Pitchers are ranked by their ranking in 2020 Box-Toppers points. However, the chart is sortable. Click a column header to re-sort the chart by the values in that column. Refresh page to restore chart to default view.
| Team | Starter | 2020 BTPs |
Rank | 2019 BTPs |
Rank | Career BTPs |
Rank |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indians | Shane Bieber | 11.4 | 1 | 18.1 | 6 | 35.9 | 567 |
| Padres | Yu Darvish | 9.7 | 3 | 10.4 | 41 | 94.1 | 99 |
| Mets | Jacob deGrom | 8.7 | 6 | 19.1 | 4 | 105.4 | 72 |
| Twins | Kenta Maeda | 8.4 | 7 | 8.7 | 67 | 47.8 | 391 |
| Rays | Tyler Glasnow | 8.0 | 8 | 9.7 | 55 | 23.7 | 943 |
| Dodgers | Clayton Kershaw | 7.7 | 9 | 12.7 | 25 | 235.2 | 3 |
| Phillies | Aaron Nola | 7.7 | 10 | 9.7 | 51 | 63.0 | 239 |
| Yankees | Gerrit Cole | 7.4 | 12 | 32.2 | 1 | 100.5 | 83 |
| White Sox | Lucas Giolito | 7.0 | 13 | 13.7 | 22 | 27.7 | 800 |
| Brewers | Brandon Woodruff | 7.0 | 14 | 7.7 | 94 | 16.7 | 1241 |
| Angels | Dylan Bundy | 7.0 | 15 | 4.7 | 200 | 34.8 | 598 |
| Athletics | Chris Bassitt | 6.4 | 16 | 6.7 | 124 | 19.1 | 1114 |
| Blue Jays | Hyun Jin Ryu | 6.0 | 17 | 17.4 | 10 | 59.6 | 275 |
| Cubs | Kyle Hendricks | 6.0 | 18 | 13.4 | 23 | 59.9 | 269 |
| Royals | Brad Keller | 6.0 | 23 | 5.0 | 177 | 15.0 | 1336 |
| Braves | Max Fried | 5.7 | 26 | 10.0 | 50 | 16.7 | 1242 |
| Mariners | Marco Gonzales | 5.7 | 27 | 9.4 | 58 | 29.5 | 743 |
| Reds | Luis Castillo | 5.0 | 29 | 14.4 | 18 | 35.8 | 570 |
| Cardinals | Jack Flaherty | 4.7 | 33 | 16.5 | 11 | 34.3 | 622 |
| Nationals | Max Scherzer | 4.0 | 45 | 15.4 | 15 | 201.2 | 8 |
| Red Sox | Nathan Eovaldi | 4.0 | 53 | 1.0 | 549 | 39.5 | 504 |
| Rockies | German Marquez | 3.0 | 85 | 7.7 | 91 | 30.1 | 725 |
| Marlins | Sandy Alcantara | 3.0 | 88 | 4.7 | 204 | 9.4 | 1821 |
| Rangers | Kyle Gibson | 2.7 | 114 | 7.7 | 92 | 36.8 | 554 |
| Astros | Zack Greinke | 2.0 | 150 | 17.9 | 7 | 209.1 | 4 |
| Orioles | John Means | 2.0 | 157 | 7.0 | 120 | 9.0 | 1832 |
| Tigers | Matthew Boyd | 2.0 | 164 | 5.0 | 167 | 26.8 | 839 |
| Diamondbacks | Madison Bumgarner | 1.0 | 293 | 10.0 | 47 | 125.4 | 43 |
| Giants | Kevin Gausman | 1.0 | 343 | 3.0 | 327 | 43.0 | 453 |
| Pirates | Chad Kuhl | 1.0 | 417 | 0.0 | 864 | 9.0 | 1835 |
It’s 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?
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 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.
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.
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.
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 tracking began 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.
Box-Toppers strives for accuracy. See a mistake in a post? A wrong name, wrong team, grammar error, spelling goof, etc.? Thanks for pointing it out! Contact Box-Toppers here. Let's fix it and make it right.
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