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One of the great things about baseball - and fantasy baseball - is that the sport is so hard to predict. You can analyze stats until the cows come home - and many of us do - and there is so much more that we don't know than what we do know. Even though this seemingly happens to some extent every season, to me 2017 has felt like the strangest, most unpredictable season in recent memory. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

Division Leaders
AL East: Yankees - Second-best record in the AL; I'm a Yankees fan and did not see that coming
AL Central: Twins - Really!?! No one saw that coming
AL West: Astros - Perhaps not a shock, but who saw them with 13+ game leads over Seattle and Texas as of 6/11?
NL East: Nationals - Not unexpected, although perhaps a double-digit lead over the Mets is a surprise
NL Central: Brewers - Almost as shocking as the Twins; the boys in Iola are pinching themselves!
NL West: Rockies - Did not see this coming, particularly their strong pitching.

Home Run Leaders
Aaron Judge, 19
Justin Smoak, 18
Logan Morrison, 17
Ryan Zimmerman, 17
Joey Votto, 17
Scott Schebler, 17
Mark Reynolds, 17
Joey Gallo, 17
Khris Davis, 17

Out of those nine guys, Joey Votto and Khris Davis were the only ones drafted in at least the first 15 or so rounds (and Votto the only one drafted in the first five rounds).

Batting Average
While there are some familiar names to be sure, the AL Leader is Jean Segura (.341) and the leaderboard includes: Avisail Garcia (.333), Aaron Judge (.332), Corey Dickerson (.327), Starlin Castro (.324), Aaron Hicks (.316), and Yonder Alonso (.314). The NL leader, of course, is Ryan Zimmerman (.365), and includes such names as: Zack Cozart (.337), Marcell Ozuna (.329), Jedd Gyorko (.312), and Mark Reynolds (.309).

E.R.A.
Of course, there are guys like Kershaw and Scherzer on the list, but lots of surprises here, too:
Keuchel (1.67)
Vargas (2.18)
E. Santana (2.20)
Kershaw (2.20)
Scherzer (2.35)
McCullers (2.58)
Leake (2.70)
Severino (2.75)
Strasburg (2.80)
Ray (2.85)
Lynn (2.88)
G. Gonzalez (2.91)
C. Anderson (2.94)

Saves
Remember how we ranked closers at the beginning of the season? I bet your rankings were nothing like the current leaderboard for saves:
G. Holland, 23
Kimbrel, 18
Kintzler, 17
Colome, 17
Rodney, 16
Giles, 16

(In case you were wondering, Jansen, Melancon and Diaz only have 10, Chapman has 7, and Britton has 5.)

Some early MVP Candidates: Aaron Judge (and Corey Dickerson?) in the AL and Ryan Zimmerman (and Mark Reynolds?) in the NL - all of whom easily could be had in Round 20 and often later.

Mike

Great list, Mike. Of all the surprises, Smoak, Morrison, and Zimmerman plus Twins/Rockies just floor me. It is too late to be early, but too early to feel anything is locked up, but this is a VERY surprising year.

I think the Brewers have it locked up...

Great stuff, Mike.

One more note as well...
Of the top ranked 15 pitchers in NFBC ratings only four of those were in the top 15 of our own ADP.
Kershaw, Scherzer, Sale, and Strasburg.

Thanks. For the last several years, I've drafted Ryan Zimmerman on at least several teams, gambling on a return to health in the middle of a potent lineup. Naturally, after last year's disaster of poor health and poor performance, I decided to get off that train. I own him nowhere this year. Sigh.

One final example of the strangeness of 2017: If I told you that one player was going to get five base hits, four home runs and 10 RBI in a single game, constituting one of the single-best hitting performances in the history of the sport, where would Scooter Gennett have ranked on your list of likely suspects? Really, you can't make this stuff up (but that's part of what makes this such a fun - albeit frustrating, at least for me - season).

Mike

Bronx Yankees wrote:One final example of the strangeness of 2017: If I told you that one player was going to get five base hits, four home runs and 10 RBI in a single game, constituting one of the single-best hitting performances in the history of the sport, where would Scooter Gennett have ranked on your list of likely suspects? Really, you can't make this stuff up (but that's part of what makes this such a fun - albeit frustrating, at least for me - season).

To a much lesser degree but still unexpected, if we told you a catcher would have a game going 3-for-5, scoring 3 times and knocking in 7 you might have guessed Gary Sanchez, Evan Gattis or maaaybe Yadier Molina.
Who knew Chris Iannetta was still fantasy relevant?

Why is it "JT" Riddle, but "J.T." Realmuto?

Have there ever been back-to-back J.T.s in major league history?

Remind me of a great book I read as a kid:

Smoak has to be the biggest surprise on this list. He's headed for a monster season after never really being even an average hitter in the past. Is he juicing? Who knows.

I'll give you another huge surprise.....Tanaka. What is wrong with this guy?

Z Cozart
L Morrison - people bid on this guy after his HR on "opening day" (Sunday) just to get a quick HR added to their stats. They probably never expected to keep him all year.

Not shocking but Severino and A Wood were rd 25 or so picks.
F Rodney, likely the last closer off the board with the exception of kintzler and Madson, now has 16 saves.

Schebler, c Owings, Gardner, Bour, Suarez.

Y Alonso- he's right there with Zimm and Smoak and just not slowing down. Maybe the craziest season since I started playing in the nfbc.