Padres pitcher Clayton Richard is Thursday’s Box-Toppers Player of the Day.
Top 10 players
Here are the top 10 players in Box-Toppers points (BTP) for the 2016 season as of Sept. 8:| Player | Pos | Team | BTP | |
| 1 | Scherzer, Max 2588 | pi sp | dc nl | 22.7 |
| 2 | Kershaw, Clayton 2494 | pi sp | lad nl | 20.0 |
| 3 | Fernandez, Jose 3147 | pi sp | fla nl | 18.4 |
| 4 | Kluber, Corey 3200 | pi sp | cle al | 18.2 |
| 5 | Lester, Jon 2173 | pi sp | chi nl | 17.1 |
| 6 | Hamels, Cole 2135 | pi sp | tex al | 16.8 |
| 7 | Strasburg, Stephen 2736 | pi sp | dc nl | 15.1 |
| 8 | Cueto, Johnny 2400 | pi sp | sf nl | 14.4 |
| 9 | Syndergaard, Noah 3472 | pi sp | nym nl | 14.0 |
| 10 | Arrieta, Jake 2738 | pi sp | chi nl | 13.7 |
Richard pitched seven scoreless innings, striking out eight and allowing six hits and two walks, in the 14-1 win over the Rockies.
American League Player of the Day—Brian McCann of the Yankees hit two homers and went 3-for-4 in the 5-4 win over the Rays.
National League Batter of the Day—Hernan Perez of the Brewers hit two doubles and went 4-for-5, scoring once and driving in three runs, in the 12-5 win over the Cardinals.
American League Batter of the Day—There is no separate AL Batter of the Day for Thursday because the overall AL Player of the Day was batter Brian McCann.
Notable—Kyle Seager of the Mariners has the most season Box-Toppers points of any of the seven who earned Player of the Game honors Thursday.
Seager (HR 3-4 2R 2BI in the 6-3 win over the Rangers) earns 1.0 Box-Toppers point, giving him 9.5 for the season. He ranks 41st among all players and seventh among AL batters.
Seager had a Box-Toppers game score of +3.0, the same as AL Player of the Day Brian McCann. Both also had identical line scores (3-4 2R 2BI), but McCann held the tiebreaker to earn AL Player of the Day because he had two home runs and Seager had one.
Debut—Phillies pitcher Alec Asher made his Box-Toppers debut Thursday with his first career Player of the Game honor.
Asher (6IP 2H 0R BB 0K W in the 4-1 win over the Nationals) made his Major League debut Aug. 30, 2015, and was playing in his eighth career game. He is the 3,735th player to debut in Box-Toppers since record keeping began in 1995.
Scoring—Richard earns 2.0 Box-Toppers points for being Player of the Day and McCann earns 1.7 points for being AL Player of the Day. Perez earns 1.5 points for being NL Batter of the Day. All of Thursday’s other Players of the Game (listed in the chart below) earn 1.0 Box-Toppers point.
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.
Top player from each game
Listed from highest to lowest Box-Toppers game score
| 9/8 | Score | Game | Player of Game | AB | R | H | BI | IP | H | R | ER | BB | K | |
| MLB | 7.0 | SD 14, COL 1 | Clayton Richard (W,2-3) | - | - | - | - | 7.0 | 6 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 8 | |
| 5.0 | PIT 4, CIN 1 | Ivan Nova (W,12-6) | - | - | - | - | 9.0 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 4 | ||
| BAT | 3.0 | MIL 12, STL 5 | Hernan Perez, 2B-3B | 5 | 1 | 4 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| AL | 3.0 | NYY 5, TB 4 | Brian McCann, C | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | |
| 3.0 | SEA 6, TEX 3 | Kyle Seager, 3B | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 3.0 | CLE 10, HOU 7 | Francisco Lindor, SS | 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 | - | - | - | - | - | - | ||
| 3.0 | PHI 4, WSH 1 | Alec Asher (W,1-0) | - | - | - | - | 6.0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
Box-Toppers point totals of the day’s top players
Here are Box-Toppers point totals of each of the Players of the Game. Players are ranked by their Box-Toppers point total for the current season (16). Also shown are each players’ Box-Toppers point total for this season and last (15-16), the period 2011-2016 (11-16) and each players’ career point total. Also shown is how their 2016 Box-Toppers point total compares with their 2015 total (+/-).| Player of Game | Pos | Team | 16 | 15-16 | 11-16 | Career | +/- |
| Seager, Kyle 3031 | 3b | sea al | 9.5 | 14.5 | 28.5 | 28.5 | 4.5 |
| Nova, Ivan 2796 | pi sp | pit nl | 6.0 | 7.0 | 28.1 | 29.1 | 5.0 |
| Lindor, Francisco 3586 | ss | cle al | 5.5 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 6.5 | 4.5 |
| Perez, Hernan 3577 | 3b ss 2b | mil nl | 5.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 6.0 | 4.0 |
| McCann, Brian 2179 | ca | nyy al | 3.2 | 9.7 | 35.4 | 58.4 | -3.3 |
| Richard, Clayton 2584 | pi sp | sd nl | 2.0 | 3.0 | 11.2 | 29.6 | 1.0 |
| Asher, Alec 3735 | pi sp | phi nl | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 | 1.0 |