Top eight takeaways from MLB’s first half

Baseball’s future continues to be in good hands

In terms of young talent coming into baseball, it’s been a pretty darn special decade. Kris Bryant and Bryce Harper have each won a National League MVP Award, while Mike Trout has won two American League MVP’s. Trout will turn 26 in August, and he’s the oldest of the three.

Additionally, while they’ve yet to win MVP’s, guys like Francisco Lindor, Carlos Correa and Corey Seager have become absolute stars at a young age. Mind you, that’s only a small percentage of the young talent that’s broken in over the last several years.

The 2017 season has been no different.

New York Yankees rookie Aaron Judge has taken the league by storm since the first day of the season. He leads the American League in all three Triple Crown categories and tops all of baseball in home runs (26).

Of course, a pretty special rookie has emerged on the West Coast, as well. Los Angeles Dodgers rookie Cody Bellinger leads the National League in long balls (24) and trails only Judge in all of baseball. At face value, that’s impressive. And interestingly enough, there’s even more to Bellinger’s story.

Bellinger has 24 home runs despite not debuting until April 25 or hitting his first long ball until April 29. He’s on pace to hit nearly 50 home runs, despite missing nearly a month of the season.

Baseball entered 2017 with a fantastic group of young stars to build around. Two more have emerged, and they happen to play in the country’s two biggest markets for two of the league’s flagship franchises. If you see Rob Manfred walking around looking like the Cheshire Cat, there’s no need to wonder why.