With Major League Baseball announcing finalists this week for major postseason awards, in preparation for next week’s award presentations, Box-Toppers is spending a few days going over its selections for those awards.
Box-Toppers MVP ballot
Here is a look at Box-Toppers’ 2023 Most Valuable Player ballot selections for the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) 2023 postseason awards. The ballot requires votes out to 10 places for each league’s top overall player.Players are shown with their team and their Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2023.
Note: Previous versions of this ballot showed incorrect players or Box-Toppers point totals in the bottom five on the NL MVP ballot. This has been corrected and updated.
| AL Most Valuable Player | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Shohei Ohtani | Angels | 19.4 |
| 2 | Kyle Tucker | Astros | 12.5 |
| 3 | Aaron Judge | Yankees | 12.0 |
| 4 | Chris Bassitt | Blue Jays | 20.1 |
| 5 | Kevin Gausman | Blue Jays | 18.7 |
| 6 | Gerrit Cole | Yankees | 17.0 |
| 7 | Luis Castillo | Mariners | 16.1 |
| 8 | Bobby Witt Jr. | Royals | 7.7 |
| 9 | Max Scherzer | Rangers | 15.4 |
| 10 | Brandon Drury | Angels | 7.5 |
| NL Most Valuable Player | |||
| Player | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Pete Alonso | Mets | 12.0 |
| 2 | Ronald Acuña Jr. | Braves | 10.7 |
| 3 | Spencer Strider | Braves | 21.1 |
| 4 | Freddie Freeman | Dodgers | 10.0 |
| 5 | Nolan Gorman | Cardinals | 10.0 |
| 6 | Christian Yelich | Brewers | 9.2 |
| 7 | Juan Soto | Padres | 9.0 |
| 8 | Jesus Luzardo | Marlins | 17.8 |
| 9 | Freddy Peralta | Brewers | 17.7 |
| 10 | Zac Gallen | Diamondbacks | 16.7 |
While MVP is traditionally a batter's award, it has been awarded to pitchers either when they have a dominant season, no batters particularly rise to the occasion—or both.
Sunday—Wrap up of all Box-Toppers selections plus a look at all awards finalists. This will include the awards reviewed over the three days, plus the awards for Managers of the Year and Relievers of the Year.
Here is part three for Saturday, a look at Box-Toppers’ choices for Most Valuable Player Awards in each league:
American League—Shohei Ohtani of the Angels.
National League—Pete Alonso of the Mets.
Ohtani is the favorite to win the AL award next week, while Alonso is not among the finalists for the NL award, which is expected to go to Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves.
Ohtani is Box-Toppers’ AL MVP
Ohtani led Box-Toppers player rankings for the majority of the season (96 days), but fell from first place Sept. 13 and finished in third overall with 19.4 Box-Toppers points, second among AL pitchers and first among AL batters.
Ohtani earned Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors 16 times in 2023—eight as a designated hitter and eight as a starting pitcher. He has 9.7 Box-Toppers points as a batter and 9.7 as a starting pitcher. Box-Toppers adds all his points together and counts the overall total when ranking him as an AL pitcher and an AL batter. If separated, Ohtani’s 9.7 points as a pitcher would rank 28th among AL pitchers and his 9.7 points as a batter would rank third among AL batters.
When figuring postseason awards in categories in which batters and pitchers are eligible for the same honor, Box-Toppers arbitrarily doubles the Box-Toppers point totals for batters to make it more difficult for pitchers to win what are often considered “batter’s awards” such as the MVP. For Ohtani, we double his 9.7 points earned as a pitcher (19.4) and add it to the 9.7 he earned as a batter, giving him a 29.1 adjusted total.
A look at AL MVP candidates behind Ohtani
That puts Ohtani atop Box-Toppers AL MVP list, ahead of the top two AL batters in Box-Toppers points and the top two AL pitchers in Box-Toppers points:
Kyle Tucker of the Astros was second on Box-Toppers’ AL MVP ballot, finishing second among AL batters with 12.5 Box-Toppers points. Doubling his points gave him 25.0, 4.1 behind Ohtani.
Aaron Judge of the Yankees was third on Box-Toppers’ AL MVP ballot, finishing third among AL batters with 12.0 Box-Toppers points. Doubling his points gave him 24.0, 5.1 behind Ohtani.
Blue Jays pitcher Chris Bassitt was fourth on Box-Toppers’ AL MVP ballot, leading AL pitchers in 2023 Box-Toppers points with 20.1.
Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman was fifth on Box-Toppers’ AL MVP ballot, second among AL pitchers in 2023 with 18.7 Box-Toppers points.
Ohtani was also Box-Toppers’ choice for AL MVP in 2022, but Aaron Judge of the Yankees won the award. In 2021, Ohtani won AL MVP over Box-Toppers’ choice that year, Jose Ramirez of Cleveland.
While the AL MVP is normally a batters’ award, among the 10 choices on Box-Toppers’ ballot, only five are batters and excluding Ohtani, only four are full-time batters. Pitchers have maintained their dominance in the past decade or so, making batters less relevant. Only two AL players earned more than 10 Box-Toppers points as batters this season—Tucker and Judge. (Ohtani earned 9.7 points as a batter.) Contrast that to 1995 to 2002, when each year 10 or more AL batters had 10.0 or more points.
Ohtani is Box-Toppers’ choice for AL MVP despite missing the end of the regular season. His pitching season was shut down when it was learned in late August he had a ligament tear in his pitching elbow. His season as a batter was shut down in mid-September with a strained right oblique. His last Box-Toppers Player of the Game honor as a pitcher came Aug. 9 and his last as a batter came Aug. 26.
Ohtani underwent Tommy John surgery to fix his elbow and is expected to be able to hit in 2024 but not be able to pitch again until 2025. He is a free agent, so his status of returning to the Angels is in doubt.
Alonso edges Acuña for Box-Toppers’ NL MVP
For much of the season, Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves was touted as NL MVP. He was piling up impressive stats and generating a huge buzz, so I was pleased when in late August, Acuna took the lead among NL batters in season Box-Toppers points. It looked like a Box-Toppers points category leader was going to win a postseason award.
But Acuna’s lead wasn’t large and his 10.7 Box-Toppers point total was destined to be among the lowest for a category leader in the 29 years of Box-Toppers tracking.
Acuna took the lead Aug. 31 among NL batters with his eighth Box-Toppers Player of the Game honor of the season. But that was his final Player of the Game honor of 2023. In the final month of the season, Acuna had a positive Box-Toppers game score in 10 of the Braves’ 14 wins but in each instance, another Braves player had a better game score and won Player of the Game honors.
I found myself almost rooting for Acuna to maintain or boost the lead, so it was a little discouraging to see a player from a losing team rise up to pass him—Pete Alonso of the Mets took the lead Sept. 27, in the final days of the season with 12.0 Box-Toppers points.
Alonso won Player of the Game honors nine times in 2023 vs. Acuna’s eight. Though he was on a team that won 75 games vs. the Braves’ 104, he was the NL batter who most often was the key player to his team’s wins.
Despite superior statistics, Acuña ranks behind Alonso for NL MVP
Acuna frankly smokes Alonso in a head-to-head statistical comparison, with more runs (149 vs. 92), hits (217 vs. 92), doubles (35 vs. 21), stolen bases (73 vs. 4), batting average (.338 vs. .217), on-base percentage (.416 vs. .318), slugging percentage (.596 vs. .504) and on-base plus slugging percentage (1.012 vs. .821). Alonso led in home runs (46 vs. 41) and runs batted in (118 vs. 106).
Acuna also had a higher aggregate Box-Toppers game score for the season of -171.0 vs. -235.0 for Alonso. That meant that Acuna had a higher average Box-Toppers game score of -1.08 per game compared to -1.53 for Alonso.
Alonso, however, simply had more times when he was the Mets player who was most key to winning a game. It helped that not many other Mets players rose to the occasion in a season that went the wrong way for the team. (They were Box-Toppers’ preseason World Series favorite, but ended up 25th in Box-Toppers team rankings.) Alonso was Mets’ second-ranked player behind pitcher Kodai Senga (12.7 points) and was one of only two Mets players at the end of the season with more than 6.0 Box-Toppers points. (Max Scherzer earned 10.4 points with the Mets, but finished the season with the Rangers, earning 15.4 total points. Also, Justin Verlander earned 6.0 points with the Mets, but finished the season with the Astros, earning 12.4 total points.)
Acuna was second among Braves players with 10.7 points, but finished far behind first place player, pitcher Spencer Strider (21.1), who earned Player of the Game honors six times in games in which Acuna had a Box-Toppers game score of 0.0 or better. That means some of Acuna’s potential Box-Toppers points were blocked by teammate Strider.
Acuna was also on a better team than the Mets, finishing second in team rankings with 125.4 points, compared to the Mets’ 25th-place finish with 66.4 points. More Braves players contributed to the team total (28 vs. 21 for the Mets) and more Braves players had 6.0 or more Box-Toppers points on the season (eight vs. two).
In other words, Acuna was on a team in which more players more widely contributed to team wins, which limited his Box-Toppers point total. Alonso was one of the few Mets’ stars and was more key in the rarer instances they were victorious.
A look at Box-Toppers’ top NL MVP candidates
Alonso edges out Acuna as our choice for the award and also ranks ahead of Box-Toppers’ third-place player on the ballot—Braves pitcher Spencer Strider, who earned 21.1 Box-Toppers points. We arbitrarily double Alonso’s 12.0 points when comparing him to pitchers, giving him the adjusted total of 24.0, ahead of Strider.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman is fourth on Box-Toppers’ NL MVP ballot (10.0 Box-Toppers points, with batter adjustment to 20.0). Cardinals second baseman Nolan Gorman is fifth (10.0 Box-Toppers points, with batter adjustment to 20.0). While Freeman and Gorman both earned 10.0 Box-Toppers points in 2023, Freeman ranks higher because he had more 2022 Box-Toppers points—8.5 vs. 5.0.
This is the second straight year Alonso has been Box-Toppers’ choice for NL MVP. In 2022, he led NL batters with 14.9 Box-Toppers points. But Paul Goldschmidt of the Cardinals won the award.
Finalists
Ohtani is among the three finalists for AL MVP but Alonso is not among the three finalists for the NL MVP award.
MVP Award finalists
Here are finalists for the Most Valuable Player awards to be given next week, as named by the Baseball Writers Association of America. Players are listed by their Box-Toppers point (BTP) total for 2023 and their Box-Toppers rank among their league’s top players.| AL finalists | Team | BTP | Rank* |
| Shohei Ohtani | Angels | 19.4 | ‑§ |
| Corey Seager | Rangers | 6.2 | 22 |
| Marcus Semien | Rangers | 6.7 | 15 |
| NL finalists | Team | BTP | Rank* |
| Ronald Acuña Jr. | Braves | 10.7 | 2 |
| Mookie Betts | Dodgers | 8.5 | 8 |
| Freddie Freeman | Dodgers | 10.0 | 3 |
| **Pete Alonso | Mets | 12.0 | 1 |
* Rank shows a player’s rank among their league’s batters.
** Player led the league category in Box-Toppers points but is not among the three finalists for the award.
§ Ohtani finished second among AL players in Box-Toppers points (19.4), earning 9.7 points as a pitcher and 9.7 as a batter. His 19.4 points was third overall, second among AL players and first among AL batters. However, if his batting and pitching points were separated, his 9.7 pitching points would rank 28th among AL pitchers and his 9.7 batting points would rank third among AL batters. In cases for awards, such as MVP, in which batters and pitchers directly compete, we arbitrarily double a batter’s Box-Toppers point total to compare them with pitchers. That doubles Ohtani’s 9.7 batting points, giving him an adjusted total of 29.1, giving him the lead among AL players.
Here’s a look at the three finalists for the award in both leagues and how they fared in Box-Toppers points:
American League
Shohei Ohtani of the Angels, 19.4 Box-Toppers points in 2023, third overall, second among AL pitchers and first among AL batters. He is favored to win the award.
Corey Seager of the Rangers, 6.2 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 128th overall, 22nd among AL batters. Not on Box-Toppers AL MVP ballot.
Marcus Semien of the Rangers, 6.7 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 113th overall, 15th among AL batters, first among Rangers batters. Not on Box-Toppers AL MVP ballot.
National League
Ronald Acuna Jr. of the Braves, 10.7 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 41st overall, second among NL batters. He ranked second on Box-Toppers’ NL MVP ballot.
Mookie Betts of the Dodgers, 8.5 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 72nd overall, eighth among NL batters, third among Dodgers batters, behind Freddie Freeman (10.0) and James Outman (8.7), both of whom are among the 10 on Box-Toppers’ NL MVP ballot. Betts ranked just outside the 10 on the ballot.
Freddie Freeman of the Dodgers, 10.0 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 50th overall, third among NL batters, first among Dodgers batters. Freeman is fourth place on Box-Toppers’ MVP ballot.
Ohtani, Acuna win in IBWAA MVP voting
IBWAA MVP winners: AL—Shohei Ohtani of the Angels. NL—Ronald Acuña Jr. of the Braves.
The finalists announced Monday are for awards voted on by the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA), which will be presented next week. The Most Valuable Player Award winners will be announced Thursday.
Box-Toppers voted for major postseason awards separately as a member of the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA). That group also cast ballots for all the major awards and announced its MVP winners Thursday:
American League:
1st Place: Shohei Ohtani, Angels—662 points
2nd Place: Corey Seager, Rangers—381 points
3rd Place: Julio Rodriguez, Mariners—263 points (Rodriguez earned 4.0 Box-Toppers points in 2023, 225th among all players and 45th among AL batters).
National League:
1st Place: Ronald Acuna Jr., Braves—599 points
2nd Place: Mookie Betts, Dodgers—439 points
3rd Place: Freddie Freeman, Dodgers- 351 points
IBWAA members include more than 800 baseball writers and content creators. Voting for full-season awards takes place prior to the start of the postseason each year, with selections announced in November.
About Box-Toppers
Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. Using standard box score statistics, Box-Toppers uses a simple formula to determine a Player of the Game for each Major League Baseball game played. That player is the person who contributed most to his team’s win. In regular season games, players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being named Player of the Game and can earn bonus points for being Player of the Day or top player or batter in their league for the day.
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