One of the best things about being a baseball fan is watching an unsung player break out in a big and unexpected way. For the Astros, who already have a bunch of well-known players contributing to their hot 38-16 start, it’s super utility player Marwin Gonzalez doing big and unexpected things.

Switching-hitting Gonzalez is leading the best team in baseball in on-base percentage (.401) and slugging percentage (.638), he’s tied for the team lead in RBIs with Carlos Correa (34), he’s second in home runs (12) behind George Springer (13), he’s third in batting average (.308) and he’s in sixth in bWAR (1.5).

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His splits are good, too. As a lefty batter, he’s batting .330/.415/.703 with nine home runs while batting .256/.370/.487 with three home runs as a righty batter. As you can see, his plate discipline is good from both sides. More on that in a moment.

Before 2017, Gonzalez was your run-of-the-mill utility player who could hit between .250 and .275 with maybe 12 or 13 home runs, and he’d get on base at an average clip. So far this season, he’s playing like Mike Trout.

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So how is this even happening?

Well, Gonzalez, who is a career .261/.307/.409 hitter and who hit a career high 13 home runs in 2016, is showing more plate discipline. He seems to be laying off difficult pitches that he would have attempted to hit just a year ago, and he's hitting the pitches that get him better results. According to Fangraphs, Gonzalez is swinging at fewer pitches outside the zone: 28.2 percent in 2017 compared with 35.7 in 2016. And according to Statcast, Gonzalez has seen 677 total pitches and he’s only whiffed 56 times (8.3 percent).

He’s also swinging at fewer first pitches, though when he does swing at the first offering in an at-bat he’s batting .455 with two home runs in 11 attempts.

The one pitch Gonzales has seemed to steer clear of completely this season while batting left handed is the curveball. According to Statcast, he’s seen 66 curveballs while batting lefty and he whiffed once. The rest of the time, he’s watching it go by for a ball or a strike. Gonzalez hit a home run off a curveball batting righty on April 9 and a single on May 12.

Gonzalez is also drawing more walks this season. It’s as if someone flipped a switch. In 2015, he walked 16 times in 120 games. Last season, he walked only 22 times in 141 games. This season, he has already walked 18 times. That means he's on pace for three times as many walks as those previous two seasons.

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With the Astros lineup being as deep as it is, Gonzalez has seen the majority of his at-bats in the seventh spot. There, he’s batting .339/.412/.678 with five home runs and five doubles. He's thriving in that spot, where he’s sometimes followed by either Alex Bregman or Jake Marisnick, who are also having good seasons. Marisnick and Bregman have both driven Gonzalez in four times when batting behind him.

Now, this could just be a hot start for Gonzalez. Many times, baseball writers and fans have fallen into the trap of thinking that a player has made a complete turnaround after a few average seasons. But Gonzalez is at the age where a breakout season is possible. He just turned 28 before the season began and it wouldn’t be entirely shocking for him to have a great season, especially if his plate discipline continues. Gonzalez may not sustain a .300/.400/.600 performance over the course of a 162-game season because that’s a pretty tall order, but .275/.320/.500 and 20-25 home runs is certainly not out of the question.

Either way, Gonzalez is just one of many reasons why the Astros are the team both to watch and to beat this summer.

SN contributor Stacey Gotsulias is a baseball writer and cat lover. Follow her on Twitter @StaceGots.