Remarkably, we have reached the halfway point of the 2023 MLB season. It seems like just yesterday that we were wondering how the pitch timer would go over, what a world without shifts would look like and just how big those bases really were. How young we all were back then. How little we knew.

Suffice it to say, the 2023 season has brought all sorts of surprises, things no one could have seen coming. As we take stock of the first half of this exhilarating, confounding season, let’s take a look at the 10 biggest surprises so far.

1. The upside-down National League West
Just about everybody had the Rockies finishing last in this division -- that little nugget of most preseason prognostications has held up. But the rest of the NL West is completely topsy-turvy. The big debate was about whether or not the Padres would be able to overtake the Dodgers in the regular season like they did in the postseason last year. It turns out, the D-backs and the Giants, so far, have overtaken them both.

Arizona has been one of the biggest surprises in baseball, riding presumptive NL Rookie of the Year and MVP candidate Corbin Carroll to the fifth-best record in the Majors and a 2 1/2 game lead in the division. But the Giants’ recent win streak sprinted them past Los Angeles and San Diego as well. The Dodgers are hanging in despite some injuries, but the team that’s really worried is the Padres, who are four games under .500 and a whopping 9 1/2 games out of first.

2. The first-place Rangers … and the first-place Reds?
The Rangers certainly went into the season with high hopes, as evidenced by the huge contract they gave to Jacob deGrom, but most people had far more tempered expectations. That contract so far hasn’t worked out -- deGrom is out for the rest of the year and possibly a big chunk of next year after undergoing surgery to repair a torn right UCL -- but the Rangers still have a five-game lead over the defending champion Astros.

But even that overperformance pales in comparison to the thrilling Reds, who out of nowhere have become the most exciting team in baseball, thanks largely to their electric rookie, Elly De La Cruz. It’s always nice to have new blood in the postseason, and these teams sure look like the ones who will be providing it. (By the way, let’s not forget another surprising thing about the Reds: There’s a Díaz family member who’s the best reliever in the National League, and it’s not Edwin.)

3. The Orioles are nearly matching the Rays stride for stride
The Rays’ blistering start was the talk of the sport for the season’s first month, and for good reason. Now, the Rays have settled in simply as the outstanding team we all recognize them to be -- we’ve now baked in their excellence. But have we reckoned with how the Orioles are still nearly keeping pace with them?

The O’s completely revamped their whole organization over the last few years, and after a breakthrough last year, they’ve soared even higher in 2023, only four games behind the Rays (two in the loss column) in the American League East and holding the third-best record in baseball. You’d still like to see a little more pitching here, but Baltimore has firmly established proof of concept: They won’t be picked last in this division for a long, long time.

4. The best pitching staff in baseball belongs to … the Twins?
The first-place Twins -- who, to be fair, are only at .500 -- have had all sorts of lineup disappointments, not least of which is Carlos Correa, who has had a season not nearly commensurate with how much we were talking about him all winter.

But the Twins have more than hung in thanks to their pitching staff, which leads the Majors in FanGraphs WAR. Pablo López has been all Minnesota had wanted after acquiring him for Luis Arraez (more on him below), and Joe Ryan and Sonny Gray have been outstanding, too. A fantastic pitching staff making up for an underwhelming lineup en route to an AL Central lead? We thought that was Cleveland’s thing.

5. Luis Arraez is still flirting with .400
If you had to predict the batting average leader for the year heading in, Arraez would have been a logical, even consensus, pick; he is, after all, that sort of throwback hitter. But did anyone, even him, see him flirting with .400 midseason? There’s only one man -- Ronald Acuña Jr. -- within 80 points of him!

It’s probably harder to hit .400 right now than at any time in baseball history. And there’s Arraez, still there. Oh, and don’t forget his team: The Marlins are 11 games over .500 and in position for a Wild Card spot. That’s more than a certain division rival can say …

6. The team with MLB’s biggest payroll could be sellers at the Deadline
You certainly can’t accuse owner Steve Cohen and the Mets from sitting on their hands this offseason. After a 101-win season in 2022, the Mets went out and signed Justin Verlander, Kodai Senga and José Quintana to replace the departed Jacob deGrom, Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker, and it hasn’t worked out. Quintana and closer Edwin Díaz were both injured prior to Opening Day and have not yet pitched this season, and the team’s lack of pitching depth has been sorely exposed. Quintana is due back soon, but it’s become clear that the Mets need more than just him to fix the situation. A team that looked like a surefire contender might end up selling at the Deadline.

7. The Cardinals are in last place
The Cardinals made the biggest offseason free agent acquisition in the NL Central when they added Willson Contreras, and, let’s not forget, they won the division last year. Nearly everyone picked them to win it again this year. But everything has gone wrong in St. Louis, including internal drama with Contreras and Tyler O’Neill, a struggling starting rotation, some slumping lineup regulars and two extended skids that have nearly put the division out of reach. The Cardinals still don’t seem like a last-place team. But the hill they’ll have to climb to return to contention sure looks too steep.

8. Meanwhile, their rivals have two of the best starters in baseball
It hasn’t been the Mets with the dominant 1-2 starting pitcher punch in the National League this year. It has been, if you can believe it, the Cubs. They have Justin Steele and Marcus Stroman, who are currently among the top five pitchers in the NL according to fWAR. Chicago’s decision to focus on defense this offseason is paying off big time, for the team and those two pitchers in particular. And the North Siders are now within striking distance of first place.

9. Vlad Jr. has two (2) home runs at home
Vladimir Guerrero Jr. is not having a bad year, necessarily. He has a 126 OPS+, his overall OPS is just a little below what he had last year and he’s actually getting on base more often. But if you were looking for a power bounceback after a season in which he was 16 homers below his 2021 pace, it hasn’t happened. Vlad Jr. has only 11 homers so far, the lowest pace of his career, and, amazingly, he didn’t hit his first home run in Toronto until … this past weekend?

The Blue Jays have been much like Vlad Jr. himself the last two years: Good, but still somehow underwhelming compared to what we had all been expecting.

10. We’ve all adjusted to the new rules
Bryan Cranston was there to remind us: Baseball was changing some rules in the offseason, and this might be big. And while there have been all sorts of positives in the wake of the rules -- quicker games, more steals, more action -- what’s perhaps most impressive is how easily we all adjusted to them. You’re already used to the pitch timer, aren’t you? And you're aware of how many times the pitcher has thrown to first. And you’re now looking forward to steals. The game did not change for a long time. Now that it has, we’re absorbing it all just fine. Change might not necessarily be fatal to baseball after all.