Early Season Surprises: The Good

About 10 games into the season, we haven't reached the point where we should be drawing any definitive conclusions (this is the equivalent of Week 1 in the NFL, after all).  But we have seen enough baseball to be at least a little surprised with the performance of some players and teams.   

Asdrubal Cabrera
What's not to love about a 25 year old, switch hitting Shortstop slugging at a .600 clip?  Ok, we can't expect the power surge to continue the whole year, as he is slugging about 200 points higher than his career averages.  But there is something definitely up with Cabrera.  Aside from his slugging % and wOBA, his other numbers are generally in line with his career averages.  He has fully recovered from a broken forearm and bulked up in the offseason.  Besides, at 25, he is just beginning to enter the prime of his career and its not beyond belief that he has room to improve.  With his FB and K %'s both up, its reasonable to consider that his stroke has been adjusted to hit for more power.  We shall see if the trend continues.  The Tribe will certainly hope so if they hope to continue their hot start.  Honorable mention: Miguel Montero, Matt Kemp, Nick Hundley

Jamie Garcia
There were plenty of other pitchers that I considered for this spot, but I felt like Garcia was more likely than Alexi Ogando or Zach Britton to keep something like his start going for the whole season.  Sure his K/9, BB/9, and K/BB are bound to come down over the course of the season.  But the fact that he's been able to improve and already strong GB % bodes well for him to have a strong season.  That's not to say that he is without risk.  His BABIP is significantly lower than anything we can expect over the course of a whole season and he did have an increase last year of 125 IP over his career high, but I feel like numbers similar to last year's are certainly realistic, which would make him a starter any team would be happy to have in their rotation. Honorable mention: Chris Narveson, Alexi Ogando, Zach Britton

Cleveland Indians

 The Indians are in 1st place in the AL Central with an 8-3 record.  So obviously that means that Grady Sizemore is back and playing like its 2008 and Shin-Soo Choo is playing like the kind of guy who single handedly won the Gold Medal for South Korea at the 2010 Asian Games (and got himself out of compulsary military service).  Wrong on both counts.  Sizemore has still not played an inning this year and Choo is currently sporting a .190/.261/.262 line.  So how are they doing it?  Aside from the aforementioned Cabrera, the Tribe is getting major offensive contributions from guys like Orlando Cabrera and a resurgent Travis Hafner.  More importantly, they are getting solid starting pitching (outside of the Opening Day stinker from Fausto Carmona) and steady relief work from Tony Sipp and the Perez brothers, Chris and Rafael (no actual relation).  While the pitching and Asdrubal Cabrera may come back to earth, we should be able to expect more contribution from guys like Choo, Sizemore and Carmona.  Looking forward to the weekend series between these guys and another surprise team, the Baltimore Orioles kicking off with Justin Masterson and Zach Britton. Honorable mention: Baltimore Orioles, Kansas City Royals,