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Today’s key Box-Toppers numbers. Click links to jump to charts elsewhere on this page.▪️ Top 10 players in 2025
▪️ Opening Day pitching matchups
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Welcome to Opening Day of the 2026 Major League Baseball season.
This marks the 32nd season of Box-Toppers tracking the players who most help their teams win, based on box score statistics.
What is Box-Toppers?
Top 10 players
Here are the top 10 players in 2025 Box-Toppers points (BTP) earned in the regular season through Sunday, Sept. 28 (final).| Player | Pos | Team | BTP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tarik Skubal | pi sp | Tigers | 22.1 |
| 2 | Paul Skenes | pi sp | Pirates | 21.1 |
| 3 | Zack Wheeler | pi sp | Phillies | 20.1 |
| 4 | Garrett Crochet | pi sp | Red Sox | 19.8 |
| 5 | Bryan Woo | pi sp | Mariners | 18.0 |
| 6 | Nick Pivetta | pi sp | Padres | 17.7 |
| 7 | Yoshinobu Yamamoto | pi sp | Dodgers | 17.7 |
| 8 | Jesús Luzardo | pi sp | Phillies | 17.4 |
| 9 | Luis Castillo | pi sp | Mariners | 16.1 |
| 10 | Ranger Suárez | pi sp | Phillies | 15.8 |
All-time leaders
Here are Box-Toppers top 10 players since record keeping began in 1995:| Player | Pos | Team | BTP | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Randy Johnson | pi sp | Retired | 282.5 |
| 2 | Clayton Kershaw | pi sp | Retired | 280.8 |
| 3 | Max Scherzer | pi sp | Blue Jays | 256.7 |
| 4 | Justin Verlander | pi sp | Tigers | 250.0 |
| 5 | Pedro Martinez | pi sp | Retired | 244.8 |
| 6 | Zack Greinke | pi sp | Free agent | 224.5 |
| 7 | Albert Pujols | 1b | Retired | 207.8 |
| 8 | CC Sabathia | pi sp | Retired | 203.4 |
| 9 | Curt Schilling | pi sp | Retired | 194.1 |
| 10 | Alex Rodriguez | 3b | Retired | 187.0 |
Winning is the most important thing in baseball. But which player contributed most to that win? While “the win” is a traditional stat, it only applies to pitchers—and even then, it often goes to the pitcher who happened to be in the game when the lead changed, rather than the one most responsible for the victory.
Box-Toppers provides a metric to identify the true “Player of the Game” (pitcher or batter). Using a simple formula based on standard box score stats, we award 1.0 Box-Toppers point to the top player in every MLB game.
How it Works
Player of the Game: 1.0 point per win.
Bonus Points: Players can earn extra credit for being the overall "Player of the Day" or the top player (or top batter) in their league for that day.
Tracking Excellence: As the season progresses, these totals allow us to rank the best players by team, position, or league.
For example, in 2025, Tigers pitcher Tarik Skubal led all players with 22.1 Box-Toppers points. He earned these by being named Player of the Game in 16 Tigers victories. In five of those games, he earned an additional 1.0 bonus point as the overall Player of the Day; in three others, he earned 0.7 bonus points as the American League Player of the Day.
Skubal takes the mound Thursday as the Tigers’ Opening Day starter against the Padres.
Legacy and Coverage
Box-Toppers tracking began in 1995. Since then, the career leader remains Randy Johnson, who retired in 2009 with 282.5 career points.
This is the 14th season for Box-Toppers.com. Throughout 2026, look for:career leader
Daily Updates: Each game’s Player of the Game and the top Player of the Day.
Weekly Rankings: Starting a few weeks into the season, we’ll post overall leaders and team standings (usually on Fridays).
Social Media: Follow us on Bluesky, Facebook, and Twitter (X) for real-time updates and historical comparisons.
You can also subscribe to the Box-Toppers Email Newsletter or our RSS feed to never miss a post.
Help us stay accurate! Spot a mistake? Contact Box-Toppers here so we can fix it.
Related
Box-Toppers top players of 2025: Top 10 overall players, plus the top 10 NL and AL pitchers and batters
Box-Toppers marks 25th anniversary from April 25, 2020. A look back at the very first Player of the Game winners in April 1995 and a look at Box-Toppers’ history.
A Box-Toppers look at each team’s opening day pitchers
All 30 teams open their seasons over three days—Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Here is each team’s opening day starter and the pitching matchups for each team’s first game of the season. Teams are paired below with visiting teams on top and home teams on the bottom. Each team’s starting pitcher is shown with their Box-Toppers point total from 2026 (’26), last year and this year (’25-26), over six years (’21-26), and their career point total.Back to top
| Game | Wednesday’s starters | ’26 | ’25‑26 | ’21‑26 | Career |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NYY | Fried, Max 4011 | 0.0 | 14.4 | 64.6 | 81.3 |
| SF | Webb, Logan 4258 | 0.0 | 9.0 | 57.6 | 60.3 |
| Game | Thursday’s starters | ’26 | ’25‑26 | ’21‑26 | Career |
| PIT | Skenes, Paul 5005 | 0.0 | 21.1 | 34.1 | 34.1 |
| NYM | Peralta, Freddy 3965 | 0.0 | 14.7 | 65.9 | 84.6 |
| CHW | Smith, Shane 5158 | 0.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.0 |
| MIL | Misiorowski, Jacob 5200 | 0.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 |
| WSH | Cavalli, Cade 5244 | 0.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.0 |
| CHC | Boyd, Matthew 3550 | 0.0 | 10.7 | 15.7 | 42.5 |
| MIN | Ryan, Joe 4539 | 0.0 | 11.7 | 47.5 | 47.5 |
| BAL | Rogers, Trevor 4311 | 0.0 | 11.7 | 26.7 | 27.7 |
| BOS | Crochet, Garrett 4434 | 0.0 | 19.8 | 31.5 | 31.5 |
| CIN | Abbott, Andrew 4839 | 0.0 | 10.7 | 26.7 | 26.7 |
| LAA | Soriano, Jose 4884 | 0.0 | 12.7 | 16.7 | 16.7 |
| HOU | Brown, Hunter 4729 | 0.0 | 13.4 | 36.5 | 36.5 |
| DET | Skubal, Tarik 4414 | 0.0 | 22.1 | 73.3 | 73.3 |
| SD | Pivetta, Nick 3825 | 0.0 | 17.7 | 49.1 | 71.8 |
| TEX | Eovaldi, Nathan 2928 | 0.0 | 14.4 | 57.2 | 96.7 |
| PHI | Sanchez, Cristopher 4850 | 0.0 | 15.4 | 30.8 | 30.8 |
| TB | Rasmussen, Drew 4547 | 0.0 | 9.7 | 31.2 | 31.2 |
| STL | Liberatore, Matthew 4662 | 0.0 | 6.0 | 13.0 | 13.0 |
| ARI | Gallen, Zac 4171 | 0.0 | 12.7 | 64.5 | 76.2 |
| LAD | Yamamoto, Yoshinobu 4964 | 0.0 | 17.7 | 24.1 | 24.1 |
| CLE | Bibee, Tanner 4792 | 0.0 | 7.0 | 29.7 | 29.7 |
| SEA | Gilbert, Logan 4439 | 0.0 | 13.1 | 60.6 | 60.6 |
| Game | Friday’s starters | ’26 | ’25‑26 | ’21‑26 | Career |
| ATH | Severino, Luis 3567 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 23.1 | 68.9 |
| TOR | Gausman, Kevin 3191 | 0.0 | 14.1 | 69.2 | 112.2 |
| COL | Freeland, Kyle 3763 | 0.0 | 4.0 | 24.7 | 45.1 |
| MIA | Alcantara, Sandy 4061 | 0.0 | 8.0 | 45.8 | 55.2 |
| KC | Ragans, Cole 4889 | 0.0 | 7.0 | 23.4 | 23.4 |
| ATL | Sale, Chris 2806 | 0.0 | 11.4 | 41.2 | 183.8 |
* Player has yet to earn any career Box-Toppers points.
What are those numbers after players' names?
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