After a 152-plate appearance cup of coffee in the Majors in 2016, Josh Bell had a solid rookie year in '17. He hit 26 homers, knocked in 90 runs, and had a .466 slugging percentage. In many years, a season like that has been good enough to win Rookie of the Year honors, but not in Bell’s case, as Cody Bellinger burst on the scene and hit 39 home runs en route to a unanimous National League Rookie of the Year award.

In 2018, Bell had a pretty similar year. He hit fewer homers, but had a slightly better batting average, and seemed to be establishing himself as a player who would hit around 15-20 home runs per year and bat around .260.

But now, more than two months into 2019, it’s clear that Bell, 26, is on a new level. He’s crushing the ball, leading his team, and it doesn’t seem like it’s just a hot two months. He’s here to stay, and he might even deserve your All-Star vote at the position in the National League, which includes Pete Alonso, Freddie Freeman, Rhys Hoskins and Anthony Rizzo.

Bell already has 18 home runs -- just eight shy of his career high, and we aren’t even at the All-Star break. He leads the Majors with 25 doubles and 56 RBIs. He’s hitting .338.

He hasn’t just knocked extra-base hits, though. He’s put on a show. Bell has hit two home runs out of PNC Park and into the Allegheny River on a fly this season. Before 2019, only three players had done that since the park opened in '01, and each had done it just once.

So, how is he doing all of this? Let's take a look:

1) He's hitting the ball much harder

He has five home runs this season that have gone at least 450 feet. That’s two more than any other player in the Majors.

He has a 94.3 mph average exit velocity, which is tied for second in the Majors (minimum 75 batted balls), and a 53.9 percent hard-hit rate which ranks fourth among that same group.

That all sounds impressive, but we all know that sometimes players get off to hot starts that aren’t sustainable, and that sometimes we still see those effects as late as June. However, that doesn’t appear to be what’s going on with Bell.

Here’s why this isn’t just a flash in the pan -- he’s making really good contact, not just getting lucky. That 53.9 percent hard-hit rate would be a career high, by a lot. Last year, he had a career-high 39.0 percent hard-hit rate. We can look at that from the standpoint of average exit velocity, too -- he’s at 94.3 mph this year, and his career high was 90.0 mph last year.

In other words, he’s making hard contact, and much more so than in the past. It’s not like he was doing this last year and hitting just 26 home runs.

2) He's not just hitting it harder, but also better

Another way to quantify his improved contact is his expected batting average and expected slugging percentage, which are based on quality of contact, as well as strikeouts in the case of expected BA. His xBA this year is .309. Yes, that’s below his current average of .338, but it’s also well above his prior highest xBA in any season.

The same can be said of his xSLG of .612, which is top 10 in the Majors this season (min. 150 PA), and is well above his career high for any completed season.

Expected stats show what the player should be doing based on kind of contact he's making. The fact that his xBA and xSLG are higher than they were in the past and close to his actual batting average and slugging percentage this season tell us that the contact he's making is reflective of the actual stats he's putting up. There is no mirage -- he's hitting the ball in a way that he should be slugging above .600 and batting above .300. That's more evidence that this isn't a fluke.

3) He's being more aggressive

So, what exactly has he changed? How does a player whose career-high batting average was .261 and slugging percentage was .466 suddenly start hitting .338 and slugging .692?

One clear alteration in approach has been his aggressiveness. Swinging more frequently may sound counterintuitive -- more like a way to break something than fix it -- but it’s working for Bell. He’s swinging at the first pitch 39.2 percent of the time this season. Entering 2019, he’d swung at the first pitch 27.5 percent of the time in his career.

He’s feasted on those first pitches, hitting .441 with an .882 slugging percentage when he makes contact. Two of his home runs have come on the first pitch, too, along with seven doubles and a triple.

Overall, he’s swinging at 49.7 percent of pitches he sees. Entering 2019, he had a 43.4 percent swing rate. In his case, swinging more frequently has put him in a better position to drive the ball, giving him more chances to do so. A downfall has been a slight uptick in strikeout rate, but given the production he’s put up, it’s hardly been an issue.