The St. Louis Cardinals are Box-Toppers top team for the second straight week.
Meanwhile, the Kansas City Royals rise to take the Box-Toppers lead among American League teams and the Washington Nationals, the hottest team of the week, make their season debut among the top 10 teams.
Top 10 teams
Here are Box-Toppers' Top 10 teams, through the games of Thursday, May 14. The column BTP shows the number of Box-Toppers points players on the team have accumulated so far this season. The column BTP/wk shows have many points teams have accumulated in the past week.5/14 |
Teams |
BTP |
BTP /wk |
Last wk rank |
| 1 | Cardinals | 27.9 | 3.0 | 1 |
| 2 | Dodgers | 27.0 | 5.5 | 3 |
| 3 | Royals | 26.0 | 4.5 | 4 |
| 4 | Tigers | 25.3 | 4.0 | 5 |
| 5 | Yankees | 25.2 | 4.5 | 6 |
| 6 | Reds | 25.0 | 4.7 | 7 |
| 7 | Astros | 24.9 | 3.0 | 2 |
| 8 | Nationals | 22.5 | 6.0 | 14 |
| 9 | Rays | 22.5 | 5.5 | 15 |
| 10 | Cubs | 22.5 | 5.0 | 11 |
Cardinals players have accumulated 27.9 Box-Toppers points this season and have baseball’s best winning percentage (.706). The Cardinals are led by pitchers Adam Wainwright and Carlos Martinez, who each have 3.0 Box-Toppers points. (However, Wainwright is out with an achilles injury for the remainder of the season.) The Cardinals’ top batters are Kolten Wong and Matt Carpenter (2.5 Box-Toppers points each).
The Royals passed the Houston Astros to take the top spot among AL teams, rising to third place overall. Royals players have accumulated 26.0 Box-Toppers points this season and are led by first baseman Eric Hosmer (5.0 Box-Toppers points) and pitcher Chris R. Young (4.0 points).
The Astros, last week’s top AL team, fall from second place overall to seventh, with 24.9 Box-Toppers points.
The Washington Nationals were the hottest team of the week, picking up 6.0 Box-Toppers points between Friday, May 8 and Thursday, May 14. The surge gave the Nationals 22.5 Box-Toppers points for the season as they rose from 14th place last week to eighth this week.
The Nationals were the top team in Box-Toppers preseason standings based on last season’s performance and their offseason moves. But they got off to a slow start and only this week made their first appearance in Box-Toppers weekly top 10 team rankings.
Two other teams rose onto the top 10 list this week:
- The Tampa Bay Rays rose from 15th to ninth place with 22.5 Box-Toppers points.
- The Chicago Cubs rose from 11th to 10th place with 22.5 Box-Toppers points.
(Note: When teams are tied in Box-Toppers point totals—as the Nationals, Rays and Cubs are with 22.5—the tie is broken by the amount of Box-Toppers points teams earned during the past week. So in this case, they finish in this order—Nationals (6.0), Rays (5.5) and Cubs (5.0).)
Three teams fell out of the top 10 this week:
- The Minnesota Twins fell from ninth to 11th with 21.9 Box-Toppers points.
- The New York Mets fell from eighth to 12th with 21.9 points.
- The Miami Marlins fell from 10th to 16th with 19.7.
The Colorado Rockies fell to last place among all teams after earning only 1.0 Box-Toppers point during the week. They have 13.0 Box-Toppers points and fell from 26th to 30th place. Last week’s lowest-ranked team, the Chicago White Sox, rose to 29th place with 15.2 Box-Toppers points.
About Box-Toppers—Box-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. 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.