Ranking Kris Bubic, Ryan O'Hearn, MLB's 10 Biggest Pleasant Surprises so Far
Almost nothing about the Baltimore Orioles' surprising start to Major League Baseball's 2025 season can be described as "pleasant," but Ryan O'Hearn blossoming into one of the best hitters in the league and the most valuable player on that roster in his age-31 season is a big exception.
O'Hearn's breakout is merely the tip of the iceberg when it comes to baseball's pleasant surprises roughly 60 games into the campaign.
There's also an unexpected Royals pitcher firmly in the AL Cy Young conversation, an everyday catcher on a record-setting home run pace, an Athletics rookie vying for what would be the franchise's first batting title since three cities ago in 1952, the St. Louis Cardinals in general and so much more.
If only we had been able to see any of this coming, back when it was "fantasy draft" and "preseason prognostications" season.
Players/units are ranked in ascending order of how much side-eye you would have gotten if you had predicted these things 10 weeks ago.
Unless otherwise noted, statistics current through the start of play on Wednesday.
10. Jesus Luzardo, Philadelphia Phillies
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2025 Stats: 70.1 IP, 3.58 ERA, 1.34 WHIP, 10.4 K/9
Jesús Luzardo did get relentlessly shellacked in his last start, allowing 12 earned runs in a blowout loss to the Brewers on Saturday.
However, he entered that dud with a 2.15 ERA. And even after taking one on the chin there, he still has a FIP (2.67), nearly identical to those of AL Cy Young hopefuls Hunter Brown (1.83 ERA, 2.66 FIP) and Garrett Crochet (1.98 ERA, 2.67 FIP).
Compared to how well he pitched for the Marlins from 2022-23 (3.48 ERA, 1.15 WHIP, 10.6 K/9), Luzardo's early success with the Phillies hasn't exactly been jaw-dropping. If anything, the spike in WHIP could be considered a bit concerning.
Compared to last season, though—in which he had a 5.00 ERA in 12 starts before a season-ending back injury—his ace-like tendencies thus far in 2025 have been a pleasant surprise.
Certainly the Phillies were hopeful he could bounce back to those 2022-23 levels of excellence, giving up a highly touted prospect (Starlyn Caba) to acquire Luzardo's final two years before free agency. His 9.49 ERA in four spring training starts, however, was considerably less than promising.
But after allowing home runs on three consecutive pitches at one point during that rough spring training, Luzardo gave up just three four-baggers in his first 11 regular-season starts combined, pitching at least into the sixth inning of each of those outings. The Phillies went 8-2 in his first 10 starts, both of the losses coming in extra innings.
NL Cy Young dreams probably went up in flames on Saturday, but Luzardo has otherwise anchored Philadelphia's ongoing quest for the National League's No. 1 seed.
9. Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners
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2025 Stats: .259/.374/.625, 23 HR, 45 RBI, 6 SB
Cal Raleigh wasn't exactly an unknown commodity heading into this season. The Big Dumper had received a few down-ballot votes for AL MVP in each of the past two years, as well as the American League's Platinum Glove award in 2024.
But when you go from three consecutive years with an OPS right around .760 to a mark of .999 and the major league lead in home runs, yes, that counts as a pleasant surprise.
Ready for the ridiculous part?
This switch-hitting catcher entered play on Tuesday with a 1.013 OPS batting lefty and a 1.018 OPS batting righty. The only other qualified switch hitter north of .860 overall is José Ramírez at .939, and he has a sub-.900 OPS when batting left-handed.
Chipper Jones had two seasons with an OPS of at least 1.000 from each side of the plate. Mickey Mantle did it four times. But that's still rather ridiculous, and it has this 28-year-old already making quite a run at Jorge Posada as arguably the best switch-hitting catcher of all-time. (Posada had three seasons north of .900 from each side, but never anything all that close to what Raleigh is doing right now.)
Moreover, because Seattle doesn't have a full-time designated hitter, Raleigh has played in each and every one of his team's games this season, which would be a first if he manages to keep it up. Per FanGraphs, no one with a primary position of catcher has ever played in all 162 games in a season.
And if he does play in every game, Raleigh is on pace to hit 64 home runs, which would be both an American League record and equal to his total from the past two seasons combined.
Maybe don't start engraving Aaron Judge's third MVP trophy just yet.
8. Aaron Judge's Supporting Cast
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We all know Aaron Judge has been out of this world. One could even make a case that he belongs here as a pleasant surprise, flirting with the fabled .400 batting average while comfortably on pace for what would be the highest single-season WAR by a hitter since Babe Ruth in 1923. However, he has been so darn good while healthy throughout his career that what he's doing hardly even registers as surprising anymore.
How about the play of that second tier of Yankees, though?
The guys who needed to step up to replace Juan Soto, Gerrit Cole, Luis Gil, Giancarlo Stanton and Nestor Cortes as critical members of Judge's supporting cast?
The Yankees wouldn't be running away with the AL East division title without the likes of Max Fried, Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham, Ben Rice and Carlos Rodón.
Of the bunch, Fried's success has been the least surprising, but also the most remarkable, presently with the best ERA (1.92) and WHIP (0.97) of his career and one of the top candidates for AL Cy Young.
Rodón is right there with him, though, finally looking like the ace New York thought it was signing three offseasons ago. At 5.3 hits allowed and 11.1 strikeouts per nine innings pitched, Rodón is putting up some "peak Blake Snell" numbers through 13 starts.
Goldschmidt batting .327 in his age-37 season has been quite the renaissance run after a 2024 campaign in St. Louis that looked like it might be his last. His hard-hit percentage is nowhere close to what it was in his heyday, but the likely Hall of Famer has shown that his bat is nowhere near finished yet.
Lastly, Grisham and Rice combining for 25 home runs has been an entirely unexpected development. The former wasn't initially a regular in the starting lineup, and the latter only entered the year as the primary DH because of Stanton's injury. Nevertheless, they've been two of the four most productive bats. The Yankees may have the envious problem of too much of a good thing when Stanton returns from the IL, likely later this month.
7. Javier Baez, Detroit Tigers
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2025 Stats: .273/.306/.442, 6 HR, 29 RBI
With the way things have been going the past few weeks, this may be the last opportunity to marvel at what was looking like one heck of a bounce-back season from Javier Báez.
From 2022-24, Báez went from bad to worse to "We still need to pay this guy for three more years?!" After posting an .801 OPS from 2015-21, he went from .671 in his first year with the Tigers to .593 in year No. 2 and .516 in just 80 games played last year. Even with the hefty price tag, it looked like he was out of a job.
But through Detroit's first 45 games (with an MLB-best 30-15 record), Báez was batting .307 and slugging .512, finally hitting like the two-time All-Star and near-2018 MVP that Detroit thought it was getting four years ago.
Moreover, he did so as the wholly unexpected solution to the injury bug that ravaged the Tigers' center field situation. Báez had not played one inning in center in his first 11 seasons in the big leagues, but he became the regular out there, logging more than 250 innings without committing a single error.
He has since come back to earth in a massive way, though, posting a .400 OPS in his last 15 games, with Wenceel Pérez and Parker Meadows both getting starts in center since recently making their 2025 debuts. Time will tell if Báez can turn things back around and continue to get regular playing time the rest of the way, but there's no denying he was a colossal part of Detroit establishing itself as arguably the team to beat in the American League this season.
6. Tyler Mahle and Jacob deGrom, Texas Rangers
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Tyler Mahle's 2025 Stats: 71.1 IP, 2.02 ERA, 1.06 WHIP, 6.7 K/9
Jacob deGrom's 2025 Stats: 69.1 IP, 2.34 ERA, 0.98 WHIP, 8.6 K/9
To be sure, Jacob deGrom having a stellar ERA is the furthest thing from a new development. Among pitchers with at least 1,000 innings pitched in the past half-century, only Mariano Rivera (2.21) has a lower ERA than deGrom, who is tied with Clayton Kershaw at a career mark of 2.51.
Not missing any starts thus far, however, has been quite the change of pace.
deGrom isn't throwing quite as hard as he used to, nor is he generating anywhere near as many strikeouts as he did from 2017-23. But you won't find anyone complaining about his 2.34 ERA while transitioning from an oft-injured, flame-throwing strikeout machine into simply a darn good pitcher who has a better chance of staying healthy.
Tyler Mahle has also battled more than his fair share of injuries with just eight starts over the previous two seasons combined. (Even deGrom made it to nine total starts.) But he hasn't missed a turn through the rotation yet, already putting together seven quality starts.
More unexpected than his recent bill of clean health, though, is how unhittable he has been. Mahle had a 4.37 ERA from 2018-24, the "Awards" section of his Baseball-Reference page devoid of any All-Star Games or Cy Young votes. Nevertheless, he is flirting with the best ERA in baseball—albeit with a 4.19 xFIP that screams "enjoy it while it lasts."
For as pleasantly surprising as this duo of pitchers has been, though, the Rangers have been a major disappointment, sitting three games below .500 despite darn near leading the majors in run prevention.
5. Jacob Wilson, Athletics
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2025 Stats: .355/.393/.504, 7 HR, 32 RBI, 5 SB
Jacob Wilson was the No. 6 overall pick in the 2023 draft, a .401 hitter (and .606 slugger) in 79 career games in the minor leagues and a top-five candidate for AL Rookie of the Year before the season began.
By no means are we suggesting with his inclusion on this list that this shortstop's success came completely out of left field.
That said, in his first foray into the majors last season, Wilson was nothing remarkable. A regular in the starting lineup over the final month, he ended up batting .250/.314/.315 in 28 games, amounting to no fWAR and a slightly negative bWAR.
Granted, plenty of greats over the years were nothing special out of the gates. Mike Trout had a .672 OPS in 40 games in his first season in the bigs. Alex Rodriguez had a .609 OPS in 65 games in his first two seasons. And Mariano Rivera failed so spectacularly as a starter that he became the greatest closer of all-time instead.
For every one of those "slow start turned legend" situations though, there are surely at least a dozen top 10 picks who just never made it.
For all we knew, this No. 6 pick could've been the next Jarred Kelenic, Tyler Jay, Alex Jackson or Colin Moran, as CJ Abrams had been the only No. 6 pick in the past dozen years who had amounted to much of anything.
Instead, Wilson has been awesome. He would likely be the unanimous AL Rookie of the Year were those ballots due today, and very likely even a recipient of votes for AL MVP with the second-best batting average in the league, behind only Aaron Judge.
It's a shame the A's have hopelessly fallen apart since their 20-16 start, though. Wilson deserves more spotlight than he's getting.
4. Pete Crow-Armstrong, Chicago Cubs
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2025 Stats: .281/.319/.562, 15 HR, 51 RBI, 21 SB
Speaking of guys whose initial cup of coffee in the majors was a bitter one, Pete Crow-Armstrong sure has come a long way since going hitless in 19 plate appearances late in the 2023 season.
In the field, he was already nothing short of exceptional in 2024. Crow-Armstrong was No. 3 overall on my ranking of the 10 best defensive players near the end of last season, and I would still adamantly argue it's BS that PCA wasn't even named a Gold Glove finalist, considering he tied for second in the majors in Fielding Run Value despite only playing defense in 117 games. But I digress.
Crow-Armstrong is once again one of the best defensive assets in all of baseball, presently leading the majors in Fielding Run Value, and nearly No. 1 in Outs Above Average. He may well be on his way to securing the National League's Platinum Glove for 2025.
It's at the plate where he has really blossomed this season, though, becoming a five-tool NL MVP candidate.
In 410 plate appearances last season, PCA managed 10 home runs with a .237/.286/.384 triple slash—respectable enough to justify having his glove in the lineup on a regular basis; mediocre enough that he was buried in the bottom third of said lineup for all but one of his 109 starts.
It only took him 170 plate appearances to get to 10 home runs this year, presently on pace to join the 40 HR / 50 SB club, which did not exist until Ronald Acuña Jr. (41/73 in 2023) and Shohei Ohtani (54/59 in 2024). PCA is now routinely hitting in either the leadoff or cleanup spot with an OPS more than 200 points greater than last year.
3. St. Louis Cardinals
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As is always the case, quite a few teams have been better than anticipated.
The San Francisco Giants were 'supposed' to finish fourth in the NL West, but their bullpen has them hanging around within striking distance of winning the division. The Minnesota Twins and Seattle Mariners both had 50/50 postseason odds in late March, but now rank among the nine likeliest postseason teams. Meanwhile, the Detroit Tigers went from 50/50 to now a mortal lock for October.
None of those can quite hold a candle to what the St. Louis Cardinals have done, though.
A trade deadline fire sale felt almost inevitable heading into the season, and even more so five weeks into the campaign, sitting at 14-19 overall and battling the Pirates for last place in the NL Central.
Since May 2, however, no one has been hotter than the Cardinals, going 19-8 and storming into the postseason conversation.
It hasn't been any particular player leading the charge, either. Six Cardinals have hit multiple home runs over the course of those 27 games, but only Alec Burleson (five) has more than three. Likewise, four-fifths of the starting rotation has a sub-3.10 ERA, but only Sonny Gray has a K/9 of 8.0 or better—and even he got smoked by the Phillies in one of his starts in the past month.
Just a big "whole is greater than the sum of its parts" season coming together for a team where only Brendan Donovan and maybe Matthew Liberatore have a decent case for representing St. Louis at the All-Star Game next month.
Their postseason odds are still in the "slightly unlikely" range, with the Dodgers, Mets, Phillies and Cubs looking good for October while the Padres, Giants, Brewers, Braves, Diamondbacks, Cardinals and maybe Reds and Nationals jostle for the other two spots. The aforementioned deadline fire sale still could be in the cards (no pun intended) if they were to endure an even slightly extended rough patch.
Through 60ish games, however, they are the one team legitimately in the hunt for the playoffs that nobody saw coming even a month ago.
2. Kris Bubic, Kansas City Royals
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2025 Stats: 75.1 IP, 1.43 ERA, 1.00 WHIP, 9.4 K/9
Kansas City just keeps finding these pitching diamonds in the rough.
In 2022, it was Brady Singer having a dynamite year out of nowhere. In 2023, they traded Aroldis Chapman for Cole Ragans (and Roni Cabrera), and he immediately became an ace for the Royals. Last year, Seth Lugo went from a respectable 2023 campaign with San Diego to a Cy Young runner-up with Kansas City. And now it's Kris Bubic flourishing like never before.
From 2020-22, he logged 309 innings with a 4.89 ERA, good for 70th among the 76 players with at least 300 innings pitched. And then he lasted just three appearances into the 2023 season before needing Tommy John surgery, returning last July as a middle reliever.
Trading Singer to Cincinnati during the offseason created an opening in the rotation, though, which Bubic has filled better than anyone could have imagined.
Through 12 starts, he has allowed just 12 earned runs, pitching at least into the seventh inning in nine of those 12 games.
In each of his six starts since the end of April, Bubic has allowed either zero or one run, including a 7.0 IP, 1 R, 9 K hard-luck loss to the Tigers this past Sunday.
The biggest change has been just that: His change-up.
What had been an 80 MPH glorified batting practice pitch from 2020-22—Bubic allowed 14 home runs off his change-up in 2021 alone—is now a lethal 85 MPH offering, against which opponents are 5-for-50 (all singles) with 18 strikeouts this season.
Per Statcast (via FanGraphs), only Tarik Skubal (10.1) has a higher run value on his change-up in 2025 than Bubic (8.3), which is quite the 180 from marks of negative-1.4, negative-2.5 and negative-3.5 in his previous three seasons as a regular in the rotation.
Bubic seemingly has transformed from Jason Hammel into Cole Hamels.
1. Ryan O'Hearn, Baltimore Orioles
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2025 Stats: .335/.423/.538, 9 HR, 23 RBI, 3 SB
From 2019-22 with the Kansas City Royals, Ryan O'Hearn was the least valuable position player in all of baseball.
Among the 407 who made at least 550 plate appearances over the course of those four seasons, his negative-2.4 fWAR ranked dead last. And FanGraphs even thought he was better than Baseball-Reference, which graded him out at negative-3.4 bWAR, including a negative-0.3 or worse oWAR and dWAR in each of those four seasons.
The Royals designated O'Hearn for assignment in December 2022, and the O's decided to purchase him for cash considerations.
He was much improved in both 2023 and 2024, though far from one of the most well-known members of Baltimore's back-to-back years in the postseason. He hit a combined total of 29 home runs in 254 games with a solid .779 OPS—way better than his .633 mark from 2019-22, but also well outside top 50 in the majors.
O'Hearn wasn't even mentioned when MLB.com's Jake Rill wrote a "25 Orioles Predictions for the 2025 Season," nor did it feel like an oversight to omit the marginally-above-replacement-level designated hitter from such a list.
Lo and behold, O'Hearn has spent a good chunk of this season with the highest OPS among American League mortals not named Aaron Judge.
And at least as far as Statcast is concerned, it's no fluke. As of Wednesday morning, O'Hearn was batting .335 and slugging .538, and had a nearly identical expected batting average of .330 and an expected slugging percentage of .534.
If he manages to keep this up for another eight weeks, he's going to be the belle of the ball when it comes to the trade deadline. And if he continues to hit well for the rest of the season, the free agency market for the soon-to-be 32-year-old could be quite the boom-or-bust spectacle.
