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The Milwaukee Brewers, the week’s hottest team, rise to lead this week’s Box-Toppers team rankings report.
The Brewers pass the Chicago White Sox, leaders for the past four weeks, but the White Sox maintain their lead among American League teams for the fifth straight week.
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Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom rises to first place in Box-Toppers weekly player rankings, passing last week’s leader, Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole.
Meanwhile, Adam Duvall of the Marlins rises to lead National League batters. Last week’s American League leaders remain the same: Cole leads AL pitchers and Xander Bogaerts of the Red Sox leads AL batters.
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Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole regains the lead in Box-Toppers weekly player rankings, passing previous leader, Rays pitcher Tyler Glasnow.
Meanwhile, Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom rises to lead National League pitchers, Nick Castellanos of the Reds rises to lead NL batters and Xander Bogaerts of the Red Sox continues to lead American League batters.
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The New York Yankees rise to lead this week’s Box-Toppers team rankings report, passing the Chicago White Sox, who led for the past three weeks.
Meanwhile, the San Diego Padres lead National League teams for the second week in a row and the Minnesota Twins are the week’s hottest team.
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The Chicago White Sox rise to lead Box-Toppers weekly player rankings report, while the Los Angeles Dodgers tumble from first to eighth place.
Also, the Philadelphia Phillies rise to lead National League teams in Box-Toppers rankings and the New York Yankees are the week’s hottest team.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers lead Box-Toppers weekly team rankings report for the third week in a row.
Meanwhile, the Chicago White Sox, the week’s hottest team, rise to lead American League teams.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers lead Box-Toppers weekly team rankings report for the second week in a row.
Meanwhile, the Oakland Athletics, the week’s hottest team, rise to lead American League teams.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers lead Box-Toppers first weekly team rankings report of the 2021 season.
Meanwhile, the Boston Red Sox lead American League teams. The Dodgers and the Cleveland Indians are the week’s hottest teams.
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Box-Toppers picks the Los Angeles Dodgers to repeat as World Series champions in 2021, beating the predicted American League champion team, the Chicago White Sox.
Box-Toppers projects the Dodgers will have the most wins among all teams—108—and will be the only team with more than 100 wins this season.
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The Los Angeles Dodgers are the top-ranked team in Box-Toppers’ 2021 preseason rankings. They also ended 2020 as Box-Toppers’ top-ranked team and World Series champions.
Meanwhile, the New York Mets made the biggest offseason improvement in players’ accumulated Box-Toppers points, while the Chicago Cubs saw the biggest decline.
Read MoreAnalyzing 26 years of Box-Toppers points leaders among American League and National League pitchers and batters each season.
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On Jan. 14, 2020, for the sixth time ever and the first time in more than 40 years, there was only one manager who had won a World Series on the team he currently managed (Dave Martinez of the Nationals).
Dave Roberts of the Dodgers became the second active incumbent World Series-winning manager on Oct. 27. Still, going from six such managers at the end of 2019 to just two in 2020 is the biggest-ever decline from the end of one season to the next.
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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.
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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 MoreThe Box-Toppers All-Star teams for 2018-19 consist of the best players at each position in each league over the previous two seasons.
Among the 27 players included on the American and National League teams are 18 who are also on Box-Toppers 2019 All-Star teams. Leading the 2018-19 All-Stars is Astros pitcher Justin Verlander, who ranks first in Box-Toppers points over 2018-19 with 51.8.
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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 MoreAnalyzing 25 years of Box-Toppers points leaders among American League and National League pitchers and batters each season.
Read MoreRandy Johnson leads all players in career Box-Toppers points and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Johnson earned 278.8 Box-Toppers points from the time Box-Toppers record keeping began in 1995 until he retired in 2009.
Read MoreAstros pitcher Justin Verlander is Box-Toppers’ top-ranked player over the past two seasons while Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer ranks first in points over the past six seasons.
Verlander earned 51.6 Box-Toppers points combined in 2018 and 2019 to lead all players in that span while Scherzer earned 134.3 points from 2014-2019, most in that span.
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As of Jan. 14, 2020, for the sixth time ever and the first time in more than 40 years, there is only one manager who has won a World Series on the team he is currently managing (Dave Martinez of the Nationals).
To close 2019, there were six managers who won a World Series with his current team. Going from six such managers to one is the biggest drop in one offseason since the World Series was first played in 1903.
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.