MLB midseason awards: Shohei Ohtani and Jacob deGrom are well ahead of the pack

So what do we know about the first half of the 2021 MLB season?. First and foremost, the commissioner wasn't kidding about his crackdown involving the sticky-substance abuse in the sport. Aside from Shohei Ohtani's historic brilliance (more on that later) and the heinous allegations made against Trevor Bauer (the investigation remains ongoing), Rob Manfred's daily targeting of pitchers through the umpire's stringent policing dominated the pre-break landscape.