A look at Box-Toppers 'all-time' top 100 players

In the midst of the long All-Star break, here is a look at the top 100 players since Box-Toppers record-keeping began in 1995: 

Randy Johnson has always been Box-Toppers' most dominant player. 

Until he retired in 2009, he was consistently earning Box-Toppers Player of the Day honors by being the player who most helped his team to wins by pitching a lot of innings and striking out a lot of batters. 

And even in retirement, Johnson with 278.8 Box-Toppers points, continues to dominate the "all-time" Box-Toppers list, with only one distant challenger, starting pitcher Pedro Martinez (also retired) with 244.8 points.

All other players are at least 84.7 Box-Toppers points behind Johnson (pitcher Curt Schilling, in third place, has 194.1 points). Earning 84.7 points for any single player would be a major career achievement, worthy of landing them on the "all-time" top 100 Box-Toppers list. (We put "all-time" in quotes, since we're not covering all of baseball history, but only the time since 1995 when Box-Toppers stats have been tracked.)

In the top 100 "all-time" chart, you'll see that 95 of the top 100 players have 84.7 or more career Box-Toppers points. If the player ranked in 19th place all time, Andy Pettitte, doubled his already impressive career Box-Toppers points total of 137.5, he still would not have enough points to catch Johnson. 

So what we're saying here is this: Randy Johnson—good. Very good. 

Alex Rodriguez is the batter with the highest Box-Toppers total on the "all-time" list with 176.3 points, fourth place overall. He is also the current leader among active players.

Rodriguez's Yankees teammate, C.C. Sabathia recently took over as the leader among active pitchers—he has 172.3 points (fifth place overall) and this season passed Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay with 170.7 points. Sabathia is also not far behind Rodriguez and could take the outright lead among all active players on the "all-time" list this season.

There are five active players in the "all-time" top 10 list, but not all of them can be considered extremely active. Rodriguez has been out all season and is preparing to come back from injury (and is under a cloud of suspicion that may get him suspended under baseball's performance enhancing drug policy). Halladay is out, perhaps for the season, rehabbing from shoulder surgery. Manny Ramirez (167.2 points, seventh place) is attempting a comeback and is in the minor leagues with the Texas Rangers. And Johan Santana (166.6 points, eighth place) is out for the season with injury and may be unable to return to pitch. 

Albert Pujols is two or three Player of the Game honors away from joining the top 10. He is in 11th place with 158.3 points, behind John Smoltz with 160.9 points. However, Pujols has only 2.5 Box-Toppers points this season at the All-Star break—if he doubles his season total, he won't reach Smoltz. 

There are 48 active players on the top 100 list (that number includes players such as Ramirez, who are in the minor leagues, or Halladay, on the disabled list). All other players are either listed as "free agents," (who either hope to come back to baseball or haven't said they are retired) are playing outside the Major Leagues (in Japan or an independent league) or have retired. Recent retirees (such as Derek Lowe, who told a reporter Thursday he is retired) are listed as "retired" in their team status in the top 100 list. Players with a blank team status retired in 2012 or earlier.

There are 16 players in the top 100 "all-time" list who are also in the top 100 list for 2013. They are all listed in the chart at the bottom of this post. They include:

• Miguel Cabrera, 3B, Tigers: 37th in all-time list with 112.2 points, 3rd in 2013 list with 13.4 points.
• Clayton Kershaw, PI, Dodgers, 73rd in all-time list with 93.1 points, 5th in 2013 list with 12.7. 
• Sabathia, PI, Yankees, 5th in the all-time list with 172.3 points, 94th in 2013 list with 4.7.

Pitchers narrowly outnumber batters in the "all-time" top 100 list. There are 53 pitchers vs. 47 batters on the list. However, in the top 100 list for 2013, pitchers far outnumbered batters—74 to 26. Why? It could be because pitchers burst onto the scene and tend to be very productive for a shorter period of time, while batters, while scoring relatively less in the short term, keep that level of production over a longer time and tend to catch up to pitchers' higher point totals. That's just a theory. But here is the breakdown of players on the "all-time" list by their primary position: 

• Starting pitchers: 49
• Outfielders: 17
• Designated hitters: 12
• Third basemen: 9
• First basemen: 7
• Closing pitchers: 4
• Second basemen: 1 (Jeff Kent)
• Catchers: 1 (Mike Piazza)
• Shortstops: 0

Keep in mind that these are only statistics since 1995. For many players who debuted before then (such as Johnson, Martinez, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux), their career Box-Toppers totals would likely be far higher if the years before 1995 were accounted for. On the other hand, for a player like Chipper Jones (ranked 15th), Box-Toppers covers virtually his entire career—he only played in eight games before 1995, so Box-Toppers covers 2,491 games of his 2,499-game career. 

If you note how the names are listed in the chart—some all lowercase, some properly capitalized, some with numbers after them—you might cringe at the inconsistencies if you were a copy editor. But there is an unintentional method to this madness. In early days of keeping the Box-Toppers database from 1995 to 1997, names were inputted quickly, often with no capitalization—Box-Toppers' e.e. cummings phase, if you will. In about 1997, names were pretty consistently properly capitalized. And in 1998, numbers were added at the ends of names to denote their order of first appearance in the Box-Toppers database (the first time they earned Player of the Game).

So today, when you see player names like "rivera, mariano," (now ranked 26th) you'll know that Rivera first appeared early in Box-Toppers history (in his case, the first year, 1995). "Ortiz, David," (properly capitalized) made his Box-Toppers debut in 1997 (now ranked 27th). And "Helton, Todd 1060," was one of the first players with the debut order number appended, when he first appeared in 1998 (now ranked 32nd).

While many notable players from the past 20 years appear on the top 100 list, others did not earn enough Box-Toppers points to make the cut. A couple of notables: 

• Mark McGwire had 77.3 points, in 112th place.
• Derek Jeter has 76.4 points, in 118th place. 

Box-Toppers points reward players who most help their team win the most games. Top players from the winning team of each game are determined by a formula using standard box score statistics. These top players earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point for being Player of the Game. Among each day's top players, bonus points are awarded for the top players and batters of the day in each league. Players accumulate points through the season to provide a data point for comparison, such as determining which players are most worthy as All-Stars or for postseason awards. 

What are those numbers after players' names?

How does Box-Toppers scoring work? 

Top 100 players since 1995

RANK	PLAYER	POS	TEAM	BTP (All-time)	BTP 2013
1	Johnson, randy	pi sp		278.8
2	Martinez, Pedro J.	pi sp		244.8
3	schilling, curt	pi sp		194.1
4	Rodriguez, Alex	3b dh	nyy al	176.3
5	Sabathia, C.C. 1492	pi sp	nyy al	172.3	4.7
6	Halladay, Roy 1178	pi sp	phi nl	170.7	1.0
7	Ramirez, manny	lf dh	tex al	167.2
8	Santana, Johan 1448	pi sp	nym nl	166.6
9	clemens, roger	pi sp		164.8
10	smoltz, john	pi sp		160.9
11	Pujols, Albert 1438	dh 1b	ana al	158.3	2.5
12	mussina, Mike	pi sp		155.6
13	bonds, barry	lf		153.2
14	maddux, greg	pi sp		151.7
15	jones, chipper	3b	retired	149.0
16	Vazquez, Javier 1146	pi sp		148.3
17	thome, jim	dh	free agent	146.7
18	Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	atl nl	143.3	5.7
19	pettitte, andy	pi sp	nyy al	137.5	3.0
20	giambi, jason	dh	cle al	131.4	1.5
21	hoffman, trevor	pi cp		129.4
22	Guerrero, Vladimir	dh	indy league	128.3
23	Oswalt, Roy 1469	pi sp	col nl	127.2
24	Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	chi al	124.1	6.0
25	sheffield, gary	lf		124.1
26	rivera, mariano	pi cp	nyy al	122.4	1.0
27	Ortiz, David	dh	bos al	122.2	8.2
28	Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	sea al	118.1	10.4
29	Delgado, Carlos	1b		117.7
30	Zito, Barry 1415	pi sp	sf nl	117.4	3.0
31	Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	oak al	116.3	6.7
32	Helton, Todd 1060	1b	col nl	114.9
33	Carpenter, Chris	pi sp	stl nl	113.3
34	sosa, sammy	rf		113.2
35	Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	phi nl	113.1	9.4
36	brown, kevin j.	pi sp		112.8
37	Cabrera, Miguel 1776	3b	det al	112.2	13.4
38	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	det al	112.2	8.0
39	glavine, tom	pi sp		110.6
40	kent, jeff	2b		109.7
41	Wagner, Billy	pi cp		108.7
42	Millwood, Kevin	pi sp	retired	108.3
43	Berkman, Lance 1261	dh rf	tex al	108.1	1.0
44	Beckett, Josh 1544	pi sp	lad nl	107.2
45	Burnett, A.J. 1300	pi sp	pit nl	107.1	3.7
46	thomas, frank	dh		106.2
47	moyer, jamie	pi sp		104.0
48	Weaver, Jered 2178	pi sp	ana al	103.0	4.0
49	Tejada, Miguel	3b ss	kc al	102.3
50	griffey, ken jr.	cf		102.2
51	wakefield, tim	pi sp		101.4
52	schmidt, jason	pi sp		101.2
53	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	lad nl	100.5	10.7
54	bagwell, jeff	1b		100.4
55	walker, larry	rf		100.1
56	Konerko, Paul 1107	dh 1b	chi al	99.7	1.0
57	Hunter, Torii 1190	rf	det al	99.4	1.0
58	edmonds, jim	cf rf ph		98.8
59	Buehrle, Mark 1407	pi sp	tor al	98.3	3.7
60	Rolen, Scott	3b	free agent	97.6
61	Jones, Andruw	dh lf ph	japan	96.5
62	Wolf, Randy 1235	pi sp	free agent	96.4
63	Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	sf nl	95.9	5.7
64	piazza, mike	ca		95.7
65	Abreu, Bobby	dh	free agent	95.5
66	nomo, hideo	pi sp		95.5
67	Ordonez, Magglio	rf		94.5
68	Dempster, Ryan 1109	pi sp	bos al	94.2	3.0
69	williams, bernie	rf		93.8
70	Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	phi nl	93.7	5.7
71	Beltran, Carlos 1194	rf	stl nl	93.4	1.5
72	Lilly, Ted 1452	pi sp	lad nl	93.3
73	Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	93.1	12.7
74	giles, brian	rf		92.5
75	Wood, Kerry	pi sp cp		92.4
76	Ramirez, Aramis 1364	3b	mil nl	92.3
77	Cain, Matt 2081	pi sp	sf nl	92.0	4.0
78	Glaus, Troy 1132	3b		91.6
79	Haren, Danny 1787	pi sp	dc nl	91.5	1.7
80	Lowe, Derek	pi sp	retired	91.5	1.0
81	Dunn, Adam 1512	dh 1b	chi al	90.8	4.2
82	Ibanez, Raul 1137	lf dh	sea al	89.7	2.0
83	Teixeira, Mark 1738	1b	nyy al	87.8	1.5
84	alou, moises	lf		87.5
85	belle, albert	rf		87.5
86	wells, david	pi sp		87.5
87	castilla, vinny	3b		86.9
88	Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	tex al	86.6	5.7
89	anderson, garret	dh lf		86.5
90	leiter, al	pi sp		86.2
91	Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	bos al	85.7	5.7
92	Lee, Carlos 1246	lf	retired	85.5
93	Lackey, John 1640	pi sp	bos al	85.4	4.0
94	Zambrano, Carlos 1676	pi sp	phi nl	85.2
95	radke, brad	pi sp		85.0
96	Howard, Ryan 2040	1b	phi nl	84.0	3.5
97	Martinez, Tino	1b		81.4
98	Lee, Derrek	1b	free agent	81.3
99	percival, troy	pi cp		80.7
100	Holliday, Matt 1836	lf	stl nl	80.3	4.0

BTP (All-time): Box-Toppers points accumulated since 1995, when this stat-keeping method began. 

BTP 2013: Box-Toppers points for the 2013 season. 

Note: The team column shows a player's current team status. Active players are listed on either their current MLB team or where they are currently playing (i.e. Japan or an independent league). Other players are listed as "free agent" or "retired." Players who have retired in 2012 or before are listed with no team affiliation. 

Overlapping players

Players on both the Top 100 list since 1995 and Top 100 of 2013

PLAYER	POS	TEAM	BTP (All-time)	RANK (All-time)	BTP (2013)	RANK (2013)
Cabrera, Miguel 1776	3b	det al	112.2	37	13.4	3
Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	93.1	73	12.7	5
Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	lad nl	100.5	53	10.7	12
Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	sea al	118.1	28	10.4	13
Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	phi nl	113.1	35	9.4	22
Ortiz, David	dh	bos al	122.2	27	8.2	25
Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	det al	112.2	38	8.0	26
Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	oak al	116.3	31	6.7	40
Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	chi al	124.1	24	6.0	53
Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	phi nl	93.7	70	5.7	64
Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	tex al	86.6	88	5.7	65
Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	sf nl	95.9	63	5.7	66
Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	atl nl	143.3	18	5.7	68
Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	bos al	85.7	91	5.7	70
Sabathia, C.C. 1492	pi sp	nyy al	172.3	5	4.7	94

BTP: Box-Toppers points