Brewers pitcher Jimmy Nelson is Saturday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day on the final day of spring training.
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The 2017 Major League Baseball season begins Sunday with three games. Box-Toppers begins its 23rd season tracking players and its fifth on the web. See more about the player tracking metric in our opening day post and come back Monday morning to see how Box-Toppers rated the top players in the opening day games.
Box-Toppers has tracked 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 practicing covering first base on a bunt and getting in shape for the 2,430 games to be tracked during the regular season.
Player of the Day—Nelson allowed one run and two hits over five innings, striking out three, in the 5-4 win over the White Sox. Nelson did not pick up the win because he exited with the Brewers trailing. Nelson had 3.0 Box-Toppers points in 2016.
American League Player of the Day—Melvin Upton Jr. Of the Blue Jays homered and went 1-for-2, driving in three runs, in the 6-4 win over the Pirates. Upton had 2.5 Box-Toppers points in 2016 for the Padres and Blue Jays.
National League Batter of the Day—Nick Hundley of the Giants hit a grand slam and went 2-for-4, in the 6-3 win over the Athletics. Hundley had 1.0 Box-Toppers point in 2016 with the Rockies.
American League Batter of the Day—There is no separate AL Batter of the Day for Saturday because the overall AL Player of the Day was batter Melvin Upton Jr.
Scoring—No Box-Toppers points are awarded in spring training games, but if it were the regular season, Nelson would earn 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day, Upton would earn 1.7 points for being AL Player of the Day and Hundley would earn 1.5 points for being NL Batter of the Day. All of Saturday’s other Players of the Game (listed in the chart below) would earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point.
Note—Nine spring training games were scheduled for Saturday—five are listed below. Three games are not listed because they ended in ties (Red Sox 4, Nationals 4; Mariners 1, Rockies 1; and Angels 4, Dodgers 4). One game is not listed because it was an exhibition between the Reds and the Reds Futures Team.
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
| 4/1 | Score | Game | Player | AB | R | H | BI | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| MLB | 4.0 | `MIL 5, CHW 4 | Jimmy Nelson | - | - | - | - | 5.0 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 3 | |
| BAT | 3.0 | SF 6, OAK 3 | Nick Hundley C | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| AL | 3.0 | TOR 6, PIT 4 | Melvin Upton Jr. RF | 2 | 1 | 1 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| 3.0 | TEX 5, KC 3 | Allen Webster (W, 2-0) | - | - | - | - | 4.0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | ||
| 1.0 | MIA 3, DET 2 | Boo Vazquez PR-RF | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| ` Pitcher had a no-decision in the game and did not pick up a win or a save. | ||||||||||||||