Every MLB season is a marathon of ebbs and flows, peaks and valleys. Through it all, players and teams just hope to find some positive consistency. Hot starts, as promising as they seem, often fade after a couple of weeks as the season hits its stride.
But when a player or team starts strong and maintains the positive results for a month or so, it's worth taking notice. This is especially true when those results are unexpected.
The first month of the 2025 MLB season has produced surprises all over the place. Surprising players, surprising teams, even surprising divisions. Here's a look at 10 of them.
All stats are through Friday's games.
Unexpected power surges
The early home run leaderboard includes some of the usual suspects -- Mike Trout, Aaron Judge, Fernando Tatis Jr., etc. -- but it also features some unusual ones. Joining Trout at the top with an MLB-best nine homers coming into Saturday were D-backs outfielder Corbin Carroll, Mariners catcher Cal Raleigh and A's first baseman Tyler Soderstrom, with Dodgers second baseman Tommy Edman right behind them with eight dingers. Huh?
Carroll, with a career high of 25 homers, has not finished higher than 46th in the home run race during his two full seasons in the bigs. Soderstrom had just 12 homers in 106 career games before this season and Edman's career high is just 13. Raleigh, with 30 or more homers in each of the past two seasons, is the only one we might've predicted to be atop the homer leaderboard at the end of April. The inclusion of the others just speaks to baseball's wonderful unpredictability.
Pete Alonso, complete hitter
Alonso has been a feared hitter since he popped an MLB-leading 53 homers as the NL Rookie of the Year in 2019. But he's primarily been known only for slug, with his highest batting average being the .271 he hit in 2022. This season, however, he's proving to be a much scarier offensive beast. Alonso came into Saturday hitting .333 with a 1.109 OPS. That means he can still beat you with the long ball, but now he's adding a lot of singles and doubles.
A big reason for these enhanced on-base skills? He's barreling the ball at a 22 percent clip, well above his previous career high (15.8 percent), and his average exit velocity is nearly 96 mph, more than 5 mph higher than his career average. He's also striking out at his lowest rate ever and walking at his highest rate ever. It's all a most welcome development for the Mets -- especially with Juan Soto hitting only .245 early in his Mets tenure -- but not so much for the rest of the league.
Pavin Smith's breakout
Smith had just one full season in the Majors (2021) before this year, having been optioned to the Minors eight times since 2022 as things never quite clicked for the lefty amid a combination of limited playing time, poor production and injuries. Through 2024, he hit a combined .244 with a .723 OPS in 361 big league games spread across five seasons. In other words, there was no reason to expect what we've seen so far in 2025.
The 29-year-old entered Saturday hitting .365 and leading the NL with a 1.186 OPS. What's happened? Well, put simply, when he's put the ball in play this season, it's tended to be a hit.
Smith's batting average on balls in play (BABIP) through Friday was an incredible .514. That's obviously not sustainable, which means Smith should eventually be closer to his career BABIP of .293. But that number could also improve -- because he's hitting the ball harder than ever. Smith's hard-hit rate so far is nearly 49 percent (about eight percentage points higher than his career average), which is why he had an expected slugging percentage of .577 coming into Saturday and an actual slugging percentage of .698 (tops in the NL). But even if and when his average drops, he could still carry a high OPS because his walk rate is a career-best 19.2 percent.
Tyler Mahle's dominance
After Tommy John surgery and other ailments limited Mahle to just eight starts over the past two seasons, he's rebounded in a big way in 2025. The eight-year veteran with a career 4.17 ERA pitched to an MLB-leading 0.68 ERA through his first five starts with the Rangers. And he's not just prevented runs, he's prevented a lot of hits, too.
Mahle, 30, came into Saturday leading baseball with an average of about three hits allowed per nine innings pitched, easily the best mark of his career. Batters are hitting just .112 against him in his first five starts, with an expected average of just .198. These results have happened in large part because he has all four of his pitches working, with his four-seamer, splitter and cutter all holding opponents to an average of .156 or lower (and he's yet to give up a hit on his cutter). His slider is the only pitch that hasn't dominated, with hitters batting a modest .250 against it.
For a pitcher whose average fastball velocity is a tick under 92 mph, Mahle's 2025 showing has been especially impressive.
Mitchell Parker's emergence
Like Mahle, Parker's early success hasn't come by blowing hitters away with high velocity. The second-year hurler just keeps missing barrels and giving hitters uncomfortable at-bats. The 25-year-old Nationals lefty has started the season 3-1 with a 1.39 ERA in 32 1/3 innings, after a so-so rookie campaign in which he went 7-10 with a 4.29 ERA in 29 starts. Also like Mahle, Parker's dominance has been fueled by an effective four-pitch arsenal to make up for his lack of fastball heat.
Hitters have produced a meager .167 average against Parker, with all four of his pitches -- fastball, splitter, curve, slider -- producing a batting average of .190 or lower. Parker is giving the Nats innings, too. He's pitched at least six frames in every start this season, including an eight-inning outing on April 22 in which he held the Orioles to just one hit and no runs. Add it all up and Parker leads MLB pitchers with a 1.6 bWAR.
Parker's best pro season came in 2022, when he pitched to a 2.88 ERA in 24 starts for High-A Wilmington. Since then, his ERA has not been lower than 4.20 at any level, making his start to this season quite the plot twist.
Cubs' bats leading the way
If asked before the season which team would lead baseball in hitting after the first month, most people likely would've picked the Dodgers, given their high-powered lineup. But so far, it's been the Cubs leading the way with the bats. The North Siders came into Saturday leading MLB in batting average, hits, on-base percentage, runs scored and OPS (not to mention stolen bases). The contributions are coming from almost everyone.
Along with early MVP candidate Kyle Tucker (seven homers; 1.031 OPS), the Cubs are getting serious production from Michael Busch (.954 OPS), Seiya Suzuki (.910 OPS), Pete Crow-Armstrong (.882 OPS) and, perhaps the most surprising of all, catcher Carson Kelly (1.371 OPS). Chicago has already had seven games this season in which it scored in double digits, including a wild slugfest against the D-backs on April 18 in which they clubbed five homers to fuel a comeback win. They might even be the best team in the NL.
Marlins outpacing the Braves and Orioles -- with a strong offense
Of the three teams mentioned above, the Marlins were overwhelmingly expected to be the weakest. (FanGraphs projected them for 70 wins, more than only the Rockies and White Sox.) But entering Saturday, they had more wins (12) and a better winning percentage (.480) than either Atlanta or Baltimore, two teams widely expected to contend for playoff spots, if not division titles. Miami has done it in part by posting a higher OPS (.717) than not only the Braves and Orioles, but also the Phillies, Mets, Rangers, Astros and others -- this after finishing 26th in OPS a year ago.
Led by mashing first baseman Matt Mervis and his seven homers and .879 OPS through Friday, the Marlins have also gotten significant contributions from outfielders Kyle Stowers (.793 OPS) and Griffin Conine (.790 OPS), and DH Eric Wagaman (.793 OPS). Now, some cold water: Miami had an MLB-high .327 BABIP through Friday, meaning this offensive showing is almost certain to fade. Then again, the Marlins were expected to have faded in general by now. They just ... haven't.
The competitive AL West
It's been 20 years since an MLB division had every team finish at .500 or better, but the AL West has established itself as a potential candidate to join that group in 2025. Though the Astros, Mariners and Rangers were all expected to compete for a postseason berth, the A's and Angels have made it a five-team race so far, after both losing more than 90 games in 2024. Though not every team is at .500 yet, the entire field was separated by just 2 1/2 games in the standings entering play Saturday.
Led by a standout season from Jacob Wilson (.347 average; 145 OPS+), the A's have the fourth-best team OPS in the Majors, while the Angels have gotten early power from catcher Logan O'Hoppe (seven homers; .872 OPS) and second baseman Kyren Paris (five homers; .861 OPS). They also have a healthy Trout (nine homers), which is a boon to any team.
Padres, Giants keeping up with Dodgers in NL West
The Dodgers, fresh off a World Series title and somehow even stronger on paper, were expected to run away with everything in 2025. Before the season, FanGraphs gave them the highest odds to be a division winner (84 percent) of any team in the Majors -- by more than 20 percentage points. Though LA is still plenty talented, the NL West race is shaping up to be anything but the predicted cakewalk. That's because the Padres and Giants are both keeping pace. In fact, they were both ahead of the Dodgers in the standings entering Saturday.
San Diego is led once again by Tatis, who's back to hitting like a superstar (eight homers; 1.038 OPS; NL-leading 2.1 bWAR), while getting standout performances so far from starters Nick Pivetta (4-1; 1.20 ERA) and Michael King (3-1; 2.18 ERA), and closer Robert Suarez (MLB-leading 10 saves; 0.00 ERA). San Francisco, meanwhile, has gotten a major spark from outfielder Jung Hoo Lee, whose MLB-best 11 doubles and team-leading .963 OPS entering Saturday have helped the Giants outscore both the Padres and the Dodgers so far. But have you heard about Wilmer Flores? Let's talk about Wilmer Flores ...
Wilmer Flores, RBI leader
Flores has never come close to leading the league in RBIs in any of his previous 12 MLB seasons. Rarely a full-time player, he's had enough plate appearances to qualify for the batting title just twice (in 2015 and '22) and topped out at 71 RBIs in the latter. But in 2025, he'd driven in more runs than anyone through Friday. His secret? Mash with runners in scoring position, naturally.
Flores came into Saturday batting .387 with a 1.119 OPS with RISP, and four of his seven homers had come with men on base. Interestingly, apart from his homers, Flores had no other extra-base hits through Friday. But in run-scoring opportunities, singles usually work just fine. And Flores had 12 of those to drive in runs entering Saturday. His 27 RBIs through Friday not only led MLB, but were 11 more than anyone else on the Giants.