The All-Star break ... four agonizing days without box scores that matter. But it offers an organic opportunity to evaluate your fantasy team's needs if you're going to take a run at the championship. With the fantasy trade deadline looming in the not-too-distant future, Aug. 10 at 12 p.m. ET in ESPN standard leagues; a virtual All-Star roster of players making their way back from the disabled list; the bulk of high-profile prospects having been called up; and, knock on wood, some semblance of stability present among the closer community, we asked our fantasy rankers to shuffle their rankings one last time for the 2012 season.
Each one was asked to rank his top 250 players for an ESPN standard 10-team rotisserie league for the rest of the season. That means stats accrued to this point do not count (sorry, R.A. Dickey), and players aren't penalized for time they have missed to this date (welcome back, Matt Kemp!). For rankings of how players have performed to date, check out Player Rater. For our thoughts on how the rest of the season will play out, the results are below.
The rankers: Fantasy analysts Matthew Berry (MB), Eric Karabell (EK), Tristan H. Cockcroft (TC) and AJ Mass (AJM); fantasy editor Brendan Roberts (BR); and the Answer Guys' Dave Hunter (DH) and Shawn Cwalinski (SC). Overall rank and our mid-May rank (in parentheses, as of May 15) appear on the left. Positional eligibility is determined by ESPN standard game rules.