If the Major League Baseball season ended this past Friday night, the AL Central would be sending three teams to the playoffs, the Brewers and Pirates would be in a tiebreaker for the NL's No. 1 seed and the Astros would be tied for the best odds of winning the draft lottery with the third-worst record in the majors.

Just like we all predicted.

That's a joke, of course. No one could have possibly forecasted any of that, as is often the case with MLB's results through the first half of April.

What are the biggest surprises—both of the player-based and team-based variety, as well as the positive and negative variety—through the first two-plus weeks of the 2024 campaign, though?

These 10 surprises are loosely ranked in ascending order of how hard you would have laughed at us for suggesting before the season that it was a possibility.

10. Home Runs Are Way Down

Maybe this is the biggest surprise of the first two weeks of the season and we're underselling it at No. 10 on the list.

Perhaps it's just an oddity of a small sample size during the chilliest portion of the campaign.

But it needs to be mentioned that home runs at a leaguewide level are way behind where they were last year.

At the start of play Saturday, there had been 203 total games played, producing 422 home runs. That's a rate of 2.08 per game.

Through April 14 of last season, there had been 207 total games played and 490 home runs hit, for a rate of 2.37 per game.

That's a decrease of more than 12 percent—which is particularly strange when considered in conjunction with the sheer volume of ace-level starting pitchers on the IL.

A handful of stars like Mike Trout and Mookie Betts have been mashing just fine, but Ronald Acuña Jr., Julio Rodríguez, Spencer Torkelson, Trea Turner, Nick Castellanos, Alex Bregman, Ian Happ, Gleyber Torres and Adley Rutschman each rank among a long list of players with nary a home run thus far after clubbing at least 20 in 2023.

To be fair, we're still well ahead of pace compared to early 2022, when the lack of home runs, the league's usage of humidors and the manufacturing of the baseballs was seemingly a daily talking point. That year, there were just 367 home runs in the first 206 games, which was a rate of 1.78 per game.

Still, it's strange that home runs have been harder to come by through the first half of this April than they were last April—unless you're facing Blue Jays pitchers, who have allowed 26 home runs (seven more than any other club) during their disappointing start.

9. Kyle Hendricks Might Be This Year's Version of 2023 Madison Bumgarner

From 2009-19, Madison Bumgarner was easily one of the 25 most valuable pitchers in the majors with (at that point) a career ERA of 3.13. But after leaking oil from 2020-22, Bumgarner's engine completely fell out last April. He made four starts with a 10.26 ERA and the Diamondbacks kicked him to the curb, even though he was still owed a huge chunk of that five-year, $85 million deal he signed in 2019.

Kyle Hendricks appears to be on the same, unfortunate trajectory.

His reign of dominance wasn't nearly as long as MadBum's, but from 2014-20, Hendricks had a 3.12 ERA, with FanGraphs rating him as the 15th most valuable pitcher during that seven-year stretch. After turning 31, though, his stuff was much less potent over the past three years and just plain nonexistent so far this year.

Granted, he faced the Rangers, Dodgers and Padres, which could produce a rough patch for just about anyone. However, he has allowed at least five earned runs in each of his first three starts, resulting in a 12.08 ERA. He's giving up hits, home runs and walks at by far the worst rates of his career.

Worse yet, now he's on the IL with shoulder inflammation, joining teammates Justin Steele and Jameson Taillon on the shelf.

And if Steele and Taillon get healthy before Hendricks does, it's fair to wonder if we'll even see him again in Chicago. The Cubs picked up his $16.5 million club option for this season, but that's no good reason to keep trotting him out there if he isn't getting anyone out—especially if and when they feel like top pitching prospect Cade Horton is ready, similar to where Arizona was with Brandon Pfaadt around this time last year.

8. Silver Slugger Spencer Steer

Spencer Steer had a strong rookie season for the Reds in 2023, leading the team in doubles, home runs and RBI at 37, 23 and 86, respectively. He also stole 15 bases while putting together an .820 OPS.

But did anyone have him penciled in as the team's potential top hitter for this season?

Before the Reds lost Matt McLain and TJ Friedl to injury and Noelvi Marte to suspension, it was plausible that those three guys, Elly De La Cruz, Jeimer Candelario, Will Benson and Christian Encarnacion-Strand would all be more valuable than Steer in 2024.

After all, last year felt a bit like a best-case scenario for Steer, who wasn't much of a slugger when he was drafted out of Oregon five years ago and who merely hit .268 in three years in the minors.

Nevertheless, he has been a machine at the plate, entering Friday with a triple-slash line of .372/.471/.721 with three home runs and 15 RBI. Only a couple of players could boast a better batting average or slugging percentage, and no one had more RBI.

He's going to come back to earth to some extent at some point, but he is destroying both four-seamers and sinkers thus far, and doing an impressive job of hitting to all fields.

The big question at this point is whether he'll be able to finish ahead of Cruz as Cincinnati's most valuable hitter. Must be nice to have two guys slugging north of .700. The only other team that can say as much is the Dodgers, with two guys named Mookie Betts and Shohei Ohtani.

7. Cody Bradford Has Ace Potential

No Jordan Montgomery, Jacob deGrom, Max Scherzer or Tyler Mahle?

No problem.

The Rangers still have Cody Bradford.

The 26-year-old southpaw has made three starts against the Cubs, Astros and A's, compiling a 1.40 ERA, a 0.62 WHIP and a 8.5 K/BB ratio while winning each of those three outings.

But where in the world did this come from?

The Rangers took him in the sixth round of the 2019 draft while he was recovering from surgery for Thoracic outlet syndrome—which was the same issue neither Stephen Strasburg nor Matt Harvey ever really recovered from. He then missed all of 2020 thanks to COVID wiping out minor league baseball that year, and he had just a 4.35 ERA in three minor league seasons before posting a 5.30 ERA as something of a "break in case of emergency" option for the Rangers last season.

He did pitch 7.2 innings of one-run ball during that World Series run, though, which evidently was enough for the Rangers to believe in Bradford as their No. 2 starter, at least until some combination of deGrom, Scherzer and Mahle is able to return.

Three weeks ago, Bradford was the obvious choice to get bumped to a middle-relief role as soon as one of those pitchers' services became available to the Rangers. He might have some staying power, though. At this point, they'd probably send Dane Dunning back to the bullpen first, and might even jettison Andrew Heaney before repurposing Bradford, if the elder lefty continues to struggle.

6. Colton Cowser Leads the Majors in Hitting

Technically, Colorado's Ryan McMahon leads the majors in batting average with a mark of .415, as Colton Cowser hasn't had enough plate appearances to qualify for a batting title.

However, Baltimore's highly-touted prospect who struggled mightily during his brief stint in the majors last summer is outrageously averaging one extra-base hit for every three at-bats thus far in 2024.

Cowser went 7-for-61 (.115) at the dish last season, managing just two doubles and no home runs while striking out 22 times. But he is 13-for-27 (.481) in the early going, with six doubles and three home runs.

His slugging percentage (1.037) is more than 100 points greater than the next-best Oriole's OPS (Jorge Mateo at .908), so they are now getting him into the starting lineup as often as they possibly can.

It's surprising that he has been this good, but it's no surprise that he has arrived. Cowser was the No. 5 overall pick in the 2021 draft. He hit .347 in Single-A that year, .341 in Double-A in 2022 and .300 in Triple-A last season, posting an overall OPS of .909 in his three years in the minors.

For what it's worth, it's not too late to get decent odds on Cowser for AL Rookie of the Year. Texas' Evan Carter and Wyatt Langford and Cowser's teammate Jackson Holliday are still kind of in a three-way tie as the odds-on favorites, but Cowser is still in the +1000 to +2000 range depending on your preferred book, despite getting out to by far the best start of the bunch.

5. David Bednar Has Been a Train Wreck

Let's begin this bad surprise with some good news: David Bednar did toss a perfect 1-2-3 inning for the save against Philadelphia on Friday.

That brought his ERA down from 12.46 to 10.13.

For the Pittsburgh Pirates to be as good as they have been thus far, you would think their two-time All-Star closer is out there kicking butt and taking names in the ninth inning of close games.

To the contrary, Bednar has been a disaster, already blowing as many saves (three) in his first five appearances as he did in the entire 2023 campaign.

Bednar did miss most of spring training with a lat injury, but his velocity has been fine. He's just a little out of control with his curveball (two hit batters and a wild pitch already) and quite unlucky with his four-seamer, resulting in five singles which weren't exactly tattooed.

How patient will the Pirates be, though, now that they have Aroldis Chapman on the roster with a year-to-date line of 5.0 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 3 BB, 9 K?

If Bednar had struggled like this at any point in the past two seasons, the Pirates didn't exactly have a plan B. Wil Crowe got a couple of saves in 2022, but Bednar would have needed to really crash and burn in order to lose his ninth-inning job.

If he has one more rough outing in the next week or so, they might turn to Chapman in save situations, at least temporarily.

4. Boston Red Sox Can Pitch Now?

The biggest reason the Boston Red Sox finished in dead last in the AL East is that it had the worst pitching staff in the division by a country mile. They allowed 1,563 runs between 2022-23, while the next-worst staff in the AL East was Baltimore at 1,366 runs allowed.

However, if anything, it seemed like they were trying to get worse this offseason.

They traded away Chris Sale and John Schreiber. They didn't re-sign James Paxton. And the only arms they added were already-likely-out-for-the-year Liam Hendriks and lost-for-the-year-in-spring-training Lucas Giolito.

All signs pointed toward this pitching staff ranking bottom 10 in the majors, if not bottom three.

In starting out 7-3 during their season-opening 10-game road trip against AL West teams, though, they allowed just 24 runs. That's a stingy 2.4 per game.

They did struggle with the loaded Orioles lineup this past week, but of the 54 total runs allowed to date, 19 have been of the unearned variety, with ace Brayan Bello the only starter who hasn't been outstanding out of the gates. Kutter Crawford, in particular, has been ridiculous, allowing just one earned run through three starts.

In the bullpen, veteran closer Kenley Jansen has yet to allow a hit, while rookie Justin Slaten has gotten out to an incredible start of just one hit allowed in 7.2 innings of work.

Unfortunately, they did recently lose Nick Pivetta to an elbow strain, but they are optimistic that will be a minimal stint on the IL, and that he'll return in about two weeks to immediately resume mowing down opposing lineups.

3. NL Central Got Flipped-Turned Upside Down

At the start of play Saturday, the Brewers and Pirates were tied for first in the NL Central with the Cardinals alone in last place.

The gap between them was just three games, which is the narrowest gap between first and last among the six divisions. That means this order could completely change in a matter of 72 hours.

For now, though, it's the complete opposite of preseason expectations, when the Pirates were projected to finish in dead last, the Brewers were projected to plummet into fourth and the Cardinals were supposed to bounce back and battle the Cubs for first place.

How did this happen?

On the Pittsburgh side of things, the offseason acquisitions of Martín Pérez and Marco Gonzales were way better than anticipated, and Jared Jones has been a breakout sensation as a rookie. Out of nowhere, the starting rotation has ranked among the best in the majors, while having Oneil Cruz back in the lineup after missing almost all of last season has been a nice perk.

For Milwaukee, Christian Yelich has regained his MVP form from half a decade ago, and William Contreras has built upon what was already a strong run through 2022-23, blossoming into a top-tier 1-2 punch in the heart of the order. They've also gotten surprising contributions from Colin Rea and Joe Ross in the rotation. If those veterans continue to pitch at a high level, maybe they can win the division again.

But even more surprising than those hot starts is the disappointing offense coming from the Cardinals thus far. Paul Goldschmidt has one extra base hit. Nolan Arenado hasn't been much better. The young outfield duo of Jordan Walker and Victor Scott II has been disastrous at the dish. They just got Lars Nootbaar back Friday and haven't had Tommy Edman or Dylan Carlson yet this season, but scoring runs was supposed to be this team's strength. Instead, they've scored at least 15 fewer runs than every other team in the division.

2. Houston Astros...Kind of Stink?

It bears mentioning that the Houston Astros also got out to a bit of a rough start last year before rallying the troops and winning the division and reaching the ALCS yet again. They were 3-6 through nine games, 8-10 through 18 games and still one game below .500 at 17-18 nearly one-quarter of the way through the campaign.

But 4-11?

Seven games below .500?

This team hasn't been that far gone since Memorial Day in 2016.

To be fair, the Astros are missing an entire starting rotation's worth of arms at this point, and should improve if and when their health does. Justin Verlander, Lance McCullers Jr., Luis Garcia Jr. and José Urquidy have yet to make their 2024 season debuts, and they recently lost Framber Valdez to the IL with elbow inflammation.

Throw in relievers Josh Hader, Ryan Pressly and Bryan Abreu all struggling early and it has been a messy start on the mound—even with Cristian Javier dealing and Ronel Blanco emerging as one of the biggest positive surprises through the first two-plus weeks of the season.

Entering play Saturday, only the Rockies (93) had allowed more runs than the Astros (86)—and Colorado allowed 14 to Arizona in a single inning on Opening Day.

While the pitching has been understandably disappointing, where's the offense?

Houston has had a few offensive explosions, but was held to three runs or fewer in 10 of its first 14 games. That's with Jose Altuve, Yordan Alvarez and Yainer Diaz each mashing the ball, too. Each part of that trio has at least three home runs and an OPS north of .930, but a shocking number of Astros hitters are below .700 OPS, including José Abreu, who looks even more broken than he did through the first 50 games of last season.

Far be it from us to write off the Astros already, but let's just say that streak of seven consecutive ALCS appearances is in jeopardy.

1. Kansas City Royals Are a Contender

Over the course of the five-month offseason, we all wrote some sort of "winners and losers of the winter" or "teams who improved the most with their offseason moves" article. And while the Dodgers were a lock for the top spot on all of those lists, the Royals were also a staple of a winter winner.

In addition to inking Bobby Witt Jr. to a massive extension, Kansas City signed Hunter Renfroe, Adam Frazier, Garrett Hampson and a whole bunch of pitching in Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha, Chris Stratton and Will Smith. The Royals also traded for John Schreiber and Nick Anderson and recently signed Zach Davies to a minor-league deal in the process of revamping half of the pitching staff.

However, they were a 106-loss disaster in 2023.

Expectations were that Kansas City would improve this season, but when a team needs to improve by 25 wins just to reach .500, it's beyond difficult to put any preseason stock in that team reaching the postseason.

Per an MLB.com article from last October, there have been 13 teams in MLB's divisional era (since 1969) that improved by at least 27 wins in a single season, none of which gained more than 35 wins. So if the Royals were to win 92 games or more, it would be a history-making transformation.

However, after entering Friday on a seven-game winning streak with the best year-to-date run differential (+39) in the majors, 92 wins feels more than plausible.

Witt has been sensational. Nelson Velázquez has picked up where he left off last fall. Salvador Perez has bounced back from two mediocre seasons and is hitting like the MVP candidate that he was in 2020 and 2021. MJ Melendez is seeing the ball better than ever. And save for a couple of rough bullpen innings, the pitching has been exquisite with nine quality starts already in the books.

Will it last?

Who knows?

But the oddsmakers are already starting to believe. Per DraftKings, Kansas City is +550 to win the AL Central and +280 to make the playoffs. If you're really buying the miracle, you can still get the Royals at +9000 to win the World Series—just barely worse than the Boston Red Sox, Pittsburgh Pirates and New York Mets.