Updated Top 250 fantasy baseball rankings: First-half letdowns – ESPN.com – ESPN

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It’s the midway point of the season, however you choose to look at it: mathematical (this past Saturday) or traditional (the upcoming All-Star break).

That makes it an ideal time to reflect and perhaps hand out midseason hardware. For today’s edition, though, I’m taking the optimist’s approach to seemingly pessimistic situations: the first half’s fantasy disappointments, but taken from the angle of measuring their bounce-back potential.

Robinson Cano: He was the No. 12 player selected on average during the preseason, and as of the first week of July, he found himself ranked outside the top 400 overall on our Player Rater. Cano plummeted in the rankings accordingly, but within the past week it was reported that he had been dealing with a stomach ailment since last August.

These are Cano’s statistics from Aug. 15, 2014, through the end of this June: 116 games, .250/.298/.366 rates, 8 HRs, 40 RBIs.

These were his stats in his 116 games preceding that: .330/.398/.472 rates, 10 HRs, 67 RBIs.

This isn’t to treat Cano’s comments as the explanation for his early-season struggles, but they’re a possible one, especially in light of his improving play during the past week-plus: 12-for-30 (.400 AVG), four multihit games and two home runs. And let’s face it, after three months of disappointing play, any production that provides a more promising path to future value is a welcome one. For Cano’s sake, let’s hope things continue to improve for him in the coming weeks; after all, players are people too. But from a fantasy-valuation standpoint, it makes me more apt to lighten the weight of Cano’s past-three-months stats in formulating his second-half projection, which explains his significant increase in the rankings this week published below.

Ian Desmond: Remarkably, he finds himself ranked even lower on the Player Rater at midseason than Cano, but in Desmond’s case, he hasn’t shown signs of improvement in recent days. Since June 1, in fact, he’s a .149/.175/.254 hitter with 41 strikeouts compared to three walks in 31 games, causing him to drop to seventh in the lineup most nights and held out of the lineup in three of the Washington Nationals’ past 17 contests.

Desmond has apparently been working on tweaking his batting stance, and his manager Matt Williams has suggested probable causes for Desmond’s struggles, but without any sign of imminent improvement, he’s a difficult player to keep around in shallow mixed formats. He doesn’t even possess a clear second-half history; he was a superior fantasy player in the first half in both 2012 and 2013 and his halves were somewhat close in value in 2014.

Carlos Santana: His first half has been especially disappointing in light of his strong final four months to 2014 — .266/.384/.488 rates in 102 games — which coincided with his permanent move to first base. This season he has failed to maintain that pace, and has slumped to .176/.263/.250 numbers with a 26.3 percent strikeout rate in his past 20 games. That K rate is the troubling sign, considering that Santana’s only struck out at least 20 percent of the time once in his career (20.2 percent, in 2011). There have been no indications that either the back or wrist injuries that bothered him in May remain, and it’s rare that 29-year-olds with the kind of plate discipline that Santana has decline in performance this swiftly. He warrants more patience than the other names on this list, though, with a key selling point being a favorable history of strong finishes: His career second-half OPS is 70 points higher than his first-half.

Starlin Castro: In many ways, it could be argued that Castro never really arrived as a fantasy standout; he had very good seasons in both 2011 and 2012, but hasn’t been the same in two-and-a-half seasons since. This year, as a 25-year-old, he’s off to his worst start yet, and his 4.0 percent walk rate would be the lowest he has had at any professional stop he has made in his career. Castro is also hitting more grounders than he ever has before and generating weaker contact than usual, making the hope of a 10-homer second half slim. He’s more middle-infield material for the rest of the season, as his ranking below reflects.

Gregory Polanco: He has been one of the most disappointing players of the past month, batting .159/.257/.250 with zero home runs and one stolen base (in four tries) in his past 27 games, and if not for the injury to Starling Marte, might be a candidate for a minor league demotion. Marte remains day-to-day, so that prospect remains, but Polanco has made back-to-back starts as the Pittsburgh Pirates’ leadoff man, which only helps mask the fact that he has performed so poorly for his fantasy owners of late. He’s struggling mightily against lefties (.119 batting average with zero extra-base hits in 46 trips to the plate) and breaking balls (.196 average and 24 of his 60 Ks) which hints that he has significantly greater adjustments to be made than an overnight fix.

New ESPN position eligibility

The following players added new position eligibility within the past week. As a reminder, position players need to appear 10 times at a new position to gain in-season eligibility, while pitchers need to make three starts to earn starting-pitching eligibility or five relief appearances to earn relief-pitching eligibility.

Mike Broadway (RP), Pedro Ciriaco (3B), Josh Collmenter (RP), Chris Davis (OF), Felix Doubront (RP), Hector Gomez (3B), Marwin Gonzalez (3B), Roberto Hernandez (RP), Chris Johnson (1B), Josh Smith (SP).

The following players are within two games of earning new eligibility, with their total games played noted at the listed position: Joaquin Arias (SS, 8 games), Tim Beckham (SS, 9 games), Brandon Belt (OF, 9 games), Andres Blanco (2B, 8 games), Pedro Ciriaco (3B, 9 games), Jake Elmore (3B, 8 games), Wilmer Flores (2B, 9 games), Logan Forsythe (3B, 8 games), Hector Gomez (3B, 9 games), Marwin Gonzalez (3B, 8 games), Alex Guerrero (3B, 9 games), Corey Hart (1B, 8 games), Brock Holt (SS, 8 games), Chris Johnson (1B, 8 games), Pete Kozma (2B, 9 games; 3B, 8 games), Rey Navarro (2B, 9 games), Kris Negron (OF, 9 games), Andrew Romine (1B, 9 games), Luis Sardinas (2B, 8 games), Cory Spangenberg (3B, 9 games), Justin Turner (1B, 9 games).

Going-forward rankings: Week 14

Listed below are my updated, going-forward rankings. These are based upon an ESPN standard league of 10 teams and Rotisserie 5×5 scoring. Click here to see these rankings sorted by position.