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Though the All-Star Game isn't exactly played at the numerical halfway point of the season, in the minds of those who play and follow baseball, it serves as an important point of demarcation. Players who have performed brilliantly (or better than all of their teammates on dreadful teams) are rewarded with a spot in the Mid-Summer Classic. They are expected to continue at such a high level in the second half.

Expected.

While most perennial All-Stars typically keep up their quality of play because they're consistent high performers, more than a few All-Stars simply hit a wall after a noteworthy first half. Some manage to be pedestrian in the second half, but a few fall off a cliff, hardly resembling the players that they were in the first half. Think of Chris Capuano in 2006, who won 10 games for the Brewers by the All-Star break and afterward won just one more the rest of the season (and a total of 10 for the rest of his career with Milwaukee). Or his fellow All-Star Derrick Turnbow, who saved 23 games for the Brewers as he joined Capuano in Pittsburgh for the festivities but saved just one more the rest of 2006 (and a total of three before his MLB career ended in 2008).

Even for some superstars, sometimes a precipitous decline after an All-Star Game foretells something more. Take Nomar Garciaparra. After (what else?) the 2006 All-Star Game, his first for the National League and his sixth and last overall, his production began to significantly diminish. He would last two more injury-plagued seasons with the Dodgers and one more with the Oakland A's before moving on to ESPN. So the All-Star Game served at times as an alarm bell, and in these cases (over the past 10 years), they tolled the loudest - Our Top 10 Drop-Offs After the All-Star Game: