With the second half underway and fantasy baseball owners seeking that extra edge for a championship run, it’s always important to stay on top of some of the latest trends for players as well as understanding what each team plans to do with the MLB trade deadline rapidly approaching. You’re going to be overwhelmed with rumors, player call-ups and confounding managerial decisions, so staying current everywhere, not just your own team, is vital. With that, we’re going to take a quick stroll around the league and highlight some key information you’re going to need. Ready? Let’s dive in!

Has your league’s Aaron Judge owner fallen into a panic yet? The current league-leader in home runs is currently 1-for-21 (.048) with no home runs or extra-base hits since coming back from the All Star break and the buzz about the Home Run Derby curse is getting louder. Maybe the rookie is a little wrapped up in his head right now and still coming down from the high that the All Star Game and its festivities provides, but there is little concern here as to him getting back on-track and back to hitting the bombs which made him so successful in the first half. He’s got plenty more to do if he wants that AL MVP in addition to his impending Rookie of the Year award, and he knows it. If you own him, then weather this mini-storm and reap the benefits straight through September. If you don’t, start making offers now before he starts hitting bombs again.

As cold as Judge has opened the second half, can we take a moment here to acknowledge just how amazing both Anthony Rendon and Bryce Harper have been since returning from the break? We expect this level of play from Harper who has three home runs, seven RBI and has walked as much as he’s struck out in his 21 plate appearances over the last four games, but Rendon still seems to be on the underrated side for many. Not sure why as he crushed it in May and June only to open the second half with a .615 average, three home runs and nine RBI. The Nationals have been the one of the hottest hitting team in baseball all year and with these two hitting in the top-half of the order, both should continue their assault on NL pitching for the next two and a half months.

And speaking of post-break hot bats, let’s take a moment to acknowledge:

Kyle Seager, 3B SEA – three home runs with four RBI, four runs scored and a .389 average (believe)

Nelson Cruz, OF SEA – three home runs with four RBI, three runs scored and a .286 average (believe)

Hector Sanchez, C SD – three home runs with six RBI, four runs scored and a .308 average (unproven long-term and a 28.6-percent strikeout rate, you can’t believe in it being sustainable)

J.D. Martinez, OF DET – two home runs, seven RBI, two runs scored, one stolen base and a .385 average (believe and expect a new home soon, hopefully somewhere hitter-friendly)

All signs point toward the Indians bringing Danny Salazar back up and into the rotation as early as this week. Manager Terry Francona said a decision will be made today (Tuesday). We all know what Salazar’s skill-set is and we know he’s a fantastic option for strikeouts. In his last start for Triple-A Columbus, he threw six scoreless frames with nine strikeouts and looks primed to return and lower that current 5.40 ERA. Once Salazar returns, though, someone is going to get bumped from the rotation. Mike Clevinger has pitched well thus far, so it looks like either Trevor Bauer or Josh Tomlin could be the odd-man out. Tomlin is still sporting a 5.74 ERA, but he tossed a pair of strong, quality starts in his last two outings and had 11 strikeouts over 14.1 innings in that span. Bauer is sitting on a 5.59 ERA and finished the first half relatively strong, but he was beaten up for four runs over just two-thirds of an inning in his first start of the second half. You never want a team to go to a six-man rotation as it takes away two-start weeks, but if the Tribe can’t make a decision over who to bump, we could see one here.

Too early to say I was right about Jose Quintana going to the Cubs? OK, I’ll wait. At least until his next day of PURE DOMINATION!

From the rumor mill, the Yankees are currently talking to the A’s about first baseman Yonder Alonso. He makes for the perfect rental if the team is still onboard with Greg Bird as their first-sacker of the future, but for now, adding Alonso’s left-handed bat and new launch angle in Yankee Stadium could be huge. It would be even better for the Bombers should they get the A’s to package Alonso with Sonny Gray. That would certainly kill two birds with one stone as they need a big-time replacement for Michael Pineda. In Gray’s first start of the second half, he threw six scoreless frames with five strikeouts and has now thrown four-straight quality starts with a 1.67 ERA and a 21:5 K:BB over 27 innings. If you’re concerned about a move to such a hitter-friendly environment, just keep staring at that 54.9-percent ground ball rate. That’s what happens when you throw either a sneaky slider or dominant curve 30-percent of the time.

You can expect the Cardinals to be big players on the closer market this season as their bullpen is a hot mess right now. Brett Cecil managed to pick up the save Monday, but that comes on the heels of a blown save just the game before. Seung-Hwan Oh has been violently inconsistent this season and every time they seem to want to give the job back to Trevor Rosenthal, he opens up a big can of suck during save situations. They also have lefty Kevin Siegrist, but he actually opened the ninth on Monday and was yanked after issuing a leadoff walk. Names like Zach Britton, Kelvin Herrera and David Robertson dominate the headlines, but we should see closers like A.J. Ramos and Brandon Kintzler in-play as well. There’s just no way the Cards can be happy with their current situation and after watching the Nationals shore up their pen with Sean Doolittle and Ryan Madson, the pressure to make a move will certainly be ramped up.

And while we’re on the topic of closers, how about Cody Allen returning to the role Monday? People were freaking out about Francona’s decision to swap Allen and Andrew Miller in an effort to limit Miller’s innings. He indicated back then that the switch may not be for the duration of the season and Allen opening up the ninth yesterday certainly lends credence to the possibility that the switch back has begun.

David Dahl is not only turning into one of the bigger busts of 2017, he’s also garnering the label as the worst stash of the year in fantasy leagues. Manager Bud Black had said he wasn’t sure if Dahl would even see time in the majors this season and when Jim Bowden of SiriusXM Fantasy Sports Radio spoke with Rockies GM Jeff Bridich, we learned that while Black may have been misquoted, Dahl is still plenty of from returning this season as he needs to get as many at-bats as possible, having missed most of spring training as well. This might help Mark Reynolds get a chance to reprise some of his early-season magic as Ian Desmond could end up staying in the outfield most of the time, especially if the Rockies trade Carlos Gonzalez.

And finally, I’m going to go out on a crazy limb here and say that Jason Vargas’ six runs on seven hits over 2.2 innings Monday was more indicative of the type of pitcher he is as opposed to anything we saw in the first half. If you bought into it and traded for him (or held onto him), you just got fish-hooked!