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The SweetSpot blog network weighs in with April's best surprises ...

Atlanta Braves
Simply put, the Braves' most pleasant surprise has been Brandon Beachy. At this time last year, Beachy was a virtually unknown prospect at Double-A Mississippi. Now he's leading the Atlanta starting staff in strikeout per nine innings (9.51) and is a prime candidate for the NL Rookie of the Month award for April. At this pace, it's going to be impossible for Mike Minor to unseat him for the fifth-starter role, regardless of his dominance in Triple-A.
--Kevin Orris. Capitol Avenue Club

Florida Marlins
It is absolutely amazing that the Marlins are just a half-game out of first place, especially considering the rough start of Hanley Ramirez (.197/.299/.250). In another amazing twist, given the shaky outfield defense that was expected of them, the Fish have the best defensive efficiency in the National League, turning almost 73 percent of balls in play into outs, and understandably have given up the fewest runs in the Senior Circuit.
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

New York Mets
Though the hot starts of Ike Davis and Jose Reyes have been greatly appreciated by Mets fans, they are not necessarily surprises -- at least, not compared to Pedro Beato. A Rule 5 pick, the hard-throwing Beato began the season as the last man out of the bullpen but has quickly emerged as arguably the Mets' most reliable reliever. Through 12 innings, Beato has yet to allow an earned run, has struck out eight and boasts a 0.75 WHIP. Perhaps most impressive, the youngster is now being called upon in high-leverage, late-inning situations.
--Joe Janish, Mets Today

Philadelphia Phillies
The Phillies' most pleasant surprise has been Antonio Bastardo. As Brad Lidge, J.C. Romero and Jose Contreras succumbed to injury, Bastardo emerged as a legitimate late-innings option, striking out 15 and allowing just one run in 10 1/3 innings.
--Bill Baer, Crashburn Alley

Washington Nationals
Wilson Ramos has been the Nats' pleasant (yet probably unsustainable) surprise. He is hitting a cool .375/.426/.563, while playing acceptably behind the plate, gunning down three of eight attempted base stealers. Given that he has a batting average on balls in play of around .450, he's sure to cool off a lot, but we're grateful for each additional day he keeps the corpse of Pudge Rodriguez from getting up to bat.
--Harper Gordek, Nationals Baseball

Chicago Cubs
Darwin Barney came into spring training fighting to make the roster. One month into the season, he’s a viable No. 2 hitter in the lineup and deserving of the spot on the All-Star ballot Blake DeWitt is hoarding.
--Joe Aiello, View from the Bleachers

Cincinnati Reds
The plate discipline shown by Jonny Gomes has been the most pleasant surprise, by far. Gomes has drawn 19 walks in the first month (second in the league, behind teammate Joey Votto), after walking only 39 times in the entire 2010 season. Because of Gomes' patience, his OPS remains over .900, despite a batting average hovering around the Mendoza line.
--Chad Dotson, Redleg Nation

Houston Astros
As the last-place team in the NL Central, there's been very little for the Astros to be pleasantly surprised about. But for the team that won one series in April (a distinction the Mets would rather forget), its lone pleasant surprise is Brett Wallace, who is hitting great despite having the unfortunate situation of being sandwiched between Carlos Lee and Bill Hall. He leads the team in batting average (.373), on-base percentage (.441) and slugging (.518).
--Austin Swafford, Austin's Astros 290 Blog

Milwaukee Brewers
The best surprise for the Brewers is they're 12-12 despite Zack Greinke not making a start, Corey Hart missing nearly the entire month and the bullpen leading the majors with seven losses. They can thank the hot starts of Ryan Braun (.356/.454/.689), Prince Fielder (leading the NL with 23 RBIs) and Rickie Weeks (21 runs scored).
--David Schoenfield

Pittsburgh Pirates
In five starts, Charlie Morton already has as many wins as he did in 2010, and his ERA is 60 percent lower. Don't buy into it, though. His 18:18 strikeout-to-walk ratio is highly troubling, and his .253 BABIP is completely unsustainable, even though he's getting 2.25 grounders for every fly ball so far. The Pirates will have to hope the coming regression is accompanied by a return to form for James McDonald, who has been terrible.
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

St. Louis Cardinals
When the Cardinals lost ace Adam Wainwright for the season, the pressure suddenly shifted to their starting rotation. In particular, to Kyle Lohse, the righty who made only 40 starts in the two seasons since signing a hefty 4-year, $41 million contract extension. Given that from 2009-10 his ERA was indistinguishable from his strikeout rate (though, to be fair, his expected Fielding Independent Pitching was much lower), expectations were tempered. So his 2011 campaign thus far -- five Wainwright-like starts with an ERA of 1.64 -- has been the most pleasant surprise for the Cardinals. He is inducing ground balls like never before (48.6 percent) and limiting self-inflicted damage with a walk rate (1.17 walks per nine innings) that Cliff Lee would be proud of. And he's tied for fourth among NL pitchers in Wins Above Replacement.
--Matt Philip, Fungoes.net

Arizona Diamondbacks
Bright spots are fairly few and far between for the D-backs. The starting pitching has been atrocious, but the hitters have proven solid. The most shocking performance has been from Ryan Roberts, a minor league lifer who has seemingly taken over the third-base job by hitting .311/.408/.607 through 20 games. It's not a mirage. Roberts is a legitimate hitter, and as long as his defense holds up, he'll be a very productive and cheap option for the near future.
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Colorado Rockies
Where in the world did Jonathan Herrera (.317/.442/.429) come from? The 26-year-old has never really done anything like this before and is a good bet to regress. Still, he's done a terrific job of making up for the disappointing, but totally predictable, performances of Ty Wigginton (.233/.309/.383) and Jose Lopez (.143/.169/.254).
--The Common Man, The Platoon Advantage

Los Angeles Dodgers
The return -- and then some -- of Matt Kemp has been the biggest surprise. Even though he has tapered off in his past 10 games, going 10-for-41 with 15 strikeouts, he still has walked six times in that stretch and has had a superb start overall (1.072 OPS). One question is whether his walks reflect better plate discipline or the horrors of the Dodgers lineup after his spot in the order.
--Jon Weisman, Dodger Thoughts

San Diego Padres
In a month of unpleasant surprises, one exception for San Diego has been the performance of catcher Nick Hundley. After splitting duties with veterans Henry Blanco and Yorvit Torrealba the past two seasons, Hundley has assumed a larger role this year and responded. He is hitting .286/.356/.481 and providing the bulk of what little offense the Padres have been able to muster.
--Geoff Young, Ducksnorts

San Francisco Giants
The Giants' most pleasant surprise is this: They're still around .500 despite going through a month bereft of actual pleasant surprises. That's not to say the Giants haven't had good performances, but what's been good hasn't been surprising and what's been surprising hasn't been good. Pablo Sandoval shouldn't surprise anyone when he hits .330 in a month; he'll do that. Buster Posey and Tim Lincecum have played well, yes. They're good, you know. The bad surprises on the other hand: a bushel of injuries, month-long slumps from key regulars and defense that has had fans saying to each other, "You know, I don't think that fellow can really play that position."
--Otis Anderson, Bay City Ball

Friday's Chicago Cubs home opener provided an interesting contrast. The Cubs have 2011 aspirations to try and live up to, while the Pittsburgh Pirates do not. Yet both teams have a similar problem: experimentation at second base.

Whatever comes out of the two teams' beakers remains to be seen -- this isn't the periodic table or your high school chemistry class, so results will vary.

The Cubs' situation involves one of spring training's surprising outcomes. Darwin Barney scrapped his way into the Opening Day gig after favorite Blake DeWitt handed back the job heading into Arizona action. DeWitt's difficulties with turning the double play and making good contact aren't the sort of thing you can easily overlook. As skipper Mike Quade explained to the beat posse last month, the ability to turn the tough double play matters to him.

DeWitt is sort of a duckbilled platypus of the infield. He has a bat that profiles better at second, with a walk rate around 10 percent and an ISO around .120, but a glove that really plays better at third. If you've got Ryne Sandberg's sort of thunder coming from second base, maybe DeWitt is somebody you could carry at third, but the 2011 Cubs aren't that team.

In contrast, Barney is the sort of grinder that is easy for a manager to love. At second or short, he's rangy, strong-armed, and hustler who will chase down anything afield if you let him. But as admirable and worthwhile all that is, projecting Barney's performance via PECOTA, ZiPS, or any other forecasting model, gives you a guy who might struggle to post an OBP or SLG of .300. The glove can play, the bat ... well, did we mention he gets his uniform dirty?

The third wheel in the Cubs' keystone combo is platoon masher Jeff Baker, a five-position supersub with a career .908 OPS versus southpaws. Rarely given the opportunity to do more than that, Baker did manage to hit everybody in 2009 while spotting for the Cubs at second. But a career 28 percent strikeout rate versus righties -- because good right-handed off-speed and breaking stuff eats him up -- can make him a bit tough to live with. It isn't like that strikeout rate's getting traded for Jeff Kent-like power.

Bringing up Kent, however obliquely, takes us to the Pirates' decision to continue with the Neil Walker experiment at second base. Like Kent at the outset of his career, there are questions over whether Walker is nimble enough around the bag to manage at second. (Kent's bat created a fairly high tolerance for his unglovely play in the field.)

The hope with Walker is that he can do likewise, after slugging .462 as a rookie last season. If he does it, it'll be despite defense that even DeWitt would outclass. Whatever flavor of defensive metric you prefer -- Total Zone, Plus/Minus, UZR, or Colin Wyers' new Fielding Runs metric at Baseball Prospectus (best to refer to them all with caution) -- Walker's previous season at second was several shades of awful. Love the bat, hate the glove, but it isn't like the Pirates' shot at a title hangs in the balance. They can afford to experiment.

How did all this turn out on Opening Day? Barney scrapped and slapped, lucking into a second base hit on the Pirates' second muffed infield popup of the afternoon. Walker mashed, jacking a full-count slam on a Ryan Dempster fastball in the fifth, and then setting up another run with his two-out seventh-inning double. He also played defense about as well as you'd expect an ex-catcher, as poor infield defense created both of the Cubs' runs.

But Walker wasn't alone in being part of the problem, because one player alone didn't generate the worst defense in baseball (per Baseball Prospectus's Park-Adjusted Defensive Efficiency metric). How long the Pirates want to afford Walker's defense at second owes something to the decision to stick with Pedro Alvarez at third base for as long as possible. Alvarez's series of defensive gaffes Friday provided a reminder that he probably won't be a third baseman forever. He was responsible for the Cubs' first-inning run, with a single off his glove followed by a two-base throwing error. If Alvarez makes the move across the diamond to first later this year -- presumably after they tire of or flip one-year rental Lyle Overbay -- then Walker's trek to the hot corner seems sure to follow.

As for the Cubs' quest to find an appropriate heir to the Sandberg spot on the lineup card, you can expect more three-way shuffling. After the Arizona-inspired fascination with Barney gives way to his expected performance, Quade will have to revisit what to do with this position. Maybe DeWitt can be risked in the field when more fly ball-oriented pitchers like Carlos Zambrano and Matt Garza start, while Baker will always hurt lefties. Tinkering's well and good, but at some point, the experiment had better yield up something resembling a lasting answer.

Christina Kahrl covers baseball for ESPN.com. She helped found Baseball Prospectus in 1996, and has written her "Transaction Analysis" column ever since. She was voted into the Baseball Writers' Association of America in 2008 as one of its first four Internet columnists. You can find her ESPN archives here, and follow her on Twitter here.