Astros’ Gerrit Cole leads Box-Toppers season player rankings for fourth straight week

Here are the top 10 players by category (AL & NL pitching & batting) in Box-Toppers points (BTP) for the 2019 season through the games of Sept. 19.

	AL PITCHERS	POS	TEAM	BTP			NL PITCHERS	POS	TEAM	BTP
1	Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	hou al	29.2		1	Strasburg, Stephen 2736	pi sp	dc nl	18.7
2	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	hou al	26.5		2	Hader, Josh 3881	pi cp	mil nl	16.7
3	Bieber, Shane 4005	pi sp	cle al	17.1		3	Buehler, Walker 3943	pi sp	lad nl	16.4
4	Morton, Charlie 2503	pi sp	tb al	16.8		4	Paddack, Chris 4093	pi sp	sd nl	15.8
5	Clevinger, Mike 3707	pi sp	cle al	16.4		5	Scherzer, Max 2588	pi sp	dc nl	15.4
6	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	hou al	15.9		6	deGrom, Jacob 3343	pi sp	nym nl	15.4
7	Minor, Mike 2894	pi sp	tex al	13.7		7	Corbin, Patrick 3027	pi sp	dc nl	15.4
8	Giolito, Lucas 3900	pi sp	chi al	13.7		8	Ryu, Hyun-Jin 3139	pi sp	lad nl	15.4
9	Yarbrough, Ryan 3962	pi sp mr	tb al	12.4		9	Flaherty, Jack 3971	pi sp	stl nl	14.8
10	Paxton, James 3280	pi sp	nyy al	12.1		10	Gray, Sonny 3259	pi sp	cin nl	14.4
	AL BATTERS	POS	TEAM	BTP			NL BATTERS	POS	TEAM	BTP
1	Cruz, Nelson Ramon 2224	dh	min al	12.5		1	Ozuna, Marcell 3190	lf	stl nl	12.0
2	Torres, Gleyber 3972	ss 2b	nyy al	12.0		2	Yelich, Christian 3334	rf	mil nl	11.7
3	Pujols, Albert 1438	1b	ana al	11.0		3	Freeman, Freddie 2887	1b	atl nl	10.2
4	Soler, Jorge 3403	dh	kc al	10.2		4	Bellinger, Cody 3781	rf	lad nl	10.2
5	Bregman, Alex 3721	3b ss	hou al	10.0		5	Bell, Josh E. 3682	1b	pit nl	9.7
6	Devers, Rafael 4038	3b	bos al	9.5		6	Arenado, Nolan 3306	3b	col nl	9.0
7	Chapman, Matt 3849	3b	oak al	9.0		7	Escobar, Eduardo 3135	3b 2b	ari nl	8.0
8	Betts, Mookie 3404	rf	bos al	8.7		8	McMahon, Ryan 4004	2b 3b	col nl	8.0
9	Trout, Mike 2949	cf	ana al	8.7		9	Goldschmidt, Paul 2935	1b	stl nl	7.5
10	Gardner, Brett 2486	cf	nyy al	8.5		10	Cabrera, Asdrubal 2362	3b	dc nl	7.5

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Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole leads Box-Toppers weekly player rankings report for the fourth straight week.

Top 10 players

Here are the top 10 players in Box-Toppers points (BTP) for the 2019 season through the games of Sept. 19.

 

	Player	Pos	Team	BTP
1	Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	hou al	29.2
2	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	hou al	26.5
3	Strasburg, Stephen 2736	pi sp	dc nl	18.7
4	Bieber, Shane 4005	pi sp	cle al	17.1
5	Morton, Charlie 2503	pi sp	tb al	16.8
6	Hader, Josh 3881	pi cp	mil nl	16.7
7	Buehler, Walker 3943	pi sp	lad nl	16.4
8	Clevinger, Mike 3707	pi sp	cle al	16.4
9	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	hou al	15.9
10	Paddack, Chris 4093	pi sp	sd nl	15.8

What are those numbers after players' names?
About Box-Toppers’ team abbreviations

Meanwhile, Nelson Cruz of the Twins regains the Box-Toppers points lead among American League batters and Marcell Ozuna of the Cardinals rises to lead National League batters in 2019 points.

Plus, Stephen Strasburg of the Nationals continues to lead NL pitchers in Box-Toppers points.

Cole now has 29.2 Box-Toppers points, picking up 3.0 points in the past week. He leads teammate Justin Verlander (26.5) both overall and among AL pitchers. Cole could virtually wrap up Box-Toppers 2019 Player of the Year honors if Verlander fails to earn at least Player of the Game honors in his start Sunday.

American League batters—Nelson Cruz of the Twins regains the lead with 12.5 Box-Toppers points, passing Gleyber Torres of the Yankees (12.0 points), who took the lead from Cruz last week. Cruz ranks 22nd among all players in 2019 Box-Toppers points.

National League batters—Marcell Ozuna of the Cardinals rises to lead NL batters with 12.0 Box-Toppers points, passing previous leader Christian Yelich of the Brewers (11.7), who is out for the season with the fractured right kneecap. Ozuna ranks 26th among all players.

National League pitchers—Strasburg leads NL pitchers for the third week with 18.7 points, picking up no points in the past week. He leads second-place NL pitcher, closer Josh Hader of the Brewers (16.7).

With a little more than one week left in the season, it is possible that a new record could be set in this category: The lowest Box-Toppers point total to lead NL pitchers in a single season is 19.1 in 2006 by John Smoltz of the Braves.

Top 10 changes—Astros pitcher Zack Greinke rises into the overall top 10 this week in ninth place with 15.9 Box-Toppers points.

He displaces Nationals pitcher Max Scherzer, who falls to 11th place with 15.4 points. Scherzer had been in the top 10, as high as fourth place, since the week of June 27.

The #BT40—The Box-Toppers 40 (#BT40) is made up of the 40 players on Box-Toppers’ four top 10 category lists—AL and NL pitchers and batters. The #BT40 are listed in the chart at the top of this page.

Three players joined the #BT40 this week:

• Brett Gardner of the Yankees rises to 10th place among AL batters with 8.5 points.

• Jack Flaherty of the Cardinals rises to ninth place among NL pitchers with 14.8 points.

• Ryan McMahon of the Rockies rises to eighth place among NL batters with 8.0 points.

Those three displaced these three players: Marcus Semien of the Athletics, Reds pitcher Luis Castillo and Josh Donaldson of the Braves.

It should be noted that the #BT40 are not the overall top 40 players, but the top 10 in each of four categories. The lowest-ranking player among the #BT40 is Asdrubal Cabrera of the Nationals (7.5 points, 10th among NL batters), who ranks 88th overall.

So far this season, 2,292 games have been completed (94.3 percent of all 2,430 scheduled), with 2,729.4 total Box-Toppers points awarded to 739 different players, who have earned Box-Toppers Player of the Game honors. There are 386 players who have more than 2.0 Box-Toppers points. There are 170 players who have made their Box-Toppers debut so far this season (nine in the past week), the first time in their career they earned Player of the Game honors.

This is the penultimate (and also next-to-last) player rankings report of the 2019 season. While normally posted on Fridays—as this is—next week, we will delay the weekly report, waiting until after the regular season’s final games are finished on Sunday, Sept. 29, to post the final—the ultimate—Box-Toppers season player rankings report of 2019.

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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