READER'S CHOICE MNJ Baseball Preseason Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the MNJ Baseball Preseason Player of the Year is and who runs it

The READER'S CHOICE MNJ Baseball Preseason Player of the Year honors a high school baseball player chosen by readers, presented by MNJ under its READER'S CHOICE banner. The program covers preseason baseball in the publisher's Ohio coverage area, and it is decided entirely by public vote rather than by a panel of writers or coaches. Balloting runs on Crowdsignal's poll.fm service, and the confirmed ballot page for the program lives at https://poll.fm/15177907.

The award is a preseason honor, which separates it from the weekly athlete ballots many Ohio publishers run during the school year. Instead of resetting every few days, this program asks readers to name a preseason player of the year for area baseball before the season gets under way. The nominee list is drawn from high school programs across the publisher's coverage area, and the ballot presents every candidate together on a single poll.fm page.

Because the organizer is a news publisher rather than a sports governing body, the award functions as a community honor and a reader-engagement feature. That shape matters for supporters: the count is a straight measure of organized fan support, and the publisher's own ballot page is the only authority on how any edition is scored.

The dated record for the MNJ baseball ballot

Two editions of the READER'S CHOICE MNJ Baseball Preseason Player of the Year are confirmed: 2023 and 2025. The 2025 ballot voted during March, which fits a preseason baseball schedule, and the poll page now carries a closed marker with final results. No ballot for any other year is part of the confirmed history of this baseball program.

The publisher is specific about some things and silent about others. MNJ has not printed day-by-day open and close dates for the baseball ballot, any category structure beyond the player-of-the-year question, or a per-supporter voting rule; confirm on the live ballot each cycle.

The closed 2025 ballot did publish its outcome in full, including the winning share and the vote counts behind each finishing position, so readers can see exactly how the result was built rather than learning only the name at the top.

What the confirmed years do not settle is forward cadence. The program qualifies as annual on the strength of its confirmed editions, but MNJ prints no forward calendar for the baseball award, and no nomination round dates appear anywhere on the ballot page. Anything about a future edition, from its window to its nominee list, waits on the organizer's own publication.

How a supporter votes in the MNJ baseball preseason poll

The mechanic is deliberately simple. A supporter opens the ballot at https://poll.fm/15177907, reviews the list of preseason baseball nominees, selects a candidate and submits the form. Crowdsignal, the poll.fm host, presents the whole nominee list on a single page, so the entire action runs from opening the link to a counted vote without leaving the ballot.

Timing is the main practical constraint. The confirmed 2025 edition voted during March, and a preseason baseball ballot by nature closes before the season settles, so a supporter who waits past the window finds a closed poll showing final results instead of an open form. That is the state of the page between editions: the most recent ballot stays up with its tally, and the next edition, expected in 2026 if the annual pattern holds, replaces it with a fresh form.

Because the vote is a plain public poll, support is measured purely by reader participation. There is no judging component, no essay and no separate nomination form mentioned on the ballot page; the nominee list appears ready-made when the poll opens. Supporters who want their player to finish near the top therefore work the same lever every other reader works, putting the poll.fm link in front of as many willing baseball fans as possible while the window is live.

How this ballot sits beside other Ohio athlete votes

Ohio readers meet a crowded field of publisher-run athlete ballots, and this program occupies a distinct slot in it. The Akron-Area High School Athlete of the Week, the Cincinnati Enquirer Athlete of the Week and the Columbus Dispatch Athlete of the Week all reset weekly across big-metro coverage areas. The Dayton Daily News High School Athlete of the Week and the Dayton High School Football Player of the Week add weekly and football-specific variants, while the Fox 8 FNTD Player of the Year Vote is a television station's year-end honor.

The MNJ baseball ballot differs from each of them. It is seasonal rather than weekly, tied to the preseason baseball window in March. It is sport-specific, covering baseball only, where most siblings span every sport. And its footprint is small-town Ohio: the 2025 nominee list drew from programs in towns including Madison, Ontario, Shelby, Lucas and Plymouth, communities well outside the metro cores the weekly ballots serve.

For a supporter, that means a tighter voting pool. A well-organized push inside a handful of town communities can move this ballot in a way it never could on a metro-wide weekly vote, and the public-vote format gives every town the same counting weight once a form is submitted.

Strengthening support in the MNJ baseball vote

Everything about this program rewards early, organized local support. The ballot is a public Crowdsignal poll, so each count is a reader who opened the poll.fm page and submitted a choice, and the preseason baseball window is short. The practical playbook is community-level: share the ballot link with baseball families, booster groups and school communities across the MNJ coverage area, and start early in the window rather than at the end.

MNJ prints no guidance on outside help for this baseball ballot, and no per-supporter limit is published, so the organizer's own page is the only authority on what is allowed. Methods used in comparable reader votes are covered in our guide to getting more votes online; whatever tactics you consider, measure each of them against the rules the live ballot displays when the next edition opens.