April All-Stars: Thames, Sale lead best players from the season's first month

While Mike Trout and Bryce Harper are expected choices, It's been a season of surprises, as evidenced by some of the other choices for this team.
April All-Stars: Thames, Sale lead best players from the season's first month
April All-Stars: Thames, Sale lead best players from the season's first month /

The season's first month is drawing to a close, and both the team standings and the individual leaderboards are full of surprises. The Rockies atop the NL West? Eric Thames on a record-setting home run pace? Hey, it's early, but it's also a whole lot of fun after staring out the window and waiting for spring—at least unless you're a Blue Jays fan. 

With that in mind, we hereby present what has become an annual tradition at SI.com: the April All-Stars. Given the small sample sizes involved—fewer than 100 plate appearances or 40 innings pitched—selection to this team is more a snapshot of who has played the best so far, rather than a guarantee that those players will sustain their performances.  While in some cases, there were as many as half a dozen players who could have been chosen, in the first month of 2017, these are the players who have stood out the most:

VERDUCCI: 'Adapt or die': Eric Thames offers his keys to success


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Jay Jaffe
JAY JAFFE

Jay Jaffe is a contributing baseball writer for SI.com and the author of the upcoming book The Cooperstown Casebook on the Baseball Hall of Fame.