A look at Box-Toppers top 100 players of ‘all-time’ after the 2020 season

Randy Johnson leads all players in career Box-Toppers points and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

Top 100 ‘All-Time’ Players

Here are the 100 players with the most career Box-Toppers points since record keeping began in 1995. Players are listed in order of their career Box-Toppers point total. Also shown is their Box-Toppers point total for 2020 and their career ranking in Box-Toppers points at the end of the 2019 season.

	Player	Pos	Team	All BTP	20 BTP	19 rank
1	Johnson, Randy 15	pi sp	retired	282.5		1
2	Martinez, Pedro J. 18	pi sp	retired	244.8		2
3	Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	235.2	7.7	3
4	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	hou al	209.1	2.0	4
5	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	hou al	206.6	1.0	5
6	Sabathia, CC 1492	pi sp	retired	203.4		6
7	Pujols, Albert 1438	1b	ana al	202.8	1.0	7
8	Scherzer, Max 2588	pi sp	dc nl	201.2	4.0	8
9	Schilling, Curt 74	pi sp	retired	194.1		9
10	Rodriguez, Alex	3b	retired	187.0		10
11	Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	chi nl	176.3	3.7	13
12	Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	atl nl	175.1		11
13	Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	atl nl	174.2		12
14	Halladay, Roy 1178	pi sp	retired	170.7		14
15	Santana, Johan 1448	pi sp	retired	166.6		16
16	Ramirez, Manny 17	lf	retired	166.2		15
17	Clemens, Roger 334	pi sp	retired	164.8		17
18	Smoltz, John 61	pi sp	retired	160.9		18
19	Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	retired	157.0		19
20	Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	mexico	155.9		20
21	Mussina, Mike 175	pi sp	retired	155.6		21
22	Cabrera, Miguel 1776	dh	det al	153.4	2.5	24
23	Maddux, Greg 83	pi sp	retired	152.7		23
24	Bonds, Barry 95	lf	retired	152.2		22
25	Jones, Chipper 269	3b	retired	149.0		25
26	Vazquez, Javier 1146	pi sp	retired	148.3		26
27	Thome, Jim 77	1b dh	retired	146.7		27
28	Ortiz, David	dh	retired	145.9		28
29	Sale, Chris 2806	pi sp	bos al	142.6		29
30	Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	retired	141.8		30
31	Pettitte, Andy 336	pi sp	retired	138.5		31
32	giambi, jason	1b	retired	133.4		32
33	Strasburg, Stephen 2736	pi sp	dc nl	132.8		33
34	Price, David 2593	pi sp	lad nl	131.0		34
35	Wainwright, Adam 2150	pi sp	stl nl	130.3	3.7	41
36	Hoffman, Trevor 342	pi cp	retired	128.4		35
37	Guerrero, Vladimir	rf	retired	128.3		36
38	Weaver, Jered 2178	pi sp	retired	127.8		37
39	Burnett, A.J. 1300	pi sp	retired	127.8		38
40	Lackey, John 1640	pi sp	retired	127.2		39
41	Oswalt, Roy 1469	pi sp	retired	127.2		40
42	rivera, mariano	pi cp	retired	126.4		42
43	Bumgarner, Madison 2753	pi sp	ari nl	125.4	1.0	43
44	sheffield, gary	lf	retired	124.1		44
45	Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	retired	119.1		45
46	Delgado, Carlos	1b	retired	118.7		46
47	Zito, Barry 1415	pi sp	retired	117.4		47
48	Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	retired	116.8		48
49	Buehrle, Mark 1407	pi sp	retired	116.7		49
50	Helton, Todd 1060	1b	retired	116.4		50
51	Hunter, Torii 1190	cf	retired	115.9		51
52	Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	retired	115.0		52
53	Beckett, Josh 1544	pi sp	retired	114.9		53
54	Santana, Ervin 2005	pi sp	free agent	113.4		54
55	Carpenter, Chris	pi sp	retired	113.3		55
56	Haren, Danny 1787	pi sp	retired	113.2		56
57	Sosa, Sammy 43	rf	retired	113.2		57
58	Brown, Kevin J. 246	pi sp	retired	112.8		58
59	Glavine, Tom 288	pi sp	retired	110.6		59
60	Kent, Jeff 280	2b	retired	110.2		60
61	Kluber, Corey 3200	pi sp	tex al	109.1		61
62	Wagner, Billy	pi cp	retired	108.7		62
63	Gonzalez, Gio 2626	pi sp	chi al	108.6		63
64	Beltran, Carlos 1194	cf	retired	108.6		64
65	Millwood, Kevin	pi sp	retired	108.3		65
66	Berkman, Lance 1261	1b lf rf	retired	108.1		66
67	Cueto, Johnny 2400	pi sp	sf nl	106.8	2.0	72
68	Shields, James 2157	pi sp	free agent	106.4		67
69	Liriano, Francisco 2104	pi cp sp	released by phllies	106.2		68
70	Thomas, Frank 141	dh 1b	retired	106.2		69
71	Ramirez, Aramis 1364	3b	retired	105.8		70
72	deGrom, Jacob 3343	pi sp	nym nl	105.4	8.7	89
73	Kazmir, Scott 1947	pi sp	retired	105.1		71
74	moyer, jamie	pi sp	retired	104.0		73
75	Tejada, Miguel	ss	retired	102.3		74
76	griffey, ken jr.	cf	retired	102.2		75
77	Wakefield, Tim 296	pi sp	retired	101.4		76
78	Teixeira, Mark 1738	1b	retired	101.3		77
79	schmidt, jason	pi sp	retired	101.2		78
80	Holliday, Matt 1836	lf	retired	100.8		79
81	Cain, Matt 2081	pi sp	retired	100.7		80
82	Konerko, Paul 1107	1b	retired	100.7		81
83	Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	nyy al	100.5	7.4	100
84	bagwell, jeff	1b	retired	100.4		82
85	Carrasco, Carlos 2885	pi sp	cle al	100.1	5.0	95
86	Walker, Larry 165	rf	retired	100.1		83
87	Edmonds, Jim 353	cf	retired	99.8		84
88	Braun, Ryan J. 2300	lf	mil nl	98.7		85
89	Howard, Ryan 2040	1b	retired	98.7		86
90	Rolen, Scott	3b	retired	97.6		87
91	Wolf, Randy 1235	pi sp	retired	97.4		88
92	Jones, Andruw	cf	retired	96.5		90
93	Abreu, Bobby	rf	retired	95.5		92
94	Nomo, Hideo 307	pi sp	retired	95.5		93
95	Piazza, Mike 114	ca	retired	95.4		91
96	Dempster, Ryan 1109	pi sp	retired	95.2		94
97	Ordonez, Magglio	rf	retired	94.5		96
98	Dunn, Adam 1512	lf	retired	94.3		97
99	Darvish, Yu 3003	pi sp	chi nl	94.1	9.7	122
100	Arrieta, Jake 2738	pi sp	phi nl	93.9	2.0	104

BTP: Box-Toppers points
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Johnson earned 282.5 Box-Toppers points from the time Box-Toppers record keeping began in 1995 until he retired in 2009.

The most likely rival to Johnson’s throne at the moment is Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw who has 235.2 career Box-Toppers points, third among all players since 1995 and most among active players. 

Kershaw, who will be 33 when the 2021 season starts, is 47.3 points behind Johnson. If he averages 15.8 points per season for the next three seasons, he would catch Johnson toward the end of the 2023 season, when he would be 35 years old.

But Kershaw’s pace to catch Johnson is slowing. At the end of 2016, Kershaw was on pace to catch Johnson’s career Box-Toppers point total during the 2020 season. That didn’t happen. But at that point, Kershaw was averaging 25.0 Box-Toppers points per season over the previous five seasons. Kershaw’s pace at the end of 2020 over the previous five seasons is down to 15.0 points per season because of a performance drop-off and a shortened 2020 season.

But even if Kershaw reaches Johnson’s 282.5-point total, he still wouldn’t match Johnson’s actual career total. Since Box-Toppers didn’t track Johnson’s career from 1988 to 1994, he would likely have many more career Box-Toppers points. A revised rough projection puts his actual career Box-Toppers point total at about 385. Kershaw would need at least seven more seasons with more than 20 points a season to reach that total.

Kershaw is 9.6 points behind the second-place player on the career Box-Toppers points list, Pedro Martinez (244.8) and would pass that total this year if he exceeds his five-year average (15.0). (However, Martinez also began his career in 1992, prior to Box-Toppers tracking, and is projected to have 270 points if his entire career were tracked.)

Box-Toppers points are a measure of how much a player provides key contributions to his team’s wins. Specifically, 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.

The chart here shows the rankings of the top 100 players since record keeping began in 1995, along with their career Box-Toppers point total and, where applicable, their Box-Toppers points for 2020. The chart also shows each player’s roster status as of the end of the 2020 season and players’ rank in career Box-Toppers points at the end of the 2019 season, to show their rise or fall in rankings since last season.

Notables

The 2020 season saw relatively little movement among the overall top 100 players in career points, mainly because it was truncated to 60 games because of the coronavirus pandemic.

In fact, some of the changes in career Box-Toppers points totals came as the result of the start of our process to audit the results of the 1995 season. To make sure our process to determine Player of the Game winners has been consistent over the years, we have so far looked again at the first 749 games of the 1995 season, through June 24, which has resulted in some players receiving more Box-Toppers points and some having point totals reduced. Those notable changes are highlighted below:

• 1. Randy Johnson has had an increase of 3.7 career Box-Toppers points due to the ongoing 1995 season audit. Previously, Johnson had 278.8 career points.

• 7. Albert Pujols of the Angels continues to lead all batters in career points with 202.8. He earned 1.0 point in 2020, which extended his streak of consecutive seasons earning Box-Toppers points to 20, the longest such streak since tracking began in 1995.

• 8. Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer became the eighth player since 1995 to reach 200 career Box-Toppers points in 2020. He earned 4.0 points in 2020 and now has 201.2 career points, maintaining the eighth-place rank he had at the end of 2019. Of the eight players now with 200 career Box-Toppers points, four of them have reached that milestone since the start of 2019. And while Scherzer ranks eighth, he is only 7.9 points behind fourth-place player on the list, Astros pitcher Zack Greinke (209.1).

• 11. Cubs pitcher Jon Lester is the highest-ranked player to change positions on the list during 2020. Lester rose from 13th place at the end of 2019, earning 3.7 points in 2020, giving him 176.3 career points. He passed Braves pitchers Felix Hernandez (175.1) and Cole Hamels (174.2) on the list.

• 16. Retired outfielder Manny Ramirez slipped from 15th at the end of 2019 to 16th after losing 1.0 Box-Toppers point during the 1995 season audit. His 166.2 points now ranks below retired pitcher Johan Santana (166.6), who rises to 15th place.

• 24. Retired outfielder Barry Bonds slipped from 22nd at the end of 2019 to 24th. Bonds lost 1.0 Box-Toppers point in the 1995 audit, giving him 152.2 career points, falling behind 23rd-ranked retired pitcher Greg Maddux (152.7). He was also passed in the 2020 season by Miguel Cabrera of the Tigers, who ranks 22nd with 153.4 points after earning 2.5 in 2020.

Rising and falling

These seven players made the biggest jump up the career Box-Toppers points list this year:

• Cubs pitcher Yu Darvish rose 23 spots, most of any player, from 122nd at the end of 2019 to 99th at the end of 2020. Darvish, 34, has 94.1 career Box-Toppers points, earning 9.7 in 2020, third overall and second among National League pitchers. Darvish is one of two players to rise into the career points top 100 list in 2020. Darvish has been traded to the San Diego Padres for 2021.

• Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom rose 17 spots from 89th at the end of 2019 to 72nd at the end of 2020. deGrom, 32, has 105.4 career Box-Toppers points after earning 8.7 in 2020, sixth overall and fourth among NL pitchers. He is one of three players who passed 100 career Box-Toppers points during 2020, along with Gerrit Cole and Carlos Carrasco.

• Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole rose 17 spots from 100th at the end of 2019 to 83rd at the end of 2020. Cole, 30, has 100.5 career Box-Toppers points after earning 7.4 in 2020, fifth among American League pitchers. He is one of three players who passed 100 career Box-Toppers points during 2020, along with Jacob deGrom and Carlos Carrasco.

• Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco rose 10 spots from 95th at the end of 2019 to 85th at the end of 2020. Carrasco, 33, has 100.1 career Box-Toppers points after earning 5.0 in 2020, 14th among AL pitchers. He is one of three players who passed 100 career Box-Toppers points during 2020, along with deGrom and Cole.

• Cardinals pitcher Adam Wainwright rose six spots from 41st at the end of 2019 to 35th at the end of 2020. Wainwright, 39, has 130.3 career Box-Toppers points after earning 3.7 in 2020, 25th among NL pitchers.

• Giants pitcher Johnny Cueto rose five spots from 72nd at the end of 2019 to 67th at the end of 2020. Cueto, 34, has 106.8 career Box-Toppers points after earning 2.0 in 2020, 56th among NL pitchers.

• Phillies pitcher Jake Arrieta rose four spots from 104th at the end of 2019 to 100th at the end of 2020. Arrieta, 34, has 93.9 career Box-Toppers points after earning 2.0 in 2020, 53rd among NL pitchers. Arrieta led all players in Box-Toppers points in 2015 with 29.1 when he was with the Cubs. He and Darvish were the only two players to rise into the career points top 100 list in 2020.

With the rise of Darvish and Arrieta into the top 100 in 2020, two players fell off the list:

• Retired outfielder Bernie Williams fell from 98th at the end of 2019 to 101st at the end of 2020 with 93.8 career Box-Toppers points since 1995. Williams played from 1991 to 2006, so likely has more uncounted career Box-Toppers points from prior to 1995.

• Retired pitcher Ted Lilly fell from 99th at the end of 2019 to 102nd at the end of 2020 with 93.3 career Box-Toppers points. Lilly played from 1999 to 2013.

Biggest drop

Retired catcher Mike Piazza fell four spots, most of any players on the top 100 list, from 91st to 95th place with 95.4 career Box-Toppers points. Piazza had his career point total reduced by 0.3 points from 95.7 during the audit of the 1995 season, which put his total behind two other former players—93rd-ranked Bobby Abreu and 94th-ranked Hideo Nomo, both with 95.5 career Box-Toppers points. Piazza was also passed by two other players active in 2020—83rd-ranked Cole (100.5) and 85th-ranked Carrasco (100.1).

Top 100 for 2019 & ‘All-time’

There are eight players on the “all-time” top 100 list who also appeared in Box-Toppers top 100 player list for 2020. They are shown in the chart below, listed in order by their Box-Toppers career player ranking.

Those eight players include three of the top 10 players on the 2020 list—Darvish (third with 9.7 points), deGrom (sixth with 8.7) and Kershaw (ninth with 7.7). Kershaw is the only player in the top 10 on both the 2020 and “all-time” lists.

Last year, there were 13 players who made both the 2019 top 100 list and the “all-time” career points top 100 list. Six of those players are the same as last year—Kershaw, Scherzer, Lester, deGrom, Cole and Carrasco.

Breakdown: Active vs. Inactive

Of the 100 players on the “all-time” list, 73 of them ended the season as retired. That is an increase of one from the end of 2019 (sixth-ranked player, pitcher CC Sabathia retired after the 2019 season).

Two players among the 100 were listed as free agents during the 2020 season and neither of them played during the season (so both had 0.0 Box-Toppers points for 2020)—pitchers Ervin Santana and James Shields. Also, two other players on the top 100 list did not play in 2020, though pitcher Bartolo Colon was listed as playing in the Mexican League in 2020 and pitcher Francisco Liriano was listed as released by the Phillies in 2020.

That makes only 23 players on the top 100 list who were active with a Major League team at the close of 2020. Of those, just 15 earned Box-Toppers points in 2020.

Top teams

Five teams each had two players on the career points top 100 list, most of any team—the Baltimore Orioles, Chicago Cubs, Washington Nationals, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers.

Another 13 teams each had one player each on the top 100 list.

Breakdown by position

Pitchers outnumber batters on the “all-time” list. There are 63 pitchers and 37 batters. For comparison, on the top 100 list for the 2020 season, there were 62 pitchers and 38 batters.)

Here is a breakdown of players by their primary position on the “all-time” list:

• 59—Starting pitcher

• 16—Outfield (5 CF, 6 LF, 5 RF)

• 10—First base

• 5—Third base

• 4—Closing pitcher

• 3—Designated hitter

• 1—Second base

• 1—Catcher

• 1—Shortstop

Pitchers tend to dominate Box-Toppers statistics especially in the short term. Over the longer term, batters tend to do better in Box-Toppers points because top batters tend to have longer, more productive careers than top pitchers. Also, in the first 15 years of Box-Toppers record keeping from 1995 to about 2009, batters in general did a lot better, earning 50 percent or more of all Box-Toppers points awarded. In fact, batters share of Box-Toppers points earned collapsed precipitously during the decade of the 2010s from the previous decade, as batters share of points earned fell from 51.7 percent during the 2000s down to 42.4 percent in the 2010s. During the 2010s, batters made year-end overall top 10 lists 23 times, while in the 2010s, there was only one such instance. Further, there were 35 times in the decade of the 2000s when a batter reached 15.0 or more Box-Toppers points in a season; during the 2010s, there were just seven such instances.

Despite the shortened season, 2020 followed the form of recent years, with pitchers earning Player of the Game honors in 57.6 percent of the 899 games played, compared to 42.4 percent for batters.

Box-Toppers methodology

Keep in mind that these are only statistics since 1995. For many players who debuted before then (such as Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Roger Clemens and Greg Maddux), their career Box-Toppers totals would likely be far higher if the years before 1995 were tracked. On the other hand, for a player like Chipper Jones (ranked 25th), Box-Toppers covers virtually his entire career—he only played in eight games before 1995, so Box-Toppers covers 2,491 games of his 2,499-game career. 

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.

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.

Related

Top 100 “all-time” lists at season’s end: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014

Overlapping players

Here are the eight players who are on both the Box-Toppers’ top 100 list of “all-time” (above) and the Box-Toppers top 100 list for the 2020 season. Players are listed here in order of career Box-Toppers points with their predominant position played during the 2020 season and the team with whom they finished the 2020 season. Shown are their career Box-Toppers point (BTP) total, their rank among players in career points, their Box-Toppers point total for 2020 and their rank among players in 2020.

			All-time		2020
Player	Pos	Team	BTP	Rank	BTP	Rank
Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	235.2	3	7.7	9
Scherzer, Max 2588	pi sp	dc nl	201.2	8	4.0	45
Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	chi nl	176.3	11	3.7	64
Wainwright, Adam 2150	pi sp	stl nl	130.3	35	3.7	65
deGrom, Jacob 3343	pi sp	nym nl	105.4	72	8.7	6
Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	nyy al	100.5	83	7.4	12
Carrasco, Carlos 2885	pi sp	cle al	100.1	85	5.0	30
Darvish, Yu 3003	pi sp	chi nl	94.1	99	9.7	3

BTP: Box-Toppers points
What are those numbers after players' names?
About Box-Toppers’ team abbreviations
This chart is sortable! Click or tap any of the headers to sort. For example, click the Player header to sort players alphabetically by last name, click again to sort in reverse alphabetical order. Refresh the page to return to standard order.