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Box-Toppers’ two top-ranked pitchers in 2020 won this season’s Cy Young Awards.
Shane Bieber of the Indians, who led all American League players with 11.4 Box-Toppers points, was named Cy Young winner in the AL. And Trevor Bauer of the Reds, who led all National League players with 10.0 Box-Toppers points, was named winner in the NL.
Read MoreA look at Box-Toppers All-Star teams for 2020 seems incomplete. So for added context, Box-Toppers is also looking at the All-Star teams over the past two seasons, 2019-20.
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Box-Toppers’ top-ranked team for 2020, the Los Angeles Dodgers, hold a considerable edge over the Tampa Bay Rays in the 2020 World Series.
Read MoreBoth National League Division Series begin Tuesday.
The Miami Marlins face the Atlanta Braves in one best-of-five game series and the San Diego Padres take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the other series.
Read MoreBoth American League Division Series begin Monday.
The Houston Astros face the Oakland Athletics in one best-of-five game series and the New York Yankees take on the Tampa Bay Rays in the other series.
Read MoreMike Piazza has the most Box-Toppers points of any catcher since tracking began in 1995.
Piazza, who played from 1992 to 2007 primarily for the Mets and Dodgers, but also for the Padres, Athletics and Marlins, earned 95.7 Box-Toppers points from 1995 to the end of his career. That is 13.1 more points than the second-place catcher since 1995, Joe Mauer (82.6).
Read MoreCubs pitcher Yu Darvish is Friday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day, rising to second place in season player rankings, first among National League pitchers.
Darvish struck out 11 over seven innings, allowing one run, one hit and no walks, in the 4-1 win over the Cardinals.
Read MoreWhat would the 2019 baseball season have looked like if only the final 60 games were played?
In many ways, it would have looked exactly like the entire, overall 2019 season: From about July 25 on in 2019, the Houston Astros were Box-Toppers’ top-ranked team and Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole was Box-Toppers’ top-ranked player. Both also led for the overall 2019 season.
Read MoreReds pitcher Trevor Bauer is Sunday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day, rising to ninth in Box-Toppers season player rankings.
Meanwhile, three other players rose into Box-Toppers season player rankings top 10 after earning Player of the Game honors Sunday—Aaron Judge of the Yankees rises to third place, Cubs pitcher Jon Lester rises to sixth and Athletics pitcher Chris Bassitt rises to seventh.
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Sixteen teams will make the postseason in 2020, rather than 10 under the previous plan. Eight qualifying teams in each league will be seeded from 1-8 and will faceoff in a best-of-three game Wild Card series played entirely at the home of the higher seed. Winners of the Wild Card will face off in the Division Series and the playoffs will proceed in a similar format to recent years.
One more revision for Box-Toppers postseason predictions now that the playoff format has expanded from 10 to 16 teams. While it provides six more postseason, it doesn’t change our pick of the Yankees over the Nationals in the World Series.
Read MoreDiamondbacks pitcher Merrill Kelly is Tuesday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day.
Kelly struck out seven over 7 2/3 innings, allowing one run, three hits and one walk, in the 4-1 win over the Rangers.
Read MoreTo get a reward, you need to complete a task. As other nations sacrificed to bring coronavirus case counts down, to flatten the curve, we didn’t. Cases increased. It seems crazy to reward ourselves now with baseball, putting many at risk, simply because we want it. We are not worthy.
And yet, here we are: So here’s an opening day introduction to Box-Toppers, tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score statistics. We begin our 26th season of tracking and our eighth season on the web.
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Imagine a Major League Baseball season beginning normally in the spring and ending on June 4.
That’s what the proposed pandemic-shortened 60-game schedule for 2020 will seem like.
In 2019, most clubs had played at least 60 games by June 4. That was barely more than a third of the regular season’s 162 games (37 percent). But for 2020, if all goes according to plan and the coronavirus doesn’t intervene to cut it even shorter, 60 games will be the complete, entire season.
Read MoreAlbert Pujols has the chance in 2020 to break the record for most consecutive seasons earning Box-Toppers points.
If Pujols of the Angels earns Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors once in 2020, he will have earned Box-Toppers points for 20 straight seasons (2001-2020). Pujols is currently tied for the longest streak at 19 seasons with three other players—CC Sabathia, Jason Giambi and Carlos Beltran.
Read MoreOn April 25, 1995, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Florida Marlins, 8-7, to open the 1995 regular season.
That game 25 years ago today marked the beginning of Box-Toppers. Through the past 25 seasons—1995 to 2019—I’ve analyzed each of the approximately 60,000 regular season games played, determining a top player in each game, rewarding points to the top players and tracking those points for the past quarter century.
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Box-Toppers picks the New York Yankees to beat the Washington Nationals in the 2020 World Series.
Box-Toppers projects the Yankees will have the most wins among all teams—110—and will be the only team with more than 100 wins this season.
Of course, these projections are made with the assumption that each team will play a complete 162-game schedule. That is thrown into doubt now that Coronavirus precautions have prompted baseball to suspend spring training and delay the start of the season.
Read MoreBox-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. Players earn Box-Toppers points 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.