Box-Toppers favors the surging New York Mets in the National League Championship Series over the injury-depleted Los Angeles Dodgers.
While the Dodgers are the NL’s highest seed in the postseason and while they feature Shohei Ohtani, the NL Box-Toppers points leader among batters, their starting pitching lineup, once considered their greatest asset, has become threadbare this postseason due to numerous injuries.
Logo source: Chris Creamer’s SportsLogos.net.
And though the Mets are the lowest-seeded of the six NL playoff teams, they rank just above the Dodgers in Box-Toppers team rankings, in seventh overall with 113.8 Box-Toppers points vs. the Dodgers in eighth with 113.7. In addition, the Mets knocked off two teams in the postseason that were both higher postseason seeds and were both the top two overall teams in Box-Toppers team rankings.
How did they get here
The Dodgers won the NL West Division and earned the top seed among NL teams in the postseason with baseball’s best winning percentage (.605). As top seed, they earned a bye from the Wild Card round of the playoffs and faced the San Diego Padres in the NL Division Series. (The Padres defeated the Atlanta Braves in the Wild Card round). The Dodgers beat the Padres in the NLDS in five games, 3-2.
The Mets finished third in the NL East with a .549 winning percentage, six games behind the Philadelphia Phillies. They had the same winning percentage as the Atlanta Braves, who ranked ahead of them, earning the fifth NL playoff seed on a head-to-head tiebreaker. As sixth seed in the NL playoffs, the Mets faced the third-seed Milwaukee Brewers in the Wild Card round, defeating them in three games, 2-1. (The Brewers ranked second overall in 2024 Box-Toppers team rankings.) The Mets then defeated the Phillies in the NLDS in four games, 3-1. The Phillies were the NL second-seeded postseason team, but ranked first among all teams in Box-Toppers rankings.
Both teams Box-Toppers team rankings
Both teams’ accumulated Box-Toppers point totals for the regular season are 0.1 points apart, the closest of any two of the 30 teams in 2024 team rankings.
Both teams are the two lowest-ranked teams of all six NL postseason teams. Here are the NL playoff teams in order of their 2024 regular season Box-Toppers team ranking:
Phillies 124.9 Box-Toppers points
Brewers 123.7
Padres 121.8
Braves 118.9
Mets 113.8
Dodgers 113.7
While you might expect the Dodgers to lead all teams in Box-Toppers points due to their superior winning percentage, they shed players later in the season who had earned Box-Toppers points, helping them to win games earlier in the season, which reduced their team Box-Toppers point total.
For example, the Dodgers traded starting pitcher James Paxton, who had earned 6.0 points, to the Red Sox, they traded outfielder Jason Heyward (3.5 points) to the Astros and they waived infielder Amed Rosario (2.5 points). None of the players earned additional points after the Dodgers let them go. While none of the players by themselves earned significant points, those three alone added up to 12.0, which would have given the Dodgers 125.7 points for the season, putting them ahead of the first-place Phillies (124.9).
Key 18 players
The Mets have the Box-Toppers points advantage among the key 18 players on the roster, which include the likely nine starting batters, three key bench players, three top starting pitchers, their top closing pitcher and two other key pitchers and/or relievers. Those key 18 players for each team are listed in the chart. Among those 18 players, the Mets have 85.7 Box-Toppers points compared to 74.1 for the Dodgers.
Top 3 starting pitchers
The Mets hold the advantage on top three starters—32.1 points vs. 20.1 points.
Top starting pitcher in the series is Sean Manaea of the Mets, whose 15.4 Box-Toppers points is 11th among all players and sixth among NL pitchers.
Dodgers starting pitcher Jack Flaherty has 12.0 Box-Toppers points, 34th overall and 17th among NL pitchers.
The Mets’ next-highest-ranked starting pitchers are:
Jose Quintana, 10.0 Box-Toppers points, 58th overall and 25th among NL pitchers.
Luis Severino, 6.7 points, 111th overall, 45th among NL pitchers.
The Dodgers’ next-highest-ranked starting pitchers are:
Yoshinobu Yamamoto, 6.4 points, 121st overall, 48th among NL pitchers.
Walker Buehler, 1.7 points, 524th overall, 149th among NL pitchers.
Both Yamamoto and Buehler have low point totals because they spent significant time on the injured list in 2024. Dodgers key starters have also been injured much of the season, missing time in the postseason, including Tyler Glasnow (11.7 points, 19th among NL pitchers), Gavin Stone (9.0 points, 31st among NL pitchers) and Clayton Kershaw (2.0 points, 114th among NL pitchers). (Kershaw is the active leader in career points with 272.4, which is second-most among all players since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995.)
Three starting pitchers in the series have already won Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors in the postseason:
Quintana won twice: Oct. 3 in the Wild Card Round and Oct. 9 in the NLDS.
Manaea won Oct. 8 in the NLDS.
Yamamoto won Oct. 11 in the NLDS.
Starting 9 batters
The Dodgers hold the advantage with its nine starting batters accumulating 38.5 points compared to the Mets’ 34.4.
The series features the top two National League batters in Box-Toppers points for 2024:
Designated hitter Shohei Ohtani leads Dodgers batters and all NL batters with 11.0 Box-Toppers points, 41st among all players.
Shortstop Francisco Lindor leads Mets batters with 10.9 points, finishing just behind Ohtani in second among NL batters and 45th overall.
All other nine starting batters for both teams, their 2024 Box-Toppers point totals and overall rankings are included in the chart.
Key bench players
The Dodgers have a slight edge among bench players (5.5 points to 4.5 points). Enrique Hernandez of the Dodgers has the most 2024 Box-Toppers points of those six players (4.5 points, 39th among NL batters), the rest of whom are listed in the chart.
Key relievers
The Mets hold an advantage among key relievers. Their top three relievers have 14.7 Box-Toppers points vs. 10.0 for the top three Dodgers relievers.
Mets closer Edwin Diaz has 4.0 Box-Toppers points, 16th among NL closers.
Mets top reliever is Jose Butto, who earned 6.0 points in 2024, second among NL middle relievers.
Evan Phillips is top Dodgers reliever in 2024 Box-Toppers points with 5.0, ninth among NL closing pitchers. (Phillips last earned Player of the Game honors as a closer on June 20.)
Addendum: Late roster moves
Both teams made roster additions after this post was complete that made minor alterations to both the Mets’ and Dodgers’ Box-Toppers point totals.
Jeff McNeil returned from injury and became a late addition to the Mets’ NLCS roster. He earned 4.0 Box-Toppers points in 2024, 252nd among all players and 51st among NL batters. He would take the spot as top bench player for the Mets, as one of the three pinch hitters (PH) in the player comparisons chart, bumping Harrison Bader (who is still on the NLCS roster).
That increases the Mets Box-Toppers point total for their starting 18 players from 85.7 to 89.7 and gives the key bench players an increase from 4.5 to 8.5.
Dodgers shortstop Miguel Rojas, injured during the NLDS against the Padres, was left off the team’s NLCS roster, his spot filled by Kevin Kiermaier. The Dodgers moved Tommy Edman from the outfield to replace Rojas at shortstop and moved Enrique Hernandez from his bench spot to fill Rojas’s spot at centerfield.
Rojas earned 4.5 Box-Toppers points in 2024, while Kiermaier earned 2.5, 391st among all players and 94th among NL batters. That will reduce the Dodgers’ starting 18 Box-Toppers point total from 74.1 to 72.1. The Dodgers’ starting nine batters point total of 38.5 stays the same with Enrique Hernandez’s 4.5 points replacing Rojas’s 4.5 points. However, the Dodgers’ point total for key bench players decreases from 5.5 to 3.5 with Kiermaier’s 2.5 points replacing Hernandez’s 4.5 points.
In the end, the late roster changes give the Mets a bigger overall advantage in the series:
They now lead in combined Box-Toppers points for the 18 most key players: 89.7 to 72.1.
They now lead in combined Box-Toppers points for key bench players: 8.5 to 3.5.
Conclusion
If the Dodgers were healthy, they would have the advantage over the Mets in this series. However, the Dodgers were also health-disadvantaged against the Padres, who ranked ahead of them in Box-Toppers team rankings, and managed to vanquish them in five games in the division series.
Outside of Manaea, neither team has top-flight starting pitching, making it a series featuring mix-and-match relievers, with lots of commercial breaks featuring dreaded political ads with long games and sleep deprivation likely.
It is great to see Shohei Ohtani in the postseason. He was Box-Toppers Player of the Game in Game 1 of the NLDS against the Padres. But though he is the likely NL Most Valuable Player in 2024, he has run hot and cold this season. (He ranked outside the top 10 NL batters in 2024 Box-Toppers points until Sept. 19, earning 7.0 of his 11.0 points in the final month of the season.) In his final four games of the NLDS, Ohtani went 2-for-15 with eight strikeouts.
It is also great to see Francisco Lindor in the postseason. He nearly dethroned Ohtani for the Box-Toppers points lead among NL batters on the final day of the season, finishing second with 10.9.
The Mets hold the edge against the banged-up Dodgers in the series.
NL Championship Series player comparisons
Likely starting players for the Mets and Dodgers listed by position with their Box-Toppers point total (BTP) for the 2024 regular season and their overall rank among all players. Includes likely starting nine batters, three likely bench batters, three starting pitchers, top closing pitcher and two extra pitchers:| Pos | Mets | BTP | Rank | Pos | Dodgers | BTP | Rank | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1B | Pete Alonso | 5.0 | 165 | 1B | Freddie Freeman | 5.5 | 159 | |
| 2B | Jose Iglesias | 0.0 | 431 | 2B | Gavin Lux | 1.0 | 679 | |
| SS | Francisco Lindor | 10.9 | 45 | SS | Miguel Rojas | 4.5 | 217 | |
| 3B | Mark Vientos | 4.5 | 220 | 3B | Max Muncy | 2.0 | 416 | |
| CA | Francsico Alvarez | 2.5 | 365 | CA | Will Smith | 4.0 | 243 | |
| CF | Tyrone Taylor | 3.0 | 301 | CF | Tommy Edman | 2.0 | 417 | |
| LF | Brandon Nimmo | 4.5 | 210 | LF | Teoscar Hernandez | 5.0 | 182 | |
| RF | Starling Marte | 3.0 | 319 | RF | Mookie Betts | 3.5 | 273 | |
| DH | J.D. Martinez | 1.0 | 592 | DH | Shohei Ohtani | 11.0 | 41 | |
| PH | Jesse Winker | 2.5 | 379 | PH | Enrique Hernandez | 4.5 | 213 | |
| PH | Luis Torrens | 2.0 | 481 | PH | Andy Pages | 1.0 | 762 | |
| PH | Harrison Bader | 0.0 | 841 | PH | Chris Taylor | 0.0 | 814 | |
| SP | Sean Manaea | 15.4 | 11 | SP | Jack Flaherty | 12.0 | 34 | |
| SP | Jose Quintana | 10.0 | 58 | SP | Yoshinobu Yamamoto | 6.4 | 121 | |
| SP | Luis Severino | 6.7 | 111 | SP | Walker Buehler | 1.7 | 524 | |
| CP | Edwin Diaz | 4.0 | 250 | CP | Blake Treinen | 2.0 | 480 | |
| PI | Jose Buttó | 6.0 | 139 | PI | Evan Phillips | 5.0 | 190 | |
| PI | David Peterson | 4.7 | 202 | PI | Landon Knack | 3.0 | 337 | |
| Totals | 85.7 | Totals | 74.1 |
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Sunday’s pitching matchups (for more, see matchups chart):
NL Championship Series Game 1: Mets at Dodgers
Mets—Kodai Senga, 1.0 Box-Toppers point in 2024, 578th overall, 154th among NL pitchers.
Senga made just one appearance in the regular season. Early in the season, Senga was out with a shoulder injury and did not make his first start until July 26, when he exited after 5 1/3 innings with a calf strain that kept him out the rest of the season. He did earn Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors in that one appearance. Senga started NLDS Game 1 on Oct. 5, pitching only two innings.
Senga had 12.7 Box-Toppers points in 2023 with the Mets, 10th among NL pitchers and most among all Mets players.
Dodgers—Jack Flaherty, 12.0 points, 34th overall, 17th among NL pitchers.
Flaherty has made one appearance this postseason, starting NLDS Game 2 on Oct. 6, a loss to the Padres.
A Box-Toppers look at Sunday’s League Champsionship Series pitching matchups
A Box-Toppers look at the upcoming day’s probable pitching matchups. Teams are paired below with visiting teams on top and home teams on the bottom. Each team’s starting pitcher is shown with their Box-Toppers point total from 2024 (’24), this year and last year (’23-24), over a six-year period (’19-24) and their career point total.Back to top
| Game | Starter | ’24 | ’23‑24 | ’19‑24 | Career |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYM | Senga, Kodai 4762 | 1.0 | 13.7 | 13.7 | 13.7 |
| LAD | Flaherty, Jack 3971 | 12.0 | 16.0 | 44.2 | 57.3 |
* Player has yet to earn any career Box-Toppers points.
What are those numbers after players' names?
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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. (No Box-Toppers points are awarded in postseason games.)
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