It will be a full, 162-game Major League Baseball season in 2021 after a pandemic-shortened 60-game schedule in 2020.
That’s the plan.
The coronavirus pandemic could still change that.
Box-Toppers highlights
Here are recent post highlights:Picks 2021
Box-Toppers projects the standings and win totals of all 30 teams.Read more
Team rankings 2021
A look at how the 30 teams rank and compare going into 2021.Read more
Top 100 players since 1995
A look at the 100 top players in Box-Toppers points since 1995, when Box-Toppers tracking began.Read more
Top 100 players 2020
A look at the 100 top players in Box-Toppers points last season.Read more
Top player rankings 2020
The top 10 overall players, plus the top 10 NL and AL pitchers and batters.Read more
A look at Box-Toppers season-by-season AL & NL pitching & batting leaders, 1995-2020
Who led their league’s pitchers and batters in Box-Toppers points each season? Plus, further analysis of Box-Toppers points leaders.Read more
Box-Toppers detail leaders, season-by-season, 1995-2020
In a sprawling, scrolling chart, see the top 10 overall players for each of Box-Toppers’ 26 seasons, plus the top five or 10 players each season based on league, position and other factors.Read more
But there is reason to be optimistic. After case numbers spiked over the winter in the United States, they have been on the decline since early January. Vaccines are now available and more and more people are being vaccinated against the deadly virus every day. Other sports leagues, notably the National Football League, have completed full seasons and postseasons during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. And the NFL even let limited numbers of fans into stadiums.
But we live in uncertain times. (I think we live in uncertain times. I’m not sure about that.) While COVID-19 case numbers are down from their November and December peak in the U.S., they are currently higher than they were during much of last year’s shortened baseball season from July to October.
Though teams only played 60 games each in 2020, there were a total of 40 games that had to be postponed due to COVID-19 outbreaks. All but two games were eventually made up through a combination of good luck, miracles and seven-inning doubleheaders. Those 40 games represent 4.4 percent of the entire 2020 schedule. A similar disruption in 2021, with teams each playing 162 games, would postpone 108 games. With higher COVID rates currently than during much of last season and with the unknown factor of COVID variants that can spread more easily and quickly, who is to say what the effects on the 2021 schedule could be?
Despite COVID-19 rates higher now than at the end of the 2020 regular season, more risks are being taken. After no fans were admitted during the 2020 regular season and most of the postseason, limited numbers of fans have been allowed to watch spring training games. Fans will be allowed in most Major League stadiums when the regular season begins—most will be limited to between 12 to 43 percent capacity.
But the Texas Rangers are proposing putting a butt in each of the 40,000 seats of Globe Live Field in Arlington for their home opener, April 5. Masks will be required unless eating or drinking—something that rarely happens at a ballpark.
Before the 2020 season, it seemed impossible to envision a Major League baseball stadium without fans. Now it somehow seems even more startling and ominous to envision fans packed cheek-by-jowl into a stadium in a matter of days in a place where in late March there was still a high risk of getting COVID-19, based on cases per capita and test positivity.
Living with COVID-19 for so long, we have either learned to better understand it and better adapt to it and live with it—or we have become complacent and lazy and reckless and blasé.
For whatever reason, there has been a change in mindset. Virus spread is just as bad or worse than it was when Major League Baseball was playing in empty stadiums last September. Relatively few people have been vaccinated. But we’re going to go ahead and not only play a full season of baseball but also have fans in the stands.
Simply because case counts are down from their winter peak doesn’t mean we can just in turn err on the side of recklessness, like Justin Turner returning to the field from isolation after a positive COVID-19 test to celebrate the Dodgers 2020 World Series victory. Coronavirus is still spreading, still making people sick, still putting people in the hospital and still killing them. Gathering people together is the way to keep perpetuating the virus, to keep stoking the glowing embers. Putting people in ballparks is continually picking the healing scab and letting it bleed and become infected, increasing the time for the wound to heal and leading to long-term scarring.
Last year, I didn’t think we should move forward with the limited season not necessarily because I didn’t think it could be done, but more because I felt we had not done enough as a nation to take COVID-19 seriously or battle it effectively. We didn’t deserve baseball.
Do we now?
Maybe we will when we can get enough people vaccinated and slow the rate of infection and death. We’re not there today and we may be months away from when the danger eases enough that it is safe to gather for baseball again.
But here we go anyway.
An introduction to Box-Toppers
April 1 marks the opening day of the 2021 Major League Baseball season. This begins Box-Toppers’ 27th season tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score statistics. Here is an introduction to Box-Toppers:
What’s the most important thing in baseball?
Winning the game, right?
But what baseball statistic provides the fan an indication of the player who most contributed to the win? Logically, you might answer “the win” statistic, but it only applies to pitchers. Plus, in some circumstances, the win is not awarded to the pitcher most responsible for earning the win, but simply the pitcher who was in the game when the team took the lead.
What is needed is a metric that will select the player—from among pitchers and batters—who most contributed to his team’s win. And that’s where Box-Toppers comes in.
Click on the graphic to see the step-by-step method of how Box-Toppers Player of the Game and Player of the Day honorees are determined.
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.
Further, 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. So, Box-Toppers tracks who most helps their team win the most games. As the season progresses, a player’s Box-Toppers point total can be compared with other players to determine the best player on a given team, at a given position—or even the best overall player in the game.
For example, in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Indians pitcher Shane Bieber led all players with 11.4 Box-Toppers points. Here’s how he earned his points.
• He earned Player of the Game honors eight times, giving him 8.0 Box-Toppers points.
• Two of those times, in addition to earning Player of the Game honors, he also won American League Player of the Day honors, worth 0.7 bonus points each, giving him 1.4 additional total points.
• Two other times, he earned overall Player of the Day honors in addition to earning Player of the Game honors. He earned an extra 1.0 bonus Box-Toppers point for each Player of the Day honor, giving him 2.0 more Box-Toppers points.
So Bieber received 8.0 Box-Toppers points for the times he earned Player of the Game, 1.4 points for the times he earned AL Player of the Day and 2.0 more for the times he earned overall Player of the Day, for a total of 11.4 Box-Toppers points.
Bieber’s 11.4 was the lowest Box-Toppers point total to lead players since Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995. But of course, it was the pandemic year with only 37 percent of the regular 162 games played. Players leading in season Box-Toppers points averaged 26.7 points from 1995-2019.
Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer led National League pitchers with 10.0 Box-Toppers points, second among all players.
Both top two pitchers in Box-Toppers points also won their league’s Cy Young Awards, Bieber in the American League and Bauer in the National League.
Luke Voit of the Yankees led AL batters with 6.0 Box-Toppers points. AL Most Valuable Player Jose Abreu of the White Sox earned 4.5 Box-Toppers points, sixth among AL batters.
Marcell Ozuna of the Braves led NL batters with 4.5 Box-Toppers points. NL MVP Freddie Freeman of the Braves earned 3.5 Box-Toppers points, eighth among NL batters.
Box-Toppers began tracking in 1995, posting in 2013
The Box-Toppers metric has been used since the start of the 1995 season to track players. Less than a year ago, we marked the 25th anniversary of the day Box-Toppers tracking began, April 25, 1995.
This is the ninth season for the Box-Toppers.com website. Box-Toppers’ first blog post was on March 25, 2013.
On the website and the blog, Box-Toppers will track each day’s games, showing each game’s Player of the Game and the top overall Player of the Day.
The website will also have regular posts weekly of overall Box-Toppers points leaders and team standings. These are usually posted on Fridays and will likely start a few weeks into the season as enough data is available to begin showing meaningful trends and results.
Box-Toppers will also have posts at other times as interesting Box-Toppers-related statistical nuggets are uncovered.
On Twitter and Facebook, we’ll include shorter posts about newsworthy players, their standing in Box-Toppers points and often, how they compare in the stat to other players.
Stay up to date with Box-Toppers at the website, on Twitter, Facebook and through the RSS feed.
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