It is with great pleasure that we have brought back the Notinhalloffame MLB Regular Cup, and let us explain how this works:

For every regular-season game, we anointed the best five players with descending points, 5-4-3-2-1. 

We know the following:

• The top players for the MLB NIHOF Cup are not always the best in the league, as injuries keep players out of games, and a premium on staying healthy can help pile up points. It also does not hurt to be a top player on an average or mediocre team, as they can amass Cup points more easily than elite players on loaded squads.
• In Baseball, it is more common than in Basketball and Hockey for a player to accrue points with a single Home Run in a game, which favors position players. Starting Pitchers have a hard time with approximately 30-35 Starts and throwing fewer innings than previous generations. This is also true for closers not made for this process.
• Please remember that this is NOT necessarily who we think were the best players this year and does not reflect overall consistency. Treat this the way we did: as a fun process and more of a compilation of temporary statistical domination. 

Here is the current top ten after games concluded on July 7.

1. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees: 141 Cup Points in 90 Games. (#1 Last Week).  6.6 bWAR, 80 Runs, 119 Hits, 33 Home Runs, 74 Runs Batted In, .360/.468/.734 Slash Line, 1.202 OPS & 233 OPS+.

2. Pete Alonso, New York Mets: 122 Cup Points in 91 Games. (#2 Last Week).   3.1 bWAR, 51 Runs, 98 Hits, 20 Home Runs, 73 Runs Batted In, .287/.380/.543 Slash Line, .923 OPS & 164 OPS+.

3. Bobby Witt Jr., Kansas City Royals: 109 Cup Points in 92 Games. (#10 Last Week).  4.3 bWAR, 56 Runs, 107 Hits, 13 Home Runs, 52 Runs Batted In, .296/.346/.503 Slash Line, .849 OPS & 135 OPS+.

4. Shohei Ohtani, Los Angeles Dodgers:  108 Cup Points in 90 Games.  (#3 Last Week).  4.1 bWAR, 87 Runs, 99 Hits, 30 Home Runs, 56 Runs Batted In, .280/.382/.609 Slash Line, .991 OPS & 175 OPS+.

5. Cal Raleigh, Seattle Mariners: 107 Cup Points in 88 Games. (#4 Last Week).   4.6 bWAR, 62 Runs, 87 Hits, 35 Home Runs, 74 Runs Batted In, .268/.381/.640 Slash Line, 1.021 OPS & 193 OPS+.

6. Riley Greene, Detroit Tigers:  103 Cup Points in 90 Games.  (#5 Last Week).  2.6 bWAR, 50 Runs, 95 Hits, 22 Home Runs, 72 Runs Batted In, .285/.340/.536 Slash Line, .876 OPS & 143 OPS+.

7. Francisco Lindor, New York Mets: 97 Cup Points in 89 Games. (#9 Last Week).   3.0 bWAR, 57 Runs, 93 Hits, 17 Home Runs, 49 Runs Batted In, .261/.333/.452 Slash Line, .785 OPS & 125 OPS+.

8. Manny Machado, San Diego Padres: 96 Cup Points in 90 Games. (Not in the Top Ten Last Week).   2.8 bWAR, 54 Runs, 101 Hits, 15 Home Runs, 53 Runs Batted In, .293/.354/.484 Slash Line, .838 OPS & 132 OPS+.

9. James Wood, Washington Nationals: 90 Cup Points in 84 Games. (#6 Last Week).   4.3 bWAR, 58 Runs, 97 Hits, 23 Home Runs, 67 Runs Batted In, .288/.391/.549 Slash Line, .940 OPS & 167 OPS+.

10. (TIE) Byron Buxton, Minnesota Twins:  92 Cup Points in 73 Games.  (#6 Last Week).  3.3 bWAR, 57 Runs, 76 Hits, 20 Home Runs, 53 Runs Batted In, .270/.334/.544 Slash Line, .879 OPS & 138 OPS+.

10. (TIE) Rafael Devers, San Francisco Giants: 89 Cup Points in 79 Games.  (#9 Last Week).  2.4 bWAR, 54 Runs, 92 Hits, 17 Home Runs, 67 Runs Batted In, .265/.390/.478 Slash Line, .868 OPS & 143 OPS+.

Nobody fell out of the Top Ten.

Notably, 959 baseball players have earned at least 1 point, up from 940 last week.

Yes, we know that this is taking a while!

As many of you know, we at Notinhalloffame.com are slowly generating the top 50 of each major North American sports team. That being said, we maintain and update our existing Top 50 lists annually.  As such, we are delighted to present our post-2024 revision of our top 50 Carolina Panthers. 

As for all of our top 50 players in football, we look at the following: 

1.  Advanced Statistics.

2.  Traditional statistics and how they finished in the National Football League.

3.  Playoff accomplishments.

4.  Their overall impact on the team and other intangibles that are not reflected in a stat sheet.

Last year, the Panthers won only five games and were fortunate to achieve that.  Despite the franchise's relative brevity, there were no new entrants and only one change on the list.

As always, we present our top five, which remains unchanged in that ranking.

1. Steve Smith Sr.
2. Cam Newton
3. Luke Kuechly
4. Julius Peppers
5. Ryan Kalil 

You can find the entire list here.

The only change was Offensive Tackle Taylor Moton, who reached #26 from #35.

We thank you for your continued support of our lists on Notinhalloffame.com.

1980 SEMI-FINAL RESULTS:

Thank you for your participation in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project. If you are unaware of what that is, we acted like the PFHOF had its first class in January 1946.

We have completed the years up to 1979.

For “1980,” a Preliminary Vote with nearly 100 players whose playing career ended by 1974. We are also following the structure, where players have 20 years of eligibility, and if they do not make it into the Hall, they are relegated to the Senior Pool.

Each voter was asked to select 25 names from the preliminary list, and the top 25 vote-getters were named Semi-Finalists.

A week later, the voters were asked to pick 15 names from the 25 Semi-Finalists, and next week, they will pick five from the remaining 15. We will continue this process every week until we catch up to the current year.

30 Votes took place, with the top fifteen advancing.

This is for the “Modern Era”

Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals: 

This is for the “Senior Era”

*Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals:

This is for the “Coaches/Contributors Era”

*Bold indicates they advanced to the Finals:

We will post the Class of 1980 Pro Football Hall of Fame Revisited Project next Saturday.

Thank you to all who contributed. If you want to be part of this project, please let us know!