Box-Toppers Toppers Box
Today’s key Box-Toppers numbers. Click links to jump to charts elsewhere on this page.▪️ Top 10 players in 2023 Box-Toppers points.
▪️ A B-T look at Opening Day pitching matchups.
▪️ Subscribe to Box-Toppers Email Newsletter.
▪️ Buy me a coffee & support Box-Toppers.
Welcome to Opening Day of the 2024 Major League Baseball season.
This marks the start of Box-Toppers’ 30th season tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score statistics. Here is an introduction to Box-Toppers:
What’s the most important thing in baseball?
Winning the game, right?
Box-Toppers top 10 players of 2023
Players are ranked by Box-Toppers points (BTP) earned in the regular season.FINAL STANDINGS
| Player | Pos | Team | BTP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Strider, Spencer 4626 | pi sp | atl nl | 21.1 |
| 2 | Bassitt, Chris 3413 | pi sp | tor al | 20.1 |
| 3 | Ohtani, Shohei 3933 | pi sp dh | ana al | 19.4 |
| 4 | Gausman, Kevin 3191 | pi sp | tor al | 18.7 |
| 5 | Luzardo, Jesus 4282 | pi sp | fla nl | 17.8 |
| 6 | Peralta, Freddy 3965 | pi sp | mil nl | 17.7 |
| 7 | Cole, Gerrit 3232 | pi sp | nyy al | 17.0 |
| 8 | Gallen, Zac 4171 | pi sp | ari nl | 16.7 |
| 9 | Castillo, Luis Miguel 3840 | pi sp | sea al | 16.1 |
| 10 | Scherzer, Max 2588 | pi sp | tex al | 15.4 |
About Box-Toppers’ team abbreviations
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But what baseball statistic provides an indication of the player who most contributed to the win? Logically, you might answer “the win” statistic, but it only applies to pitchers. Plus, in some circumstances, the win is not awarded to the pitcher most responsible for earning the win, but simply the pitcher who was in the game when the team took the lead.
Click on the graphic to see the step-by-step method of how Box-Toppers Player of the Game and Player of the Day honorees are determined.
Box-Toppers provides a metric that determines the player (pitcher or batter) who most contributes to their team’s win. 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.
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. As the season progresses, a player’s Box-Toppers point total can be compared with other players to determine the best player on a given team, at a given position—or even the best overall player in the game.
For example, in 2023, Braves pitcher Spencer Strider led all players with 21.1 Box-Toppers points. Strider earned his 21.1 Box-Toppers points by being Box-Toppers Player of the Game in 17 of the Braves’ wins, earning 1.0 Box-Toppers point each time. Two of those 17 times, Strider earned 1.0 bonus point for being Box-Toppers overall Player of the Day. Three of those 17 times, he earned 0.7 bonus points for being Box-Toppers National League Player of the Day.
Strider is the Braves opening day starter Thursday against the Phillies.
Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995, posting in 2013
The Box-Toppers metric has been used since the start of the 1995 season to track players. Randy Johnson, who retired in 2009, leads all players in career Box-Toppers points since tracking began with 282.5.
This is the 12th season for the Box-Toppers.com website. Box-Toppers’ first blog post was on March 25, 2013.
We will endeavor to continue our daily and weekly posts. On the website and the blog, Box-Toppers has tracked each day’s games, showing each game’s Player of the Game and the top overall Player of the Day.
The website has also featured regular posts weekly of overall Box-Toppers points leaders and team standings. These have usually posted on Fridays and start a few weeks into the season as enough data is available to begin showing meaningful trends and results.
Box-Toppers also features posts at other times, especially when the statistic reflects trends in the game. On Twitter (X) and Facebook, we’ll include shorter posts about newsworthy players, their standing in Box-Toppers points and often, how they compare in the stat to other players.
Stay up to date with Box-Toppers at the website, on Twitter (X), Facebook, through the RSS feed or subscribe to the Box-Toppers Email Newsletter.
Box-Toppers strives for accuracy. See a mistake in a post? A wrong name, wrong team, grammar error, spelling goof, etc.? Thanks for pointing it out! Contact Box-Toppers here. Let's fix it and make it right.
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Related
Box-Toppers top players of 2023: Top 10 overall players, plus the top 10 NL and AL pitchers and batters
Top 10 overall players, top 10 pitchers & batters since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995
Season-by-season leaders: A look at who led their league’s pitchers and batters in Box-Toppers points each season from 1995 to 2023
Box-Toppers marks 25th anniversary from April 25, 2020. A look back at the very first Player of the Game winners and a look at Box-Toppers’ history—what has remained a constant and what has changed, written in the midst of a baseball season-delaying, world-uncertaining pandemic.
A Box-Toppers look at Thursday’s 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.NOTE: Two games have already been postponed due to bad weather—Brewers at Mets and Braves at Phillies. Both games are rescheduled for Friday with the same starting pitchers.
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| Game | Starter | ’24 | ’23-24 | ’19‑24 | Career |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| MIL | Peralta, Freddy 3965 | 0.0 | 17.7 | 47.8 | 56.5 |
| NYM | Quintana, Jose 3040 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 22.8 | 83.1 |
| LAA | Sandoval, Patrick 4357 | 0.0 | 3.0 | 14.0 | 14.0 |
| BAL | Burnes, Corbin 4029 | 0.0 | 11.7 | 52.9 | 55.9 |
| ATL | Strider, Spencer 4626 | 0.0 | 21.1 | 34.5 | 34.5 |
| PHI | Wheeler, Zack 3204 | 0.0 | 14.7 | 60.2 | 83.6 |
| DET | Skubal, Tarik 4414 | 0.0 | 10.7 | 30.1 | 30.1 |
| CHW | Crochet, Garrett 4434 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |
| MIN | Lopez, Pablo 4028 | 0.0 | 13.4 | 45.5 | 47.2 |
| KC | Ragans, Cole 4889 | 0.0 | 4.4 | 4.4 | 4.4 |
| NYY | Cortes, Nestor 4160 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 24.4 | 24.4 |
| HOU | Valdez, Framber 4048 | 0.0 | 10.0 | 39.4 | 41.4 |
| PIT | Keller, Mitch 4230 | 0.0 | 13.0 | 20.0 | 20.0 |
| MIA | Luzardo, Jesus 4282 | 0.0 | 17.8 | 33.9 | 33.9 |
| SF | Webb, Logan 4258 | 0.0 | 12.4 | 40.3 | 40.3 |
| SD | Darvish, Yu 3003 | 0.0 | 7.0 | 57.0 | 131.0 |
| STL | Mikolas, Miles 3034 | 0.0 | 6.7 | 21.8 | 36.2 |
| LAD | Glasnow, Tyler 3948 | 0.0 | 12.4 | 42.8 | 48.8 |
| TOR | Berrios, Jose 3791 | 0.0 | 10.4 | 42.5 | 69.3 |
| TB | Eflin, Zach 3679 | 0.0 | 12.0 | 30.8 | 43.5 |
| WSH | Gray, Josiah 4503 | 0.0 | 5.7 | 11.4 | 11.4 |
| CIN | Montas, Frankie 3803 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 32.5 | 35.5 |
| CHC | Steele, Justin 4415 | 0.0 | 11.1 | 19.1 | 19.1 |
| TEX | Eovaldi, Nathan 2928 | 0.0 | 9.7 | 34.8 | 69.3 |
| CLE | Bieber, Shane 4005 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 53.9 | 60.3 |
| OAK | Wood, Alex 3246 | 0.0 | 3.0 | 23.0 | 63.1 |
| BOS | Bello, Brayan 4727 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 3.0 | 3.0 |
| SEA | Castillo, Luis Miguel 3840 | 0.0 | 16.1 | 54.5 | 70.9 |
| COL | Freeland, Kyle 3763 | 0.0 | 5.7 | 20.7 | 39.1 |
| ARI | Gallen, Zac 4171 | 0.0 | 16.7 | 51.1 | 51.1 |
* Player has yet to earn any career Box-Toppers points.
What are those numbers after players' names?
Chart is sortable. Click a column header to re-sort the chart by the values in that column. Refresh page to restore chart to default, game-by-game view.
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