Greg Holland continuing to slam the door in the ninth inning.

Arizona and Colorado should scare the rest of the league, especially their division rivals. With their powerful offenses, it does not take much more than MLB-average pitching to win. They are both getting much more than that, and the wins are following.

9. The Mets were built upon a house of cards

Not since the Generation K days of the mid-1990s has their been a young, homegrown starting rotation this exciting in baseball. Of course, those Mets prospects of Generation K fizzled spectacularly and never materialized into the aces they were supposed to be. After a good run of three seasons, the same may be happening to the group of Noah Syndergaard, Matt Harvey, Jacob deGrom, Steven Matz, and Zack Wheeler.

The decision to shake off an MRI for a tweaked biceps was not the smartest thing Syndergaard could have done, and he will now be out for several months rehabbing a torn lat behind his pitching shoulder. To add insult to injury, the Mets surrendered 23 runs in the game he was injured. When Syndergaard was skipped in the rotation, Harvey was pressed into duty the day after doing a heavy lift to prepare for his regular start.

Matz has barely appeared on an MLB mound the past three years. Wheeler is back from two years away recovering from Tommy John and has a 4.78 ERA in five starts. Harvey has looked even worse than he did last year before being shut down for thoracic outlet surgery. That is not a surgery with a long track record of success, and Harvey’s 5.14 ERA and seven home runs allowed in six starts do not indicate that he will be the next big success story for the procedure. When it goes downhill for a team built around young power pitchers, it goes downhill in a hurry with very little ability to pump the brakes to stop the crash.

8. Trouble in San Francisco and Toronto

Two playoff teams from 2016 and expected contenders in 2017 are in big trouble. The Giants and Blue Jays both occupy last place in their divisions and are looking up at a sizable defect to get back into the playoff picture. Bad offense has sunk the Blue Jays as they are one of only six teams in the league with an OPS under .700. The Giants have an OPS even lower than the Jays at 29th in MLB.

Toronto has at least had the benefit of getting good starting pitching most of the time. Their staff ranks 14th in the league. San Francisco is all the way down at 22nd with a 4.35 ERA. Things will not get any easier for the rotation with Madison Bumgarner giving himself a two-month vacation after a dirt bike accident.

If either of these teams is to get back into the playoff conversation, it is likely the Giants. The NL West is slightly weaker and is currently led by the upstart Arizona Diamondbacks and Colorado Rockies. The Blue Jays have one of the oldest teams in the league, and it has shown. Jose Bautista, in particular, has struggled to produce like a six-time All-Star and is not aging well at the plate. Expecting Steve Pearce and Kendrys Morales to do a competent job replacing Edwin Encarnacion does not appear to have been a smart decision for the Blue Jays.

7. The Boston Red Sox miss David Ortiz

Twenty-eight games into the first season A.P. (After Papi), the Red Sox are batting .267/.332/.378 as a team. Their batting average ranks fifth in baseball. Their on-base percentage ranks sixth, but their slugging percentage is tied with the Chicago White Sox for 24th in the league. That lack of power has led to only 107 runs for the BoSox, tied for 26th in MLB.

Up and down the lineup, the Red Sox power numbers are down. After a near-MVP season, Mookie Betts has a .417 slugging percentage and two home runs. Dustin Pedroia just hit his first of the season and is slugging .326 on the year. Hanley Ramirez is beginning to heat up, but his OPS is down 70 points from 2016. Mitch Moreland, with his 13 doubles, has been a saving grace in the lineup.

With runners in scoring position, the Red Sox have batted .283, but have scored only 88 runs on their hits. Simply put, the Red Sox have hit too many singles this year and the bottom of the order has not been able to come through and drive in the top of the order. The Red Sox are still looking for that force in the middle of the lineup to replace David Ortiz. The analytical community has shot down the notion that certain hitters can provide protection for other hitters in front of and behind them, but without Ortiz, Betts and Ramirez have been pitched to differently this year and it is affecting the rest of the lineup.

6. Buck Showalter has still got the touch

No one would have blamed you for thinking Buck Showalter had lost something off his fastball when he left All-Star closer Zach Britton in the bullpen in the playoffs last year. Showalter, however, is still pushing all the right buttons for the Baltimore Orioles, and has them a half-game behind the surprising Yankees. The Orioles already have three more wins than their Pythagorean record, which is based on run differential.

‘Buck, not luck’ has been a popular rallying cry in Baltimore over the past six seasons of winning baseball at Camden Yards. No team has defied the prediction models more than the Orioles. While it’s not all on Showalter, he deserves plenty of credit for his bullpen management, which is where the Orioles seem to have bucked the odds the most.

Showalter has handled the debacle with the Red Sox very well, and will turn it into an us-against-the-world motivator for the rest of the season. So while he may not have fully embraced all analytical trends, Buck Showalter remains firmly entrenched as one of the best managers in MLB. Showalter has full command of his clubhouse, and his intangibles in leading and drawing out the best from players who do not embrace all the new statistical norms makes him special.

5. It might be time to break up the Kansas City Royals

If not for the Blue Jays, the Royals would have the worst record in baseball at 9-18. It’s not hard to see why the Royals have been so bad when looking at their batting line. Kansas City has batted .212/.272/.338 with only 78 runs. They have already been shut out three times and have a team wRC+ of 65. For the uninitiated, that means they are 35 percent worse than the average MLB team. With runners in scoring position, the Royals have a wRC+ of 16. Sixteen.

It’s not going to get much better for the Royals. Their lineup does not hit for power. They don’t draw walks. Their ability to avoid strikeouts is no longer among the best in the league. Overall, Kansas City’s hitters have been worth -0.4 WAR on the year. In no uncertain terms, the Royals may have been better off playing with their Triple-A roster so far this season.

It might be a bit premature to bury the Royals completely, but the end is near. If they have not gotten hot at the plate by the end of May, it will be time to think about tearing down the roster before the offseason’s free-agent Armageddon. Wade Davis was already shipped out, and Lorenzo Cain is the most attractive trade chip left in their arsenal unless Eric Hosmer can find a way to stop hitting ground balls at a 60 percent clip.

4. Aaron Judge is a monster

It’s fitting that catcher Gary Sanchez has been dubbed The Kraken, because the Yankees have another monster in their lineup in Aaron Judge. The 6-foot-7 outfielder has completely rewritten the book on himself through 25 games. Judge played in 27 games last year and batted .179/.263/.345 and struck out 42 times. This year, he is hitting .330/.433/.818 with 13 home runs and 27 RBI.

Pitchers will eventually discover the holes in Judge’s swing. That’s the way the league works, and it’s doubtful that this rookie is the second coming of Babe Ruth and Barry Bonds. Sanchez went through the same thing last year, and batted .225 in September before getting off to a .150 start this year before his injury. The power is definitely for real with Judge, but his .330 batting average will eventually come down.

Judge has shown power to all fields, which is impressive. What is more impressive, however, has been his plate discipline. Judge has simply refused to swing at anything off the plate. After chasing over 33 percent of pitches out of the strike zone last season, he has cut it down to 23 percent this season.

3. The Houston Astros are for real

No one had a more aggressive and measured offseason plan than the Astros this winter. Before the calendar turned to January, they had added Brian McCann, Carlos Beltran, and Josh Reddick. Those additions took their already dangerous lineup and ratcheted it up four degrees of difficulty.

The only real question surrounding the Astros was their starting rotation and the health of ace Dallas Keuchel and young phenom Lance McCullers. Keuchel has run his record to 5-0 with a 1.21 ERA. He has not allowed more than two earned runs in a single start. Even as his average velocity drops below 90 mph, Keuchel is sawing off hitters and forcing them to beat his sinker and changeup into the ground. McCullers has been just as good, and has used his power fastball and curveball to rack up 46 strikeouts in only 35.1 innings pitched. He has still had some issues with command and the home run, but looks like the budding ace who started a playoff game in 2015 a the age of 22.

Houston is for real, and has the best record in the American League. They have done that while still waiting for Carlos Correa to deliver on his MVP hype. That old Sports Illustrated cover that proclaimed the Astros the 2017 World Series champions may not have been wrong. After all the grief they took for their analytical approach to rebuilding, the Astros front office is having the last laugh.

2. MVP Bryce Harper is back in a big way

Bryce Harper’s line through 28 games has announced his return to MVP form. The 2015 NL MVP is batting .376/.504/.723 on the year with 35 runs scored, eight doubles, nine home runs, 27 RBI, and 26 walks against 22 strikeouts. These are numbers that Barry Bonds in his chemically-altered prime would have been proud of.

According to Fangraphs, Harper has made soft contact in only 8.9 percent of his at-bats this season. That is significantly lower than his MVP season. Harper has made contact with an average exit velocity that is nearly five mph better than the MLB average. He is chasing pitches outside the strike zone at a career-low rate. There’s no other way to put it — Bryce Harper is locked in this season.

Until the rest of the lineup surrounding Harper cools off, he will continue putting up these MVP-caliber numbers. There are no easy outs in the Washington lineup, especially with Ryan Zimmerman leading the league in all Triple Crown categories and batting .424. Daniel Murphy is also in the top ten in the NL in batting average. Matt Wieters is batting .303 with a .924 OPS. Trea Turner is running wild on the bases yet again. There is just no pitching around Harper in this lineup.

1. Repeating is harder than it sounds

The Cubs had it in the bag, right? Going back-to-back like Drake — no problem. Wrong.

Chicago has had difficulty getting more than a few games above .500 so far this season. An inconsistent offense and bad starting pitching are to blame. On this date last season, the Cubs were 20-6 and would go on to win 103 games. They have not experienced the same success this year, and are only 16-12.

Last year, the Cubs had one of the best starting rotations in baseball. So far this year, their rotation ranks 24th in the league with a 4.68 ERA. Jake Arrieta’s command has been closer to 205 levels, but he is allowing his highest opponent’s batting average since 2013. Brett Anderson and John Lackey have struggled, and Kyle Hendricks looks nothing like the second coming of Greg Maddux that nearly won the NL Cy Young last season. Jon Lester is the only pitcher in the rotation the Cubs have been able to count on, and his ERA is nearly a run-and-a-half higher than it was last season.

The offense has also been up and down for the Cubs. Kris Bryant is the only hitter who has delivered production on par with his 2016 season. Anthony Rizzo, always a slow starter, is batting .234/.356/.441. Worst of all, Kyle Schwarber has not been able to live up to his postseason billing, and is batting just .189/.312/.340 on the year with 39 strikeouts in 106 at-bats. Schwarber is drawing walks, but that’s about it. The Cubs offense will not fire on all cylinders until Schwarber figures it out or is dropped in the batting order.

Next: Each MLB team's biggest surprise from April

It’s not easy to win two titles in a row, and no one has done it since the mini New York dynasty of the late 1990s. Teams have gone to two World Series in a row quite frequently since then, but no one has taken home a second title. The Cubs still have a great shot at it, but it will not be the cakewalk many were predicting in Spring Training.