Who is the Monroe News-Star's baseball player of the year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Monroe News-Star baseball player of the year poll is

The Monroe News-Star is the high school sports brand of The News-Star, the daily newspaper based in Monroe in northeastern Louisiana. Each spring its sports desk asks readers a single question about the concluded baseball season, and it puts that question to a public vote rather than deciding it in the newsroom. The 2025-26 season edition reads, in full, who is the Monroe News-Star's baseball player of the year, and it is the edition this page documents.

The balloting is hosted on Crowdsignal and served through the poll.fm domain. The current address is poll.fm/17046699, a standalone poll page carrying the question, the answer list and a vote control. Crowdsignal polls of this shape do not ask supporters to register; the supporter picks an option and submits, and the running total updates on the same page.

The answer list is what defines the market. Options pair players with their schools and hometowns across the paper's coverage area, and the towns printed on the 2025-26 ballot include West Monroe, Sterlington, Ruston, Choudrant, Mangham, Weston, Jena and Oak Grove. That spread tells you the poll is regional rather than city-bound: it speaks for high school baseball across the whole northeastern corner of Louisiana, wherever the newspaper's reporters covered a team during the season.

The dated record of the baseball player of the year vote

Editions of the poll are confirmed for 2025 and 2026, and the recurrence evidence ties the most recent edition to the 2025-26 school year. That season label matters: the question is asked after the baseball schedule finishes, which is why the vote lands in late spring rather than midseason.

The 2025-26 ballot is dated to May 2026 on the platform, and the page now carries a closed notice. When it closed, the leading option had drawn 40 percent of the vote, or 11,994 submitted choices, with the remainder spread across the other listed players. A margin of that size on a single-question newspaper poll is typical: a star pitcher or hitter in a town that rallies online routinely pulls far ahead of the field.

What the organizer does not print is just as relevant for anybody planning around the next cycle. Neither the ballot page nor the newspaper's own coverage of this vote sets out precise start and finish dates for the window, so the only reliable place to read the 2027 schedule is the live ballot itself; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. The page likewise publishes no written eligibility policy and no category structure, since this is a single-question poll rather than a multi-category awards programme.

Because the editions run with the school calendar rather than on a fixed calendar date, treating May as the season's voting month is the useful shorthand, and watching the Monroe News-Star's spring sports coverage is how a supporter catches the moment the next ballot goes live.

How a supporter votes on the baseball ballot today

As mechanics go, this one could hardly be lighter. A supporter opens the Crowdsignal page at poll.fm/17046699, sees the question with the answer list beneath it, selects the player he wants to back and submits. The poll displays the running result after the choice is registered, which is how the 40 percent leading share on the closed 2025-26 ballot became visible to anyone checking the page.

Two practical points follow from that shape. First, there is no login: nothing on the ballot asks for an account, an email confirmation or a payment, so the barrier to a vote is only the visit itself. Second, the ballot prints no statement about return visits, and no daily-vote rule appears anywhere on the page. Anybody organising support should therefore read whatever wording the live poll carries in the season it runs, rather than assuming a frequency pattern from a different programme.

The current edition is closed, so a supporter arriving today sees the final standings rather than a live vote. That is normal for this programme: the ballot is a season-ending event, live for a short May window and then left standing with its result. The way to vote in the next edition is to watch the newspaper's high school sports coverage as the 2026-27 baseball season ends, follow its link to the new poll.fm address, and submit before that edition closes.

Where this ballot sits among Louisiana's fan votes

This poll is not the only public vote the Louisiana press runs on Crowdsignal, and its neighbours help explain what makes it distinct. Statewide, the Louisiana High School Football Player of the Week and the WAFB Sportsline Player of the Week run on short weekly cycles during the football season, resetting every few days.

The metro ballots work the same way: the Baton Rouge High School Athlete of the Week, the New Orleans Area High School Athlete of the Week and the New Orleans Area Prep Football Player of the Week are weekly recognition votes tied to single metros.

The Monroe News-Star's baseball question is different in both rhythm and scope. It runs once a year, at the end of the baseball season, and it honours a season-long performer rather than a single week. Its geography is also its own: Monroe and the surrounding northeastern Louisiana towns form a market none of the metro ballots touches, and no other programme on this list covers baseball as its season-closing question. A supporter organising behind a nominated player should treat it accordingly, as a short, concentrated campaign rather than a rolling weekly effort, and the Shreveport Times High School Athlete of the Week shows how much the weekly format differs in practice.

Strengthening support in a short season-closing poll

Because this ballot lives for a compact May window and then closes, timing is the variable a supporter controls most. The 2025-26 winner reached 40 percent and 11,994 votes, which is the signature of a community that was mobilised inside the window rather than trickling in. Sharing the poll.fm link directly, on the channels where a player's school community already gathers, does more for a free Crowdsignal poll than any complexity, since the only action required is a visit and a click.

The organizer's own page states no policy on outside help, so nothing on the ballot answers that question in advance; the live wording each season is the only rule that governs. For a broader view of tactics that fit a free public poll of this kind, see the site's votes guide, and read the legal framing alongside it so expectations stay grounded in what a newspaper ballot can actually deliver.