Sport | Baseball |
---|---|
League | Minor League Baseball |
Awarded for | Player of the Year |
Country | United States, Canada, Mexico |
Presented by | The Topps Company Minor League Baseball |
History | |
First award | 1960 |
First winner | Al Cicotte |
Most wins | Roger Freed (1970, 1976) Sandy Alomar Jr. (1988, 1989) |
Most recent | Byron Buxton (2013) |
The Topps Minor League Player of the Year Award was presented by The Topps Company in conjunction with Minor League Baseball to a minor-league player deemed to have had the most outstanding season. It was awarded annually beginning in 1960, but does not appear to have been issued since 2013. A newspaper report of the 1972 result, the first tie in the award's history, noted that winners were selected via a poll of minor league baseball writers. [1]
It has also been known, circa 1970 onward, as the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, [2] [lower-alpha 1] although use of that naming has been inconsistent over time. Namesake J. G. Taylor Spink was publisher of The Sporting News from 1914 until his death in 1962.
This section lists players who have won the award, from its inception in 1960 through 2013 when it was last known to have been awarded. Blank entries indicate a winner is unknown, or the award may not have been issued.
The Arizona Fall League (AFL) is an off-season sports league owned and operated by Major League Baseball (MLB) which operates during the autumn in Arizona, United States, at six different baseball complexes. Arizona Fall League rosters are filled by many of the top prospects in Minor League Baseball (MiLB) who are assigned by their parent clubs.
The Topps Company, Inc. is an American company that manufactures chewing gum, candy, and collectibles. Formerly based in New York City, Topps is best known as a leading producer of American football, baseball, basketball, ice hockey, soccer, and other sports and non-sports themed trading cards. Topps also produces cards under the brand names Allen & Ginter and Bowman.
The Sporting News is a website and former magazine publication owned by Sporting News Holdings, which is a U.S.-based sports media company formed in December 2020 by a private investor consortium. It was originally established in 1886 as a print magazine. It became the dominant American publication covering baseball, acquiring the nickname "The Bible of Baseball."
The Major League Baseball Comeback Player of the Year Award is presented by Major League Baseball (MLB) to the player who is judged to have "re-emerged on the baseball field during a given season." The award was developed in 2005, as part of a sponsorship agreement between MLB and Viagra. In 2005 and 2006 representatives from MLB and MLB.com selected six candidates each from the American (AL) and National Leagues (NL) and one winner for each league was selected via an online poll on MLB.com. Since then, the winners have been selected by a panel of MLB beat reporters. Under the current voting structure, first place votes are worth five points, second place votes worth three, and third place votes worth one with the award going to the player with the most points overall. Past winners have often overcome injury or personal problems en route to their award-winning season.
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Listed below in chronological order are the Minor League Baseball players chosen by USA Today as recipients of the USA TodayMinor League Player of the Year Award. Since 1988, the award has been given annually to the minor-league player who is judged by USA Today baseball experts as having had the most outstanding season. Of the 13 votes cast each year, two votes go to the player selected by fans in online voting at USATODAY.com.
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John George Taylor Spink was the publisher of The Sporting News from 1914 until his death in 1962. He inherited the weekly American baseball newspaper from his father Charles Spink, younger brother of its founder Alfred H. Spink. In 1962, the Baseball Writers' Association of America established an annual J. G. Taylor Spink Award and named him the first recipient; Spink's name was removed from the award in February 2021 due to his history of supporting segregated baseball.
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The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year Award was presented annually by The Sporting News to a player in Minor League Baseball deemed to have had the most outstanding season. It was awarded annually starting in 1936, and was last known to have been awarded in 2007.
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