Behind the Box Score

Behind the Box Score

A Human Encyclopedia of Players

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EN / JA

PA 1B

★ Today's featured profile · last updated May 28, 2026

Pete Alonso

1BNew York Mets

"The man who set the MLB rookie home run record in his very first season is now writing a second act in Baltimore."

Alonso arrives in Baltimore after six seasons as the face of Mets power hitting, entering what may be his statistical prime at thirty-one — the kind of clean-slate narrative that reshapes how a career gets remembered.

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29 profiles · 1,467 players tracked

RF New York Yankees

Did you know Aaron Judge is the first Yankees captain since Derek Jeter — a title so rare the franchise waited nearly a decade to award it again, and has given it to almost no one in over a century of operation?

Pitcher Cincinnati Reds

"A left-handed pitcher shaped by the Blue Ridge foothills and a Thomas Jefferson university, Andrew Abbott arrived in Cincinnati carrying something rarer than velocity: an uncommonly deliberate formation."

SS Kansas City Royals

"The son who grew up inside the game's machinery — and arrived at the major leagues as though he had been there before."

RF San Diego Padres

Fernando Tatis Jr.

"Born in the city that baseball built, Fernando Tatis Jr. inherited a legacy and then complicated it in every way that makes a person interesting."

1B Los Angeles Dodgers

Freddie Freeman

Did you know Freddie Freeman hit the first walk-off grand slam in World Series history — and that he's also a Canadian citizen who grew up in a California suburb of six thousand people?

SS Baltimore Orioles

Gunnar Henderson

"A 230-pound shortstop from the capital of Alabama, Gunnar Henderson arrived in Baltimore during a rebuild and stayed to redefine what the position looks like."

LF New York Mets

"Before his twenty-sixth birthday, Juan Soto had already won a World Series, rejected a nine-figure extension, and turned the batter's box into an act of public self-expression that the sport is still processing."

CF Seattle Mariners

Julio Rodríguez

"Born at the edge of the Dominican Republic and the edge of an era, Julio Rodríguez is playing center field the way the next generation will play everything — with full presence, full expression, and no apology."

CF Los Angeles Angels

Did you know Mike Trout — widely regarded as the best player of his generation — has played in exactly one postseason series in fifteen seasons, and his team was swept in all three games?

SS Los Angeles Dodgers

Did you know Mookie Betts voluntarily gave up one of the best right-field positions in baseball to become a shortstop at 29 — mid-supermax contract — and quietly pulled it off?

Pitcher Pittsburgh Pirates

"Before the Pittsburgh Pirates came calling, Paul Skenes had already chosen one path for his life—and then chose again."

1B New York Mets

Did you know Pete Alonso hit more home runs as a rookie than any player in MLB history — a record that had stood since Mark McGwire hit 49 in 1987?

RF Atlanta Braves

Ronald Acuña Jr.

"The son of a Braves farmhand who never reached the majors, Ronald Acuña Jr. turned a father's unfinished career into a category no one had ever occupied."

Two-Way Los Angeles Dodgers JP

"The Eighty-One Squares: Shohei Ohtani and the Deliberate Architecture of Greatness"

Pitcher Atlanta Braves

Spencer Strider

"Spencer Strider chose jersey number 99 before throwing a single pitch in the majors — and spent the next three seasons making it look conservative."

Pitcher Detroit Tigers JP

"The Education of Kenta Maeda: Nine Seasons in Red, and What Came After"

Pitcher New York Mets JP

"Kodai Senga carried Japan's most feared pitch across an ocean — and into a neighborhood that understands, in its bones, what it means to arrive somewhere new"

LF St. Louis Cardinals JPN

"The El Segundo kid who became a Japanese national hero — on a team that wasn't his own"

DH Boston Red Sox JP

Masataka Yoshida

"From a quiet prefecture on the Sea of Japan, Masataka Yoshida brought the most meticulous batting eye in Nippon Professional Baseball to one of North America's most demanding stages."

Pitcher Los Angeles Dodgers JP

"Born in a city the sea nearly erased, Roki Sasaki carries Tōhoku's weight to every mound he climbs."

RF Chicago Cubs JP

"The patient hitter from Arakawa who carried a whole city's identity to Chicago"

Pitcher Chicago Cubs JP

"The left-hander from Kitakyushu who carried a decade of NPB precision to the ivy-covered walls of Wrigley Field"

Pitcher Los Angeles Dodgers JP

Yoshinobu Yamamoto

"From a city of fire-hardened clay, Yoshinobu Yamamoto arrived in Los Angeles carrying a number that, in Japan, means everything."

Pitcher Los Angeles Angels JP

Did you know Shohei Ohtani attended the same small high school in rural Japan as Yusei Kikuchi — and that Kikuchi was the one who made the school famous first?

Pitcher Atlanta Braves

"Charlie Morton spent his twenties becoming a major leaguer, his thirties becoming a great one, and his forties negotiating what that means when the inning is nearly over."

Pitcher Atlanta Braves

"A forty-second-round afterthought born in one of California's most quietly layered cities, Jesse Chavez has made a career out of refusing to be forgotten."

Pitcher San Francisco Giants

Justin Verlander

"Born in a Virginia community too small for its own zip code, Justin Verlander turned the pitcher's mound into a decades-long argument about what careful, relentless craft can sustain."

Pitcher Los Angeles Angels

"The Curaçaoan who arrived as a teenage catcher, reinvented himself on the mound, and carried the weight of a small island nation into the sport's most pressure-saturated role"

Pitcher Kansas City Royals

"Born in the city that built Fenway Park, Rich Hill spent two decades proving that a curveball, refined obsessively, can outlast almost everything else in professional baseball."