Here is the sum up of the first two weeks of the season, as the title shows. The impressive teams, the impressive players, the flop teams, the flop players, all that stuff and my early award predictions based on the first two weeks of stats.

So there have been a few teams that have totally surprised me so far. Other than the Yankees, Rays, and Phillies who are the 1-2-3 teams in baseball, like expected, even though the Red Sox aren’t in the mix. Yankees (9-3) have had excellent starting pitching, the Rays (10-3) have had excellent pitching as well, but on the other hand the Phils (8-4) have had the best offense in the league. So other than these teams which teams have surprised me? In a good way? 3 teams. The Athletics, the Pirates, and the Nats. The Nationals it might be pretty obvious because they aren’t a thousand games under .500 and have a decent record, even though Jason Marquis has been a HUGE bust. The Pirates continually have clutch hitting on the other hand. Their bullpen has actually been decent and starting pitching is good too. This has fueled them to an 7-5 record, giving them the 2nd spot in the NL Central behind the Cardinals. The last team, the only AL team that has impressed us, is the A’s. The A’s have the best record in the West giving them the lead. They have had some of the best starting pitching in the league. All of their starters have an ERA of under 3, excluding Gio Gonzalez who has a 3.35. The A’s hot pitching won’t stay the same though, with the Yankees coming into town…

The flop teams are my favorite to say because guess who starts the list. The BoSox. They just haven’t been able to do anything right if it’s score enough runs or give up less runs. The second team is another AL East team, the Orioles. They have been able to be the best team at doing nothing. No hitting, no pitching no nothing. The Last team is the Mets. The Mets don’t have the bullpen they want and their starting pitching is nothing after Johan Santana. They don’t have a center fielder because of Beltran being injured and Pagan isn’t doing enough, plus Mike Jacobs was DFA’d and Ike Davis, the rookie sensation, will try to fill the hole Carlos Delgado left.

The best players… Pujols… illegal…. Utley…. partially illegal… So really the most impressive players are? Jorge Cantu, Vernon Wells, and Andy Pettitte. Cantu has had an RBI in every single game this year excluding one game against the Phillies and has dominated with 5 homers as well. Wells has rebounded nicely from a bad year last year with six homers this year so far and more to come. Lastly, Andy Pettitte has had a great year so far and this might surprise some of you. Pettitte has given up a combined 3 runs in  3 starts giving him a 2-0 record along with a 1.75 ERA

The flop players have been some unexpected pitchers mostly. Javier Vazquez has an ERA of nine and a half in his first two starts giving him a 0-2 record. This is definitely not worth Melky Cabrera and Aroldys Vizcaino. I believe and hope that Javy will come back to normal and pitch well again. So the other pitcher that is disappointed is in the NL East, Jason Marquis has an even worse ERA and the same amount of losses. He is not the All-Star pitcher that the Nats were projected to get. The Jason Marquis that gave up 7 runs while only getting 2 outs is not the same as last year. Discussion over. The last disappointing player has been Jason Bay. An all-star last year, he is a .215 hitting outfielder this year. Bay will most likely get it going but he has not always been great.

Here are my very early favorites for the award races this year

AL MVP: Nelson Cruz
NL MVP: Albert Pujols

AL CY Young: CC Sabathia
NL CY Young: Tim Lincecum or Roy Halladay

AL Manager of the Year: Bob Geren
NL Manager of the Year: Bruce Bochy

AL Rookie of the Year: Brian Matusz
NL Rookie of the Year: Jason Heyward