Baseball America Minor League Players of the Year, 1981-2006

As Extra P. noted earlier this week, Cincinnati Reds farmhand Jay Bruce took home Baseball America’s Minor League Player of the Year award following a season in which he hit .319 with 26 homeruns and 89 runs batted in at three minor league levels.

Bruce wasn’t rewarded for his excellent season with a September call-up, so Reds fans have yet to see what the 20-year-old can do to major league pitching.  His victory, however, prompted me to look deeper into the history of the award and see if it tells us what we might one day expect from The Cincinnati Kid.

According to Wikipedia, Baseball America has named a Minor League Player of the Year for every season since 1981.  Those winners and their statistics for the year (when available) are listed in the tables below:

Player	Year	League	BA	HR	RBI
Mike Marshall	1981	PCL	.373	34	137
Ron Kittle	1982	PCL	.345	50	144
Jose Canseco	1985	2 levels	.333	36	127
Gregg Jefferies	1986	3 levels	.353	16	111
Gregg Jefferies	1987	Texas	.367	20	101
Sandy Alomar	1989	PCL	.306	13	101
Frank Thomas	1990	Southern	.323	18	101
Derek Bell	1991	International	.346	13	93
Tim Salmon	1992	PCL	.347	29	105
Manny Ramirez	1993	2 levels	.333	31	115
Derek Jeter	1994	3 levels	.344	5	70
Andruw Jones	1995	SAL	.277	25	100
Andruw Jones	1996	3 levels	.339	34	92
Paul Konerko	1997	PCL	.323	37	127
Eric Chavez	1998	2 levels	.327	33	126
Rocco Baldelli	2002	3 levels	.331	19	71
Joe Mauer	2003	2 levels	.338	5	85
Delmon Young	2005	2 levels	.315	26	99
Alex Gordon	2006	Texas	.325	29	101

Player	Year	League	W-L	SO	ERA
Dwight Gooden	1983	Carolina	19-4	300	2.50
Mike Bielecki	1984	PCL	19-3	162	2.97
Tom Gordon	1988	3 levels	16-5	263	1.55
Rick Ankiel	1999	2 levels	13-3	194	2.35
Jon Rauch	2000	2 levels	16-4	187	2.66
Josh Beckett	2001	2 levels	14-1	203	1.54
Jeff Francis	2004	2 levels	16-3	196	2.21

By my count, there are three certain Hall of Famers in that group (Thomas, Ramirez, Jeter), some exceptional players and a bunch of serviceable major leaguers.  Based on stats alone, I think my favorites are Kittle (as prevalent as 50 homer seasons were in the majors over the past ten years, they haven’t been so common in the minors), Gooden (300 strikeouts in 191 innings pitched – 14.14 per nine innings) and Beckett (include his major league stats with the Marlins and his combined ERA actually goes down).

It will be interesting to see what happens in 2008 – Bruce will be 21 on April 3 and the Reds are often incompetent, which means he could be kept in the minors for another year of “seasoning”.  If that happens, he could become the third player to win the award twice.  It’s anybody’s guess, in that case, which career path he follows: the Jefferies or the Jones.

Statistics: The Baseball Cube, Minor League Reference