South Florida High School Baseball Player of the Week: How Voting Works & How to Win

The one thing most voters get wrong about this poll

Most people arriving at a South Florida baseball ballot assume the weekend is already decided by Sunday morning. It is not. The poll closes Sunday at 11:59 p.m. Pacific — which is 2:59 a.m. Monday in Miami. That gap between Saturday night and Sunday midnight is the entire campaign window, and programs that treat Friday as their last push lose votes they could have had.

The April 28, 2025 ballot makes the point clearly. Five nominees with legitimate claims: Gabriel Milano drove in 8 runs for Doral Academy in a 13-0 blowout. Gio Rojas threw 6 shutout innings with 13 strikeouts for Marjory Stoneman Douglas — and also hit a home run. Jonathan Lopez contributed a homer, a triple, and 4 RBIs for St. Thomas Aquinas. Spencer Krasner recorded his 100th strikeout of the 2025 season in a shutout for Chaminade-Madonna. JC Martinez went 4-for-4 with a home run for Taravella. Any of those could win on the right week. What separates the actual winner from the rest is not the stat line — it is which school's community organized before Sunday night.

Caden Garro of American Heritage Plantation had won the week before this ballot. Heritage's program is one of the most decorated in the country, and their alumni and parent networks respond fast. A nomination from a program like that lands in inboxes that are already watching.

What the five-school April ballot reveals about the region

South Florida prep baseball is dense in a way that very few regions match. The nominees on the April 28 ballot cover three counties and five programs — and every one of them is a legitimate state title contender in its classification.

American Heritage Plantation and St. Thomas Aquinas anchor the South Florida baseball identity. Heritage in particular has sent more players to professional baseball than most college programs. St. Thomas Aquinas is a Fort Lauderdale institution whose baseball tradition rivals its football reputation. Both programs carry alumni bases that stretch into the minor leagues and beyond — former players who follow South Florida prep results and can be reached when a current player makes the ballot.

Chaminade-Madonna is smaller in enrollment but punches at the same competitive level in its class. A Chaminade nominee like Krasner — with a season milestone attached — gives the school something specific to rally around, which matters. Generic "vote for our player" asks convert poorly. A "Spencer just threw his 100th strikeout, vote now" ask converts better because the listener already has a reason to care.

Doral Academy and Taravella sit on the Miami-Dade side, which adds a different community topology. Doral's student body is heavily Venezuelan-American and Cuban-American — a baseball culture where the sport is not just a season activity but a family inheritance. That community pays attention to baseball in a particular way, and when a Doral nominee makes a regional ballot, the news travels through networks that are already oriented toward the game.

How the Sunday close changes campaign planning

The SI Florida baseball polls close Sunday. Not Monday — Sunday. That one fact reorganizes everything.

The high school baseball week runs Tuesday through Saturday for most programs. Performances happen Thursday through Saturday. SI editors compile the ballot over the weekend, and the poll is typically live by Saturday or Sunday. That leaves a campaign window of roughly 24–48 hours from poll opening to close — far tighter than the football POTW polls in other states that run Sunday through the following Monday or Tuesday.

So the practical question is not whether to campaign — it is whether you know the poll is live. A school whose coaching staff, booster president, or team parent scans si.com Saturday morning and pushes the link to the team group chat by Saturday afternoon has essentially the full window. A school that finds out Sunday evening has hours. That early awareness gap is where most South Florida baseball races are decided.

For how weekly fan polls work in general, the how-to guide covers the full cycle. More Florida contests are at /usa/florida/, and the national directory is at /usa/. If the campaign window is shorter than your network needs to move, structured vote support is one way to cover the gap.