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Tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score stats. A method to measure & compare baseball's top players.
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Phillies’ Sánchez leads this week’s player rankings; Guardians’ Williams tops AL pitchers

Shawn Plank May 29, 2026
Here are standings of the top 10 players by category (AL & NL pitching & batting) in Box-Toppers points (BTP) for the 2026 season through games of Thursday, May 28:
  AL PITCHERS POS TEAM BTP     NL PITCHERS POS TEAM BTP
1 Williams, Gavin 4865 pi sp cle al 9.7   1 Sanchez, Cristopher 4850 pi sp phi nl 10.7
2 Schlittler, Cam 5261 pi sp nyy al 8.7   2 Ashcraft, Braxton 5208 pi sp pit nl 9.4
3 Martin, Davis 4657 pi sp chi al 8.7   3 Skenes, Paul 5005 pi sp pit nl 9.0
4 Soriano, Jose 4884 pi sp ana al 8.0   4 Ohtani, Shohei 3933 pi sp dh lad nl 8.7
5 Fried, Max 4011 pi sp nyy al 7.0   5 Misiorowski, Jacob 5200 pi sp mil nl 8.0
6 Bradley, Taj 4780 pi sp min al 6.7   6 Luzardo, Jesus 4282 pi sp phi nl 7.0
7 Woo, Bryan 4842 pi sp sea al 6.4   7 Harrison, Kyle 4914 pi sp mil nl 7.0
8 Cease, Dylan 4231 pi sp tor al 6.4   8 Burns, Chase 5301 pi sp cin nl 7.0
9 Arrighetti, Spencer 5022 pi sp hou al 6.4   9 Sale, Chris 2806 pi sp atl nl 6.7
10 Eovaldi, Nathan 2928 pi sp tex al 5.7   10 Vasquez, Randy 4841 pi sp sd nl 6.4
     
  AL BATTERS POS TEAM BTP     NL BATTERS POS TEAM BTP
1 Murakami, Munetaka 5308 1b chi al 4.5   1 Ohtani, Shohei 3933 pi sp dh lad nl 8.7
2 Jackson, Jeremiah 5277 2b bal al 4.2   2 Marte, Ketel 3630 2b ari nl 5.5
3 Arozarena, Randy 4331 lf sea al 4.0   3 Harris, Michael 4682 cf ph atl nl 5.5
4 Kurtz, Nick 5221 1b oak al 4.0   4 Stewart, Sal 5288 1b 3b cin nl 5.0
5 Okamoto, Kazuma 5331 3b tor al 4.0   5 Burleson, Alec 4874 1b stl nl 5.0
6 Greene, Riley 4675 lf dh det al 3.5   6 Pages, Andy 5123 cf lad nl 4.7
7 Walker, Christian 3958 1b hou al 3.5   7 Ruiz, Keibert 4616 ca dc nl 4.2
8 Martínez, Angel 5212 lf cf rf cle al 3.5   8 Schwarber, Kyle 3536 dh phi nl 4.0
9 Rocchio, Brayan 5100 ss cle al 3.5   9 Muncy, Max 3969 3b lad nl 3.7
10 Raley, Luke 4868 rf cf sea al 3.5   10 Wood, James 5078 rf dc nl 3.5
What are those numbers after players' names?
About Box-Toppers’ team abbreviations

Phillies pitcher Cristopher Sánchez is this week’s new Box-Toppers player rankings leader, passing Pirates pitcher Braxton Ashcraft, who led last week.

Also, Gavin Williams of the Guardians rises to lead American League pitchers and Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox rises to lead AL batters, while Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers continues to lead National League batters.

Sánchez takes overall lead

Sánchez jumps from third to first place overall with 10.7 Box-Toppers points, unseating Ashcraft, who drops to third (9.4 points). Guardians pitcher Gavin Williams now sits in second with 9.7 points. With this move, Sánchez also replaces Ashcraft as the National League pitching leader.

American League pitchers

Gavin Williams of the Guardians rises from fourth place last week to first place this week with 9.7 points, passing last week’s leader José Soriano, who falls to fourth place with 8.0 points. Williams leads AL pitchers over second-place Cam Schlittler of the Yankees (8.7 points).

Williams ranks second overall.

American League batters

Munetaka Murakami of the White Sox rises from 10th place last week to first place this week with 4.5 Box-Toppers points, passing Jeremiah Jackson of the Orioles, leader for the past four weeks, who falls to second place with 4.2 points.

Murakami ranks 40th overall.

National League batters

Shohei Ohtani of the Dodgers leads for the second week with 8.7 Box-Toppers points, picking up 1.0 point in the past week. He leads over second-place NL batter, Ketel Marte of the Diamondbacks (5.5 points).

Ohtani ranks sixth overall.

Ohtani has earned Player of the Game honors seven times this season—two as a batter (2.0 points) and five as a starting pitcher (6.7 points). Because at least 25% of his honors came from each role (28.6% batting, 71.4% pitching), he qualifies to rank at both positions with his full 8.7-point total.

Should Ohtani win his next Player of the Game as a pitcher, he would no longer rank among batters, falling below the qualifying threshold.

Ohtani’s 6.7 points earned as a pitcher would rank ninth among NL pitchers and his 2.0 points earned as a batter would rank 33rd among NL batters.

Box-Toppers almanac

Batters won less than one-third of all Player of the Game honors this week, decreasing their overall share of Box-Toppers points earned this season to under 40 percent.

Batters won Player of the Game honors in only 29 of the 92 games played this week (31.5%), while pitchers won in 63 games (68.5%).

Batters’ share of Box-Toppers points won this season fell from 40.1% last week to 39.2% this week.

Batters have won fewer than 40% of all Box-Toppers points awarded in four of the past five seasons (surpassing it only in 2023 at 40.7%) and set a record-low share of 37.2% in 2024.

While batters have struggled to reach parity with pitchers in recent seasons, it wasn’t always this way: From 1995 to 2009, batters generally won half or more of all Box-Toppers points each season. But their share of points dropped precipitously after 2009.

About Box-Toppers

Box-Toppers tracks who contributes most to their team’s victory. Using standard box score statistics, we identify the Player of the Game for every MLB contest. In the regular season, winners earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point, with bonus points awarded to the top overall and league-specific players of the day. More on how Box-Toppers works.

Help us stay accurate! Spot a mistake? Contact Box-Toppers here so we can fix it.

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Related

Last week’s Box-Toppers player rankings report

TagsBox-Toppers Player Rankings, Cristopher Sanchez, Braxton Ashcraft, Gavin Williams, Munetaka Murakami, Shohei Ohtani, Jose Soriano, Cam Schlittler, Jeremiah Jackson, Ketel Marte
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Box-Toppers

Tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score stats. A method to measure & compare baseball's top players.

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. Players earn Box-Toppers points 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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