How is the score calculated?

For every completed hole (9 games), strokes equal 5 minus wins. Five wins is par (0 strokes), six wins is a birdie (-1), four wins is a bogey (+1), and so on. The total is the sum of strokes across all completed holes — lower is better, just like real golf.

Why 18 holes and 9 games per hole?

MLB plays 162 regular-season games. 162 divided by 18 equals 9, so a 9-game stretch becomes one golf hole and the full season becomes one 18-hole round. Front nine and back nine totals (Out and In) match what you would see on a real scorecard.

How are ties broken on the leaderboard?

First by lowest total. If two teams are tied, the team with more wins on its current in-progress hole ranks higher. If those still match, both teams share the same rank, displayed with a 'T' prefix (for example, T1, T1, 2).

Where does the data come from?

Game results come from the public MLB Stats API. Standings are recomputed from completed games, and the live in-progress hole reflects games currently in progress for the current season.

What is the Baseball Golf Leaderboard?

Q: What is the Baseball Golf Leaderboard?

It is an alternative way to view Major League Baseball's regular season. Each team's 162 games are grouped into 18 holes of 9 games each. Par is 5 wins per hole, so a team that wins 5 of every 9 games scores even par for the season.

A different way to read the standings

What is the Baseball Golf Leaderboard?

The Baseball Golf Leaderboard re-imagines the Major League Baseball regular season as an 18-hole round of golf. Every team plays 162 games, those games are grouped into 18 holes of 9 games each, and the goal — like real golf — is the lowest total score. Par is five wins per hole, and every game above or below par moves a team's stroke total in or out of the red.

How the scoring works

A regular MLB season is exactly 162 games. Divide that round number by 18 and you get 9 games per hole — a clean mapping that lets us treat the whole season as a single round of stroke-play golf. For each completed 9-game hole we use a simple formula:

Par per hole — 5 wins. A .500 record is bogey golf; a winning team beats par.
Strokes per hole — 5 − wins. Six wins is a birdie (-1), seven wins is an eagle (-2), four wins is a bogey (+1).
Total — the sum of strokes across every completed hole. Lower is better.
Front nine (OUT) — strokes through the first 81 games.
Back nine (IN) — strokes for the final 81 games.

A team that goes 90-72 on the season finishes with five birdies and a handful of even-par holes — a comfortable trip around the course. A 100-win season is a low round: deep red figures, plenty of birdies and even an eagle or two. A 60-win season looks like a tough day on the back nine, with bogeys, doubles, and the occasional triple.

Reading the leaderboard

The home page lists all 30 MLB clubs sorted by their stroke total. Each row is a snapshot you can scan in seconds:

Rank: 1, 2, 3 … with a T prefix when two or more teams are tied (for example T1. New York Yankees, T1. Toronto Blue Jays, 2. Tampa Bay Rays).
Team: Club name, logo, and three-letter abbreviation. Click any row to open that team's full scorecard.
Total: Stroke total across completed holes — negative numbers are below par (good), positive numbers are above par.
Thru: Number of games played so far this season, or F when the season is final.
Current: For the live current season only — the in-progress hole and the team's wins–losses on that hole (e.g. H3 2-0).
Record: The traditional win–loss record across all completed holes, included for fans who want the classic baseball view alongside the golf score.

Sort priority is lowest total first, then most wins on the current hole, then alphabetical. When two teams are genuinely tied on every tiebreaker they share a rank.

Reading a team scorecard

Click any team to open a full horizontal scorecard, modeled on the paper card you would carry around an actual course:

Par — always 5, on every hole.
Games — how many of the nine games are complete (e.g. 6/9 means three games left on this hole).
W–L — the team's record on each hole.
Str — strokes for that hole. Color-coded: under par is highlighted as a birdie or better, over par is highlighted as a bogey or worse.
Run — the running stroke total through each completed hole.
OUT / IN / TOT — the front-nine, back-nine, and full-round totals.

During the current season the scorecard also surfaces a live banner for any of that team's games currently in progress, including the score, inning, and any weather delays.

Every season since 2005

You can load any MLB regular season from 2005 forward. Pick a year from the season selector or jump straight in via a clean URL like /2024 for the season leaderboard or /NYY/2018 for a specific team's scorecard that year. Older seasons are fully final, so every hole has a stroke value and the leaderboard never moves — handy for comparing all-time great rounds and historically rough years side by side.

The shortened 2020 season is included for completeness, but because it was 60 games rather than 162 it does not map cleanly to a full 18-hole round; treat that one as the par-3 course out back.

Where the data comes from

All standings are computed from public game results published by the MLB Stats API. Final games drive the official scorecard math; live in-progress games feed the Current column on the leaderboard and the live banner on each scorecard. Nothing is precomputed — every season is rebuilt on demand from the underlying game-by-game record.

Glossary

Hole: A 9-game stretch of the schedule, in chronological order. Holes 1–9 are the front; 10–18 are the back.
Par: 5 wins per hole. Match par across all 18 holes and you finish at 90-72 — a fine round.
Birdie: One under par on a hole — six wins out of nine.
Eagle: Two under par — seven wins out of nine. A standout stretch.
Albatross: Three under par — eight wins out of nine. A historically dominant week and a half.
Bogey: One over par — four wins out of nine.
Double / Triple: Two or three over par on a single hole. Three or two wins out of nine, respectively.
OUT / IN: Front-nine total and back-nine total. The sum is the round total.
Thru: How many games into the season a team currently is. Once the season ends this becomes F for final.

Pick a starting point

Jump straight into a season or team page: