MLB: 5 Contenders People Should Be Taking More Seriously

There comes a time in every baseball season when people have to start letting go of their original expectations. Baseball is a sport that never goes according to plan, and smart fans know when to throw their hands up in surrender and just enjoy the madness of it all.

Or, to put it in Dude-speak: "you just have to, ya know, embrace reality, man."

A lot of people haven't done this yet, and you can tell by the way people are treating certain surprise contenders around the league. It's still somewhat early in the season, so people are still writing 2012's surprise contenders off as mere flukes.

Some of them deserve to be written off. Others, not so much. 

Here's a look at five MLB contenders that deserve more respect than they're getting.

5. Cleveland Indians

The Cleveland Indians are an odd team. They are not among the American League's best offensive teams, their starting pitching is among the worst in all of baseball, and even their bullpen has had its issues. Chris Perez (pictured) has been great, but beyond him there are no guarantees.

Make no mistake about it, the Indians shouldn't be a good team. The only teams with worse run differentials in the AL than Cleveland's -21 are the Kansas City Royals and Minnesota Twins.

Nevertheless, the Indians are 30-26, and they enter Friday just 1.5 games behind the Chicago White Sox in the AL Central.

How are they doing it, you ask?

Pretty much the same way they did early in the 2011 season. The Indians are a classic case of a team that's better than the sum of its parts, and the one thing they do have is lots of energy. They have a tendency to make it hard on themselves, but these Indians really want to win.

Winning ballgames hasn't been easy for them, but there's a good chance that the process will get easier as the season moves along. Justin Masterson and Ubaldo Jimenez could start pitching effectively, and the Indians will be a lot deeper and a lot more imposing as key injured players like Travis Hafner and Grady Sizemore get healthy.

To this point, the Indians have overachieved. Despite that, they haven't peaked yet. Cleveland has yet to play its best baseball.

Of course, the Detroit Tigers can do the Indians a huge favor by continuing to underachieve.

4. Pittsburgh Pirates

Offensively, the Pittsburgh Pirates are atrocious. They rank 30th in baseball in runs scored, 29th in batting average, 30th in on-base percentage, and 28th in slugging percentage. 

Pittsburgh's offensive woes explain why the club's run differential is -22. When the Pirates get beat, they tend to get beat bad.

Considering the circumstances, we really shouldn't be talking about a team that's 29-27 and tied with the St. Louis Cardinals for second place in the NL Central.

Yet here we are, talking about the Pirates.

We're talking about the Pirates because of their pitching. The only team in the National League that has allowed fewer runs than the Bucs in 2012 is the Washington Nationals. Pittsburgh's team ERA is a studly 3.32, and that's thanks largely to the team's 2.56 bullpen ERA.

The strength of Pittsburgh's bullpen allows Clint Hurdle to essentially turn every game into a six-inning game, which is convenient seeing as how he only has one truly dependable starting pitcher (James McDonald). It's not an accident that the Pirates are second in baseball with 38 holds and tied for fifth in baseball with 19 saves. Their relievers get the job done.

It's going to be hard for Pittsburgh to win the division as long as Cincinnati and St. Louis are still in it (and neither of them have plans to move at last check), but you can go far with good pitching. The Pirates will at least be able to stick around.

3. New York Mets

Just like the Indians, the Mets are a hard team to figure.

The Mets shouldn't be as good as they are, as they have the second-lowest run differential in the National League East. But, well, they are as good as they are.

David Wright has definitely helped, and the Mets have also gotten good production from unlikely sources like Lucas Duda, Kirk Nieuwenhuis and Scott Hairston (who has been money lately). Pitching-wise, R.A. Dickey has been remarkable, and Johan Santana has held up quite well.

It's all fun and games for now, but there's a lot that could go wrong with these Mets. Dickey and Santana are carrying what is otherwise a mediocre starting rotation, and both of them could fall apart at any moment. Dickey is not going to maintain a .900 winning percentage and a sub-3.00 ERA all season, and Santana could get hurt again at a moment's notice.

Offensively, the Mets don't have a ton of depth in their lineup. If the pitching starts to struggle, the team as a whole will start to struggle.

Still, the Mets cannot be written off because of how they've handled themselves against solid ballclubs. They currently hold a 16-11 record in NL East play, and they've held up well against quality teams like the St. Louis Cardinals, Pittsburgh Pirates and Arizona Diamondbacks.

The NL East is going to be tough to win this season, but there's no clear favorite to win it at this point. If the Mets avoid catastrophe, they'll be in it to the bitter end.

2. Toronto Blue Jays

All five teams in the American League East have a shot at winning the division. The team with the highest ceiling, however, is the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Jays are a scary team for a few reasons. First and foremost, they have a very good young pitching staff, and all five starters boast great stuff. Brandon Morrow, in particular, can look like the best pitcher in baseball when he has his stuff working. Drew Hutchison is another guy with great stuff, and he's looked very good in his last two outings. 

There's talent in Toronto's rotation, but it's spent a good portion of the season going through some growing pains. It's been good, but there's still a lot of untapped potential in it. That's a scary thought for the rest of the AL East.

Offensively, the Jays can mash. They currently rank seventh in baseball in slugging percentage, and Edwin Encarnacion and Jose Bautista have already combined for 32 home runs. Three other Jays hitters have at least seven home runs, and we know that Brett Lawrie has more power than he's shown this season.

When the power comes, Lawrie is going to take his place as one of the most exciting players in the American League. He plays with a ton of fire, and his .953 fielding percentage doesn't reflect how good he is defensively.

The Jays are hanging in there at 30-27, two games out of first place in a very tough AL East. But if one team can get hot and grab hold of the division, it's them.

If they need to go get help, they will. Few farm systems in baseball go deeper than Toronto's, meaning GM Alex Anthopoulos has a lot of pieces to deal.

1. San Francisco Giants

When people look at the San Francisco Giants, they don't see anything special. Their offense has a lot of no-names, staff ace Tim Lincecum has struggled mightily to get in a rhythm, and the bullpen is missing Brian Wilson.

Spoiler alert: the Giants are something special. The Los Angeles Dodgers should be worried about their place atop the NL West.

Very quietly, the Giants have won six of the seven games they've played in June to run their record to 33-25. The only other teams in baseball with as many as 33 wins are the Dodgers and the Texas Rangers.

The Giants are doing it, not surprisingly, with pitching. They have a team ERA of 3.27, which is pretty impressive seeing as how Big Time Timmy Jim's ERA is still in the high 5.00s. The other four guys in San Francisco's rotation are all under 3.26.

Yes, even Barry Zito.

It's true that the Giants don't have a lot of star power on offense, especially with Pablo Sandoval currently on the DL. But Buster Posey and Melky Cabrera have both been consistent producers this season, and the Giants are getting surprising production out of Angel Pagan and Gregor Blanco. They don't light up the scoreboard, but they don't need to on a given night. All they need to do is put a few runs on the board and let the pitching staff take care of the rest.

And Wilson, by the way, hasn't been missed. Over the last 30 days, the Giants' bullpen has an ERA of 2.29.

So basically, the Giants are winning games the same way they won them in 2010: lots of pitching, just enough offense.

It's torture all over again, and that's a bad sign for the rest of the Senior Circuit.

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