Other than Triple A, which has another few days to go, the minor league season for 2022 is now in the books, so it’s time for my annual Prospect of the Year award, given to the player who had the best performance in the minor leagues in 2022.
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. What a player did in the majors, if he was called up, was irrelevant for this list’s purposes.
Because I focus on age, many of the older players who had huge years in Low and High A, like Vaun Brown (24 years old) and Niko Kavadas (23), aren’t on here. Their performances were good enough to earn them new consideration as prospects, but they need to perform when they’re facing competition their age or older to prove this newfound production is sustainable.
So, given those criteria, here is my overall Prospect of the Year for 2022, as well as several other players who had outstanding seasons and deserved notice.
Prospect of the Year: Logan O’Hoppe, C, Los Angeles Angels
The 22-year-old O’Hoppe got off to a strong start this year in the Phillies’ system, where the 23rd-round pick from 2018 hit .275/.392/.496 with Double-A Reading.
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