A look at Box-Toppers top 100 players of ‘all-time’ after the 2019 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 2019 and their career ranking in Box-Toppers points at the end of the 2018 season.

	Player	Pos	Team	All BTP	19 BTP	18 rank
1	Johnson, randy	pi sp	retired	278.8		1
2	Martinez, Pedro J.	pi sp	retired	244.8		2
3	Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	227.5	12.7	3
4	Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	hou al	207.1	17.9	7
5	Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	hou al	205.6	27.5	10
6	Sabathia, CC 1492	pi sp	nyy al	203.4	3.0	4
7	Pujols, Albert 1438	1b	ana al	201.8	11.0	6
8	Scherzer, Max 2588	pi sp	dc nl	197.2	15.4	9
9	schilling, curt	pi sp	retired	194.1		5
10	Rodriguez, Alex	3b	retired	187.0		8
11	Hernandez, Felix 2064	pi sp	sea al	175.1	1.0	11
12	Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	chi nl	174.2	9.7	17
13	Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	chi nl	172.6	8.0	16
14	Halladay, Roy 1178	pi sp	retired	170.7		12
15	Ramirez, manny	lf	retired	167.2		13
16	Santana, Johan 1448	pi sp	retired	166.6		14
17	clemens, roger	pi sp	retired	164.8		15
18	smoltz, john	pi sp	retired	160.9		18
19	Hudson, Tim 1231	pi sp	retired	157.0		19
20	Colon, Bartolo	pi sp	free agent	155.9		20
21	mussina, Mike	pi sp	retired	155.6		21
22	bonds, barry	lf	retired	153.2		22
23	maddux, greg	pi sp	retired	151.7		23
24	Cabrera, Miguel 1776	dh	det al	150.9	3.0	26
25	jones, chipper	3b	retired	149.0		24
26	Vazquez, Javier 1146	pi sp	retired	148.3		25
27	thome, jim	1b dh	retired	146.7		27
28	Ortiz, David	dh	retired	145.9		28
29	Sale, Chris 2806	pi sp	bos al	142.6	11.0	32
30	Peavy, Jake 1635	pi sp	retired	141.8		29
31	pettitte, andy	pi sp	retired	138.5		30
32	giambi, jason	1b	retired	133.4		31
33	Strasburg, Stephen 2736	pi sp	dc nl	132.8	20.7	58
34	Price, David 2593	pi sp	bos al	131.0	5.7	40
35	hoffman, trevor	pi cp	retired	129.4		33
36	Guerrero, Vladimir	rf	retired	128.3		34
37	Weaver, Jered 2178	pi sp	retired	127.8		35
38	Burnett, A.J. 1300	pi sp	retired	127.8		36
39	Lackey, John 1640	pi sp	retired	127.2		37
40	Oswalt, Roy 1469	pi sp	retired	127.2		38
41	Wainwright, Adam 2150	pi sp	stl nl	126.6	7.4	42
42	rivera, mariano	pi cp	retired	126.4		39
43	Bumgarner, Madison 2753	pi sp	sf nl	124.4	10.0	52
44	sheffield, gary	lf	retired	124.1		41
45	Lee, Cliff 1798	pi sp	retired	119.1		43
46	Delgado, Carlos	1b	retired	118.7		44
47	Zito, Barry 1415	pi sp	retired	117.4		45
48	Beltre, Adrian 1141	3b	retired	116.8		46
49	Buehrle, Mark 1407	pi sp	retired	116.7		47
50	Helton, Todd 1060	1b	retired	116.4		48
51	Hunter, Torii 1190	cf	retired	115.9		49
52	Lincecum, Tim 2288	pi sp	retired	115.0		50
53	Beckett, Josh 1544	pi sp	retired	114.9		51
54	Santana, Ervin 2005	pi sp	nym nl	113.4		53
55	Carpenter, Chris	pi sp	retired	113.3		54
56	Haren, Danny 1787	pi sp	retired	113.2		55
57	sosa, sammy	rf	retired	113.2		56
58	brown, kevin j.	pi sp	retired	112.8		57
59	glavine, tom	pi sp	retired	110.6		59
60	kent, jeff	2b	retired	109.7		60
61	Kluber, Corey 3200	pi sp	cle al	109.1		61
62	Wagner, Billy	pi cp	retired	108.7		62
63	Gonzalez, Gio 2626	pi sp	mil nl	108.6	4.7	72
64	Beltran, Carlos 1194	cf	retired	108.6		63
65	Millwood, Kevin	pi sp	retired	108.3		64
66	Berkman, Lance 1261	1b lf rf	retired	108.1		65
67	Shields, James 2157	pi sp	free agent	106.4		66
68	Liriano, Francisco 2104	pi cp sp	pit nl	106.2	1.0	69
69	thomas, frank	dh 1b	retired	106.2		67
70	Ramirez, Aramis 1364	3b	retired	105.8		68
71	Kazmir, Scott 1947	pi sp	free agent	105.1		70
72	Cueto, Johnny 2400	pi sp	sf nl	104.8	1.0	73
73	moyer, jamie	pi sp	retired	104.0		71
74	Tejada, Miguel	ss	retired	102.3		74
75	griffey, ken jr.	cf	retired	102.2		75
76	wakefield, tim	pi sp	retired	101.4		76
77	Teixeira, Mark 1738	1b	retired	101.3		77
78	schmidt, jason	pi sp	retired	101.2		78
79	Holliday, Matt 1836	dh 1b lf	free agent	100.8		79
80	Cain, Matt 2081	pi sp	retired	100.7		80
81	Konerko, Paul 1107	1b	retired	100.7		81
82	bagwell, jeff	1b	retired	100.4		82
83	walker, larry	rf	retired	100.1		83
84	edmonds, jim	cf	retired	99.8		84
85	Braun, Ryan J. 2300	lf	mil nl	98.7	2.0	88
86	Howard, Ryan 2040	1b	retired	98.7		85
87	Rolen, Scott	3b	retired	97.6		86
88	Wolf, Randy 1235	pi sp	retired	97.4		87
89	deGrom, Jacob 3343	pi sp	nym nl	96.7	19.1	141
90	Jones, Andruw	cf	retired	96.5		89
91	piazza, mike	ca	retired	95.7		90
92	Abreu, Bobby	rf	retired	95.5		91
93	nomo, hideo	pi sp	retired	95.5		92
94	Dempster, Ryan 1109	pi sp	retired	95.2		93
95	Carrasco, Carlos 2885	pi sp	cle al	95.1	7.7	110
96	Ordonez, Magglio	rf	retired	94.5		94
97	Dunn, Adam 1512	lf	retired	94.3		95
98	williams, bernie	cf	retired	93.8		96
99	Lilly, Ted 1452	pi sp	retired	93.3		97
100	Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	hou al	93.1	32.2	244

BTP: Box-Toppers points
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Johnson earned 278.8 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 227.5 career Box-Toppers points, third among all players since 1995 and most among active players. 

Kershaw, who will be 32 when the 2020 season starts, is 51.3 points behind Johnson. In his past five seasons, he has averaged 18.8 points per season and at that pace, would pass Johnson toward the end of the 2022 season, when he will be 34 years old.

There are a few caveats, including:

• Kershaw had a drop-off in points in 2018 and 2019. After earning at least 20 points for a record seven straight seasons (2011 to 2017), Kershaw earned just 8.0 points in 2018 and 12.7 points in 2019 (ranked 25th overall). If he earns 12.7 points per season, he would catch Johnson in 2024 when he is 36.

• Even if he reaches Johnson’s 278.8 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 rough projection puts his actual career Box-Toppers point total at about 380. Kershaw would need at least eight more seasons with more than 20 points a season to reach that total.

Kershaw is 17.3 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 (18.8). (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 2019. The chart also shows each player’s roster status as of the end of the 2019 season and players’ rank in career Box-Toppers points at the end of the 2018 season, to show their rise or fall in rankings since last season.

Notables

The 2019 season saw unprecedented movement among the overall top 10 players in career points with three players reaching the 200-point threshold in Box-Toppers’ 25th season of tracking. Only four players reached 200 points in Box-Toppers’ first 24 seasons. Also, five of the six active players in the career points top 10 list are within just 10 Box-Toppers points of each other, making it a very tight race at the top. Here is a look at some of those other notable players:

• 4. Zack Greinke of the Astros rose from seventh place at the end of 2018 to fourth place at the end of 2019 with 207.1 career Box-Toppers points. Greinke, 36, had 17.9 Box-Toppers points in 2019, seventh among all players. 

• 5. Justin Verlander of the Astros rose from 10th place at the end of 2018 to fifth place at the end of 2019 with 205.6 career Box-Toppers points. Verlander, 36, had 27.5 Box-Toppers points in 2019, second among all players.

• 6. CC Sabathia of the Yankees fell from fourth place at the end of 2018 to sixth place at the end of 2019 with 203.4 career points. Sabathia, 38, had 3.0 Box-Toppers points in 2019 and retired at the end of 2019, which will reduce the active number of players in the overall career points top 10 from six to five.

• 7. Albert Pujols of the Angels fell from sixth place at the end of 2018 to seventh place at the end of 2019 with 201.8 career points, the most of any batter since 1995. Pujols, 40, had 11.0 Box-Toppers points in 2019, third among AL batters and the most points he’s earned in a season since 2011 (12.5 with the Cardinals).

• 8. Max Scherzer of the Nationals rose from ninth place at the end of 2018 to eighth place at the end of 2019 with 197.2 career Box-Toppers points. Scherzer, 35, had 15.4 Box-Toppers points in 2019, 15th among all players and ninth among NL pitchers.

Rising and falling

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

• Astros pitcher Gerrit Cole rose 144 spots, most of any player, from 244th at the end of 2018 to 100th at the end of 2019. Cole, 29, has 93.1 career Box-Toppers points, earning 32.2 in 2019, first among all players and the fourth-highest single-season total in Box-Toppers’ 25 years of tracking. Cole is one of three players to rise into the career points top 100 list in 2019. Cole signed a free agent deal with the Yankees for 2020.

• Mets pitcher Jacob deGrom rose 52 spots from 141st at the end of 2018 to 89th at the end of 2019 with 96.7 career Box-Toppers points, earning 19.1 in 2019, fourth among all players and second among NL pitchers. DeGrom, 31, is one of three players to rise into the career points top 100 list in 2019.

• Nationals pitcher Stephen Strasburg, 31, rose 25 spots from 58th at the end of 2018 to 33rd at the end of 2019 with 132.8 career Box-Toppers points, earning 20.7 in 2019, third among all players and first among NL pitchers.

• Indians pitcher Carlos Carrasco rose 15 spots from 110th at the end of 2018 to 95th at the end of 2019 with 95.1 career Box-Toppers points. Carrasco, 32, earned 7.7 Box-Toppers points in 2019, 28th among AL pitchers, in a season in which he was out three months being treated for leukemia and returned in September, earning his final 2.0 Box-Toppers points of the season. Carrasco is one of three players to rise into the career points top 100 list in 2019.

• Giants pitcher Madison Bumgarner rose nine spots from 52nd at the end of 2018 to 43rd at the end of 2019 with 124.4 career Box-Toppers points. Bumgarner, 30, had 10.0 Box-Toppers points in 2019, 20th among NL pitchers. Bumgarner signed a free agent deal in the offseason with the Diamondbacks.

• Brewers pitcher Gio Gonzalez rose nine spots from 72nd at the end of 2018 to 63rd at the end of 2019 with 108.6 career Box-Toppers points. Gonzalez, 34, had 4.7 Box-Toppers points in 2019. He signed a free agent deal in the offseason with the White Sox.

While three players reached 200 career Box-Toppers points in 2019, there were no players during 2019 who reached 100 career points to join the 83 players on the career points list to reach the century mark.

With three players joining the career points top 100 in 2019—Cole, deGrom and Carrasco—three players fell from the list:

• Pitcher Yovani Gallardo fell from 98th in 2018 to 101st in 2019 with 92.7 career Box-Toppers points. Gallardo, 33, listed as a free agent, last earned Box-Toppers points in 2018 with the Rangers.

• Outfielder Brian Giles fell from 99th in 2018 to 102nd in 2019 with 92.5 career Box-Toppers points. Giles last earned Box-Toppers points in 2008.

• Pitcher Kerry Wood fell from 100th in 2018 to 103rd in 2019 with 92.4 career Box-Toppers points. Wood last earned Box-Toppers points in 2011.

Biggest drop: Curt Schilling

Curt Schilling had the biggest drop among all players on the career Box-Toppers points list, falling four spots from fifth place at the end of 2018 to ninth place at the end of 2019 with 194.1 career points.

Schilling was passed by Greinke, Verlander, Pujols and Scherzer during 2019.

Schilling is the highest-ranked retired player on Box-Toppers career points list who is not in the Baseball Hall of Fame. If Schilling’s entire pitching career were tracked from 1988, rough projections put his career Box-Toppers point total at 232.

Top 100 for 2019 & ‘All-time’

There are 13 players on the “all-time” top 100 who also appeared in Box-Toppers top 100 player list for 2019. They are shown in the chart below, listed in order by their Box-Toppers career player ranking.

Those 13 players include five of the top seven players on the 2019 list—Cole (first with 32.2 points), Verlander (second with 27.4), Strasburg (third with 20.7), deGrom (fourth with 19.1) and Greinke (seventh with 17.9).

Only two players—Verlander and Greinke—are in the top 10 in both 2019 and “all-time” lists: Verlander ranks fifth in the “all-time” list and second in the 2019 list, while Greinke ranks fourth in the “all-time” list and seventh in the 2019 list.

Last year, there were 11 players who made both the 2018 top 100 list and the “all-time” career points top 100 list. Six of those players are the same as last year—Verlander, Greinke, Scherzer, Kershaw, Hamels and Red Sox pitcher Chris Sale.

Breakdown: Active vs. Inactive

Of the 100 players on the “all-time” list, 72 of them ended the season as retired. That is the same number of retired players among the top 100 as there were at the end of 2018. Additionally, one player on the list, Sabathia (203.4 points, ranked sixth), announced his retirement at end of the season.

Four players among the 100 were listed as free agents during the 2019 season and none of them played during the season (so all had 0.0 Box-Toppers points for 2019)—pitchers Bartolo Colon, James Shields and Scott Kazmir and outfielder Matt Holliday.

Top teams

With 76 players listed as inactive at the end of 2019 (72 retired and four free agents), only 24 of the top 100 were listed as active.

The Houston Astros had three active players on the list, most of any team:

• Pitcher Zack Greinke, fourth place with 207.1 career Box-Toppers points.

• Pitcher Justin Verlander, fifth place with 205.6 points.

• Pitcher Gerrit Cole, 100th place with 93.1 points. (Cole has since signed a free agent deal in the offseason with the New York Yankees).

Seven teams have two active players on the top 100 career points list: Red Sox, Cubs, Nationals, Brewers, Mets, Giants and Indians. There are 15 teams that have at least one representative among the top 100.

Breakdown by position

Pitchers outnumber batters on the “all-time” list. There are 62 pitchers and 38 batters (at the end of 2018, there were 61 pitchers and 39 batters among the top 100 “all-time” career points list.) For comparison, on the top 100 list for the 2019 season, there were 71 pitchers and 29 batters.)

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

• 58—Starting pitcher

• 16—Outfield (6 CF, 5 LF, 5 RF)

• 10—First base

• 5—Third base

• 4—Designated hitter

• 4—Closing pitcher

• 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.

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.

Overlapping players

Here are the 13 players who are on both the Box-Toppers’ top 100 list of “all-time” (above) and the Box-Toppers top 100 list for the 2019 season. Players are listed here in order of career Box-Toppers points with their predominant position played during the 2019 season and the team with which they finished the 2019 season. Shown are their career Box-Toppers point (BTP) total, their rank among players in career points, their Box-Toppers point total for 2019 and their rank among players in 2019.

			All-time		2019
Player	Pos	Team	BTP	Rank	BTP	Rank
Kershaw, Clayton 2494	pi sp	lad nl	227.5	3	12.7	25
Greinke, Zack 1871	pi sp	hou al	207.1	4	17.9	7
Verlander, Justin 2112	pi sp	hou al	205.6	5	27.5	2
Pujols, Albert 1438	1b	ana al	201.8	7	11.0	37
Scherzer, Max 2588	pi sp	dc nl	197.2	8	15.4	15
Hamels, Cole 2135	pi sp	chi nl	174.2	12	9.7	53
Lester, Jon 2173	pi sp	chi nl	172.6	13	8.0	80
Sale, Chris 2806	pi sp	bos al	142.6	29	11.0	36
Strasburg, Stephen 2736	pi sp	dc nl	132.8	33	20.7	3
Bumgarner, Madison 2753	pi sp	sf nl	124.4	43	10.0	47
deGrom, Jacob 3343	pi sp	nym nl	96.7	89	19.1	4
Carrasco, Carlos 2885	pi sp	cle al	95.1	95	7.7	90
Cole, Gerrit 3232	pi sp	hou al	93.1	100	32.2	1

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.