On April 25, 1995, the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Florida Marlins, 8-7, to open the 1995 regular season.

That game 30 years ago today marked the beginning of Box-Toppers. Now in its 31st season, Box-Toppers has analyzed box scores from more than 70,000 regular season games and determining a top player in each game.

Welcome to Opening Day of the 2025 Major League Baseball season.

This marks the start of Box-Toppers’ 31st season tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score statistics. Here is an introduction to Box-Toppers.

Box-Toppers picks the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 2025 World Series, beating the predicted American League champion Baltimore Orioles.

Box-Toppers projects the Dodgers will have the most wins among all teams—108—and that National League teams will be among the most dominant. Eight of the 15 NL teams are projected to have as many or more wins as the best American League teams (89).

A look at Box-Toppers season-by-season leaders chart for each of the past 30 seasons, including the leaders in Box-Toppers points each season among four main categories—American League and National League pitchers and batters.

Also, a look at how often Box-Toppers leaders win major postseason awards (Cy Young and Most Valuable Player), what players have led a Box-Toppers season category most often since tracking began in 1995 and what teams have had the most category leaders in 30 seasons. Also, a look at the lowest point totals to lead a season category, which includes 2024 leaders.

Three players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday—Ichiro Suzuki, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.

All three received the necessary 75 percent support of voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA). Box-Toppers supported Sabathia and Wagner in separate voting by the Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA), but notably did not support Suzuki, who was a near-unanimous choice.

Overall Box-Toppers points leader, Phillies pitcher Zack Wheeler, leads the Box-Toppers All-Star teams for the 2024 regular season.

The American League and National League All-Star teams are composed of the players with the highest Box-Toppers point totals by position in each league. In addition to nine batters in each league are the top four starting pitchers in each league and the top closing pitcher.

Box-Toppers is voting for four players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in the 2025 Internet Baseball Writers Association of America (IBWAA) ballot.

Box-Toppers is voting for these players: Felix Hernandez, Torii Hunter, CC Sabathia and Billy Wagner.

Notably, Box-Toppers is not voting for Ichiro Suzuki, who is on the Hall ballot for the first time for 2025. While Suzuki is expected to be a shoo-in for the Hall and to possibly be only the second player inducted on a unanimous vote, I devoted a previous post to why Box-Toppers doesn’t view him as a Hall of Famer. In addition, this post which will show how unfavorably he compares in Box-Toppers rankings to even this year’s Hall candidates, may even make a more stark case why I don’t see Suzuki as a Hall of Famer.

As baseball writers push for Ichiro Suzuki to not only be inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame but to become only the second player voted in unanimously, what chucklehead will oppose that?

It pains me to say: Me. Let me explain.

Despite earning Most Valuable Player and Rookie of the Year Awards and getting 3,000 hits, Suzuki was not the key player very often in his team’s wins. There was almost always some other teammate outperforming Suzuki in team wins. Suzuki never led his team in a season in Box-Toppers points and never even led his team’s batters.

Blake Snell and Juan Soto are among this season’s free-agent players with the most 2024 Box-Toppers points.

Snell leads the entire class, earning 15.7 Box-Toppers points in 2024 with the Giants, most among all free-agent players, seventh among all players and fifth among National League pitchers.

Soto has the most 2024 Box-Toppers points among all free-agent batters, earning 11.0 with the Yankees, seventh among all free agents, 43rd among all players in 2024 and second among American League batters (behind only teammate Aaron Judge’s 13.0).

The Los Angeles Dodgers won the 2024 World Series after the season’s 12 playoff-qualifying teams played a total of 43 postseason games over 30 days in October.

Here is a recap look at Box-Toppers Player of the Game winners in each of the 43 postseason games for 2024.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Yankees, meeting in the World Series beginning Friday, also met during the regular season for three games in New York, with the Dodgers winning two of the three games:

Here is a look at Box-Toppers Player of the Game winners in each of those games.

The New York Yankees hold dominating Box-Toppers points advantages over the Los Angeles Dodgers in the 2024 World Series.

Looking at the Box-Toppers numbers alone, the Yankees can’t lose. But the Dodgers this postseason through mojo and moxie (and Mookie), have won two postseason series despite being severely depleted at starting pitching, the same handicap they face in the World Series.

The New York Yankees, Box-Toppers’ top-ranked American League team and the top seed among AL teams in the postseason, are favored over the Cleveland Guardians in the AL Championship Series.

The Yankees have the edge in overall Box-Toppers points and in starting and relief pitchers. However, the Guardians hold a surprising edge among the likely starting nine batters.

Box-Toppers favors the surging New York Mets in the National League Championship Series over the injury-depleted Los Angeles Dodgers.

While the Dodgers are the NL’s highest seed in the postseason and while they feature Shohei Ohtani, the NL Box-Toppers points leader among batters, their starting pitching lineup, once considered their greatest asset, has become threadbare this postseason due to numerous injuries.

Both National League Division Series begin Saturday.

The San Diego Padres face the Los Angeles Dodgers in one best-of-five game series and the New York Mets face the Philadelphia Phillies in the other. The top two NL seeds, the Dodgers (first) and the Phillies (second) received byes from the first round of playoffs and face the winners of the best-of-three Wild Card series played this week.

Both American League Division Series begin Saturday.

The Detroit Tigers face the Cleveland Guardians in one best-of-five game series and the Kansas City Royals face the New York Yankees in the other. The top two AL seeds, the Yankees (first) and the Guardians (second) received byes from the first round of playoffs and face the winners of the best-of-three Wild Card series played this week.

The Wild Card round of Major League Baseball’s postseason begins Tuesday with four best-of-three series.

All series take place at the higher-seed’s home ballpark. The winners of each series will face one of their league’s top-two seeded teams in league divisional series beginning Saturday.

On 27 of the 30 Major League clubs, pitchers are the team’s leader in 2024 Box-Toppers points. Batters lead the other three teams.

Pitchers are dominating much the way they are winning the overwhelming majority of Box-Toppers points this season compared to batters. Pitchers are winning 63 percent of all points this season compared to 37 percent for batters. The all-time record-low share of points earned by batters is 38.1 percent set in 2022. Last year, in 2023, batters won 40.7 percent of all points.

Three of Box-Toppers four main category leaders, including the overall leader in Box-Toppers points for 2024, were not selected to the 2024 Major League Baseball All-Star teams.

Yankees pitcher Luis Gil, who leads all players with 14.4 Box-Toppers points, was not selected to participate in the All-Star Game. Joining him as key All-Star snubs are Dylan Cease of the Padres, who leads National League pitchers with 12.4 points and outfielder Brenton Doyle of the Rockies, who leads NL batters with 8.7 points.

With the first phase of voting wrapping up this week for the 2024 Major League Baseball All-Star Game, here’s a look at Box-Toppers points leaders at each position in both leagues, through the games of Tuesday, June 25.

The first phase of fan All-Star voting closes Thursday at noon (Eastern time) and the second phase, with finalist voting only, runs from June 30 to July 3. Here is more information about how that works. The All-Star Game is Tuesday, July 16, in Arlington, Texas.

Welcome to Opening Day of the 2024 Major League Baseball season.

This marks the start of Box-Toppers’ 30th season tracking who most helps their teams win the most games, based on box score statistics.

Box-Toppers picks the Los Angeles Dodgers to win the 2024 World Series, beating the predicted American League champion Houston Astros.

Box-Toppers projects the Dodgers will have the most wins among all teams—103—and will be one of three teams with 99 or more wins, along with the Astros and the Atlanta Braves.

The Los Angeles Dodgers are the top-ranked team in Box-Toppers’ 2024 preseason rankings.

Meanwhile, the New York Mets made the biggest offseason improvement in players’ accumulated Box-Toppers points, while the San Diego Padres saw the biggest decline.

During the 2023 season, Max Scherzer and Justin Verlander each rose one spot on Box-Toppers “all-time” career points top 10 list.

They were the only player movements among Box-Toppers “all-time” career points top 10 players overall, among the top 10 pitchers and among the top 10 batters. Pitcher Randy Johnson, who retired in 2009, still leads all players in career Box-Toppers points with 282.5 (tracking began in 1995).

Yankees pitcher Gerrit Cole leads players in Box-Toppers points since the start of 2018.

Cole has 112.4 Box-Toppers points over the period 2018-23, 17.4 points ahead of second-ranked player, Rangers pitcher Max Scherzer, who has 95.0 over that span.

Angels pitcher Shohei Ohtani has more Box-Toppers points over the past two seasons than any other player.

Ohtani has earned 44.1 Box-Toppers points over 2022 and 2023. He ranked second among all players in 2022 with 24.7 Box-Toppers points and third among all players in 2023 with 19.4 points.

Analyzing 29 years of Box-Toppers points leaders in pitching and batting in both leagues.

In 2023, Shohei Ohtani of the Angels, American League Most Valuable Player, was the only player who won a major postseason award and also led his Box-Toppers category (leading AL batters with 19.4). Also, Pete Alonso of the Mets became the ninth batter since 1995 to lead his league’s batters in Box-Toppers points more than once, leading NL batters for the second straight season.

Three players were elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame Tuesday, all of whom Box-Toppers supported for induction.

Adrian Beltre, Joe Mauer and Todd Helton all received the necessary 75 percent support of voters from the Baseball Writers Association of America (BBWAA).

Here is a detailed look at Box-Toppers point leaders for 2023.

The chart accompanying this post shows points leaders for the season by several different categories and classifications.

The Atlanta Braves are Box-Toppers’ top-ranked team going into 2024, with a roster mostly intact from 2023 when they had baseball’s best record.

Meanwhile, the Houston Astros and Seattle Mariners are Box-Toppers’ top two American League teams, with the Mariners having one of the best offseason improvements of any team so far. And also, while the Los Angeles Dodgers have made big offseason splashes adding Shohei Ohtani, Tyler Glasnow and Teoscar Hernandez, their offseason ranking has actually fallen from third place last season to fourth place now.