Minor League Baseball

The 2008 This Year in Minor League Baseball Award winners have been announced.

For the first time in the history of the awards, the fans were allowed to vote for their own winners.

All five winners chosen by the fans were directly opposite the winners chosen in October by MLB.com.

Without further adieu, here are the winners:

The Hitter of the Year is Angels prospect Roberto Lopez from short season Class-A Orem. He hit .400, had 72 RBIs and 14 homeruns.

The Starting Pitcher of the Year is Madison Bumgarner of Augusta of the Sally League. He went 15-3 with a Minor League best 1.46 ERA. He struck out 164 hitters over 141.2 innings pitched.

The Closer of the Year goes to Robert Manuel.  Manuel went 6-3 with a 1.25 ERA at three levels of the Reds organization.

He struck out 103 hitters in 86.2 innings pitched. He allowed only 54 hits and walked only 18.

The Single Game Performance of the Year goes to David Francis of the Danville Braves. He struck out 16 Pulaski Mariners on July 22nd. The game ended as a seven inning combined no hitter.

The Team of the Year Award goes to Trenton Thunder of the Yankees organization.

The Thunder won their second straight Eastern League Crown at Double-A in 2008, the league’s first back to back winner in over 10 years.

Trenton won 86 regular season games before knocking off Portland in the first round of the playoffs and Akron for their second title in a row.

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