Cardinals' Adam Wainwright grabs slim lead in Box-Toppers player rankings with 1 week to go

Box-Toppers has a new leader in player rankings with only one week left in the season. 

Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright takes the lead in the penultimate (and also next-to-last) weekly look at Box-Toppers player rankings. Wainwright has 19.2 Box-Toppers points and passed last week's leader, Marlins pitcher Jose Fernandez (19.0).

Wainwright picked up 2.5 Box-Toppers points over the past week, rising from sixth to first in overall Box-Toppers player rankings. The race for the leading player in Box-Toppers points is tight going into the final week of the season, with eight players within 2.5 points of Wainwright.

Wainwright's outright lead and lead among National League pitchers is slim. Three other NL pitchers could pass him in the season's final week—Dodgers Clayton Kershaw or Zack Greinke or Patrick Corbin of the Diamondbacks. (Jose Fernandez of the Marlins was not scheduled to pitch again this season.)

National League players hold down the top five spots in player rankings. The top American League player is Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer, who this week passed previous AL leader Miguel Cabrera, also of the Tigers. Scherzer is in sixth place overall in player rankings with 17.1 Box-Toppers points and Cabrera with 16.9, has fallen from fifth to eight place overall. 

Scherzer passed previous AL pitching leader Justin Masterson of the Indians this week. And Scherzer's top spot going into the final week is also not secure, with four other AL pitchers within 1.0 Box-Toppers point of him.

Cabrera maintains his dominance among AL batters. He is the sole batter among the top 10 players and leads second-place AL batter, Alfonso Soriano of the Yankees (12.9), by 4.0 Box-Toppers points.  

Paul Goldschmidt of the Diamondbacks continues to lead among NL batters with 13.7 Box-Toppers points. His nearest competitors among NL batters are both 2.2 points behind him—Freddie Freeman of the Braves and Michael Cuddyer of the Rockies both have 11.5 Box-Toppers points.

Previous player rankings report from Sept. 12. 

What are those numbers after players' names?

How does Box-Toppers scoring work?

 

Box-Toppers player rankings graphic.png

Top players

As of Thursday, Sept. 19

2013 LEADERS   
 OVERALL LEADERSPOSTEAMBTP
1Wainwright, Adam 2150pi spstl nl19.2
2Fernandez, Jose 3147pi spfla nl19.0
3Kershaw, Clayton 2494pi splad nl18.7
4Greinke, Zack 1871pi splad nl18.4
5Corbin, Patrick 3027pi spari nl17.4
6Scherzer, Max 2588pi spdet al17.1
7Sanchez, Anibal 2187pi spdet al17.1
8Cabrera, Miguel 17763bdet al16.9
9Liriano, Francisco 2104pi sppit nl16.7
10Masterson, Justin 2462pi spcle al16.4
     
 AL PITCHERSPOSTEAMBTP
1Scherzer, Max 2588pi spdet al17.1
2Sanchez, Anibal 2187pi spdet al17.1
3Masterson, Justin 2462pi spcle al16.4
4Sale, Chris 2806pi spchi al16.1
5Moore, Matt 2975pi sptb al16.1
6Darvish, Yu 3003pi sptex al15.0
7Iwakuma, Hisashi 3048pi spsea al14.4
8Hernandez, Felix 2064pi spsea al13.1
9Jimenez, Ubaldo 2349pi spcle al12.8
10Tillman, Chris 2754pi spbal al12.7
     
 AL BATTERSPOSTEAMBTP
1Cabrera, Miguel 17763bdet al16.9
2Soriano, Alfonso 1445lfnyy al12.9
3Davis, Chris 24781bbal al12.7
4Cano, Robinson 20922bnyy al12.5
5Ortiz, Daviddhbos al12.4
6Raburn, Ryan 2340rf dh lf phcle al9.5
7Donaldson, Josh 31443boak al9.5
8Butler, Billy 2330dhkc al9.0
9Encarnacion, Edwin 20981b dhtor al8.7
10Fielder, Prince 20291bdet al8.5
     
 NL PITCHERSPOSTEAMBTP
1Wainwright, Adam 2150pi spstl nl19.2
2Fernandez, Jose 3147pi spfla nl19.0
3Kershaw, Clayton 2494pi splad nl18.7
4Greinke, Zack 1871pi splad nl18.4
5Corbin, Patrick 3027pi spari nl17.4
6Liriano, Francisco 2104pi sppit nl16.7
7Bumgarner, Madison 2753pi spsf nl15.7
8Miller, Shelby 3134pi spstl nl15.4
9Harvey, Matt 3075pi spnym nl15.0
10Lynn, Lance 2992pi spstl nl14.1
     
 NL BATTERSPOSTEAMBTP
1Goldschmidt, Paul 29351bari nl13.7
2Freeman, Freddie 28871batl nl11.5
3Cuddyer, Michael 1826rfcol nl11.5
4Gonzalez, Carlos 2460lfcol nl11.0
5Harper, Bryce 3011lfdc nl9.4
6Zimmerman, Ryan 21803bdc nl9.2
7Venable, Will 2621rf cfsd nl9.0
8Phillips, Brandon 16912bcin nl7.5
9Carpenter, Matt 29872bstl nl7.5
10Murphy, Daniel 25892bnym nl7.5

BTP: Box-Toppers points for 2013 season