With the minor leagues' regular seasons over, it's time to present our annual Prospect of the Year award, given to the prospect who showed the best performance in the minor leagues in 2019. This year's contest was more crowded than most, with three players vying for the top spot and a dozen or so more worthy of serious consideration for this column.
While the process of selecting the top prospects was ultimately subjective, I focused primarily on legitimate prospects who performed well relative to their age, level and experience in pro ball. In short, the younger a player was relative to the other players in his league -- especially when compared just to the players in his league with a chance to have some impact in the majors -- the more impressed I was with a strong performance.
The primary criterion here is performance as prospects while still in the minors, especially because so many top prospects ended up in the majors this summer -- performance I didn't count toward this list.
With that, here is my overall Prospect of the Year for 2019, as well as several other players who had outstanding seasons and deserved notice. I also gave a separate award to the 2019 draftee who had the best pro debut.