The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year Award
| Sport | Baseball |
|---|---|
| League | Minor League Baseball |
| Awarded for | Player of the Year |
| Country | United States, Canada, Mexico |
| Presented by | The Sporting News[a] |
| History | |
| First award | 1936 |
| First winner | Johnny Vander Meer |
| Most wins | Gene Conley (1951, 1953) Sandy Alomar Jr. (1988, 1989) |
| Most recent | Jay Bruce (2007) |
The Sporting News Minor League Player of the Year Award was presented annually by The Sporting News[a] to a player in Minor League Baseball deemed to have had the most outstanding season. It was awarded annually starting in 1936,[1] and was last known to have been awarded in 2007.[2]
Winners
The first winner of the award, Johnny Vander Meer, subsequently pitched in Major League Baseball (MLB) and is best known for pitching back-to-back no-hitters in 1938. Several winners of the award are inductees of the National Baseball Hall of Fame: Johnny Bench, Vladimir Guerrero, Derek Jeter, Pedro Martínez, Tim Raines, Jim Rice, and Phil Rizzuto. Two players won the award twice: Gene Conley (1951, 1953) and Sandy Alomar Jr. (1988, 1989). There was one tie, occurring in 1988 when Alomar Jr. shared the honor with Gary Sheffield.[3] Each winner of the award went on to play in MLB, with the exception of Jason Stokes, who won the award in 2002 while in Class A and later reached the Triple-A level.[4]
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