Miles Mikolas clearly is the Cardinals player who has been the most surprising this season, and one of the best free-agent signs by any team. On the other hand, Matt Carpenter and Dexter Fowler were surprisingly bad for the Cardinals during the first quarter of the season.
But from a team standpoint, the Atlanta Braves probably have been the club that has caught the most people off guard. Last year, the Braves lost 92 games and there wasn’t much reason to think they would be better than .500 this year. Then, the National League’s version of Houston’s Jose Altuve (who actually used to be in the National League when the Astros were members), began to make his mark.