Yankees pitcher Masahiro Tanaka is Friday’s Box-Toppers spring training Player of the Day.
Box-Toppers is tracking several days of spring training during 2017 as a sort of a test and demonstration of the Box-Toppers player tracking metric. Even after 22 seasons of tracking (including sharing those results for the past four seasons on Box-Toppers.com), we need to spend a little time shagging ground balls and getting in shape for the 2,430 games to be tracked during the regular season.
Tanaka, along with two other Yankees pitchers, no-hit the Tigers, 3-0. Tananka struck out six over 4 1/3 innings, allowing no hits or runs.
In 2016, Tanaka had 14.1 Box-Toppers points, fifth among American League pitchers.
National League Player of the Day—Wilmer Flores of the Mets hit a grand slam and doubled, going 2-for-2 and driving in six total runs, in the 16-2 win over the Cardinals. Flores had 4.5 Box-Toppers points in 2016.
American League Batter of the Day—Darrell Ceciliani of the Blue Jays hit a grand slam and tripled, going 2-for-4 and driving in five total runs, in the 7-5 win over the Phillies. Ceciliani has yet to make his Box-Toppers debut by earning Player of the Game honors during the regular season.
National League Batter of the Day—There is no separate NL Batter of the Day for Friday because the overall NL Player of the Day is batter Wilmer Flores.
Scoring—No Box-Toppers points are awarded in spring training games, but if it were the regular season, Tanaka would earn 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day, Flores would earn 1.7 points for being NL Player of the Day and Ceciliani would earn 1.5 points for being AL Batter of the Day. All of Friday’s other Players of the Game (listed in the chart below) would earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point.
Note—Eighteen spring training games were scheduled for Friday—17 are listed below. One game is not listed (Nationals 5, Marlins 5) because it ended in a tie. World Baseball Classic games are also not included.
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.
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Top player from each game
Listed from highest to lowest Box-Toppers game score
| 3/17 | Score | Game | Player | AB | R | H | BI | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| MLB | 8.1 | NYY 3, DET 0 | Masahiro Tanaka (W, 2-0) | - | - | - | - | 4.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6 | |
| NL | 7.0 | NYM 16, STL 2 | Wilmer Flores 3B | 2 | 1 | 2 | 6 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| 6.0 | MIN 4, TB 2 | Phil Hughes (W, 1-0) | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 4 | ||
| 6.0 | HOU 6, BOS 2 | Francis Martes (W, 1-1) | - | - | - | - | 3.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||
| 5.0 | CHC 7, CHW 3 | Kyle Schwarber RF | 3 | 2 | 2 | 4 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 5.0 | `SD 3, LAD 2 | Christian Friedrich | - | - | - | - | 3.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||
| BAT | 4.0 | TOR 7, PHI 5 | Darrell Ceciliani RF | 4 | 1 | 2 | 5 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| 4.0 | SEA 8, ARI 5 | Ron Casteel 1B | 2 | 1 | 1 | 4 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 4.0 | TEX 6, LAA 5 | Ronald Guzman 1B | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 4.0 | CLE 3, TEX 2 | Danny Salazar (W, 1-0) | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 9 | ||
| 4.0 | SEA 5, LAD 2 | Max Povse (W, 1-0) | - | - | - | - | 4.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||
| 4.0 | COL 5, SF 1 | Harrison Musgrave (W, 1-0) | - | - | - | - | 3.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 4.0 | ARI 3, OAK 2 | Zack Godley (S, 1) | - | - | - | - | 2.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 3 | ||
| 4.0 | CIN 7, CLE 3 | Wandy Peralta (W, 1-0) | - | - | - | - | 2.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 3.0 | KC 8, MIL 5 | Christian Colón 2B | 2 | 2 | 2 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 3.0 | `HOU 5, ATL 4 | Dallas Keuchel | - | - | - | - | 4.0 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | ||
| 2.1 | BAL 8, PIT 6 | Scott McGough (S, 1) | - | - | - | - | 1.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | ||
| `Denotes that the pitcher had a no-decision in the game and did not pick up a win or a save. | ||||||||||||||