Virginia High School Baseball Player of the Year: How Voting Works & How to Win

What is the Virginia High School Baseball Player of the Year?

The Virginia High School Baseball Player of the Year is a free annual fan-vote award published each spring by High School on SI — the prep sports vertical operated by Sports Illustrated (Arena Group) at si.com/high-school/virginia, and previously known as SBLive Sports. Editors track VHSL baseball performance across the entire state through the spring season, then compile a ballot of standout nominees — pitchers, position players, and two-way contributors — from across all six VHSL classification tiers.

• Run by High School on SI / Sports Illustrated (Arena Group), the same platform that operates Virginia Athlete of the Week and sport-specific Player of the Year polls for football, basketball, softball, and other VHSL sports.
• Open to all six VHSL classifications — 1A through 6A — so a Class 1A pitcher from a small rural school competes on the same ballot as a Division I recruit from a large northern-Virginia programme.
• The vote cap is zero — there is no per-vote limit. Fans may vote as many times as they choose until the published deadline, making sustained network mobilisation the primary driver of the result.
• The poll is free to participate in; no SI subscription, account, or personal information is required.
• Winners are announced in a results article at si.com/high-school/virginia; recognition appears in search results tied to the athlete's name for years after the season.
• The 2025 award was won by Isaac Records of Appomattox County — a senior right-handed pitcher who went 10–0 with a 1.09 ERA — capturing 75.44% of all votes cast.

Which Virginia baseball schools and programs appear on the ballot?

High School on SI nominates candidates from across all six VHSL classification tiers and all regions of Virginia. The table below lists schools and programmes that have produced nominees or winners in recent seasons, spanning the Shenandoah Valley, Southside Virginia, Southwest Virginia, and Northern Virginia.

One of the structural features of this award is the geography of Virginia baseball. The strongest per-vote mobilisation in recent years has come from small-classification Southwest and Southside Virginia communities — Class 1A and 2A schools like Appomattox, Floyd, and Carroll where tight-knit communities vote with singular focus. Larger northern-Virginia schools in Class 5A and 6A have bigger rosters and alumni bases but more fragmented social networks, which can work against them in an uncapped poll.

The 2025 ballot was dominated by Class 1A–2A Southwest Virginia pitchers. All three of the top vote-getters — Records (Appomattox), Swortzel (Floyd), and Philips (Carroll) — came from small-classification rural schools, none from the more populous Northern Virginia programmes that produce the most Division I recruits annually.

How does the High School on SI Virginia Baseball Player of the Year vote work?

The poll is hosted inside a sport-specific article at si.com/high-school/virginia, published by High School on SI editors at the end of the VHSL spring baseball season. For a plain-language overview of how Sports Illustrated's prep voting polls function across all states, see our guide to online contest voting.

There is no hourly cap, no device cap, and no vote-per-person limit. A single supporter can click the vote button repeatedly throughout the entire open window — the platform counts each click. This is the most important mechanical difference from newspaper polls like the Richmond Times-Dispatch Athlete of the Week, which cap at one vote per device per hour. On High School on SI polls, raw click volume across a sustained period determines the outcome.

The voting widget is embedded directly in the article — no separate app, account, or subscription is needed. Live totals update continuously; supporters can check the standings at any point during the window. The poll is equally accessible from desktop browsers, mobile Safari and Chrome, and directly through si.com on any connected device.

What happens after voting closes?

When the stated deadline passes, High School on SI publishes a follow-up results article at si.com/high-school/virginia announcing the winner by percentage of total votes. The article names the winner, their school, classification, and season statistics, and it typically includes a brief season summary. That published article becomes a permanent indexed record — searchable by name — that athletes, coaches, and college recruiters encounter long after the season ends.

How is the Virginia Baseball Player of the Year winner chosen?

The process has two distinct phases controlled by different parties. The editorial team at High School on SI determines who appears on the ballot; the public determines who wins.

1. Nomination: At season's end, SI editors review VHSL baseball results statewide — stats submitted by coaches, MaxPreps profiles, and regional media coverage — and select a shortlist of nominees representing different classifications and positions.
2. Voting window opens: The ballot article goes live at si.com/high-school/virginia with the nominees listed, a voting widget embedded, and a stated closing deadline. Supporters begin voting immediately.
3. No editorial override: Once the poll is open, the outcome is determined entirely by raw vote totals. There is no panel weight, no stat adjustment, and no tie-breaking mechanism beyond the final count.
4. Results announced: SI publishes a results article, names the winner, and lists final vote percentages for each nominee.

The 2025 race illustrates the dynamics clearly: Isaac Records of Appomattox County finished with 75.44% of all votes, Gavin Swortzel of Floyd County finished second at 18.12%, and Ben Philips of Carroll County took third at 3.17%. Records' performance on the mound was elite — 10 wins, zero losses, 1.09 ERA, 66 strikeouts — but his dominant vote share was driven by an organised community mobilisation in Appomattox, a small Southside Virginia county with deep school pride.

VHSL spring baseball season timeline — when does the POY poll open?

The High School on SI Virginia Baseball Player of the Year poll aligns with the end of the VHSL spring season. Understanding that calendar helps supporters know when to expect the nomination article and how to prepare networks in advance.

Supporters should bookmark the Virginia baseball section at si.com/high-school/virginia before season end — the nomination article typically appears without advance notice, and a slow start costs votes in an uncapped poll where every hour of the window matters.

How do you build votes for the Virginia Baseball Player of the Year?

With no cap on votes per person, the mechanics differ from hourly-capped newspaper polls. Volume and consistency across the full open window matter more than peak mobilisation at a single moment. For broader tactics applicable to all online fan polls, see our vote-campaign how-to guide and the buy-votes overview.

The 2025 result maps directly onto this pattern. Appomattox County's organised, sustained community network — not Isaac Records' already-outstanding 10–0, 1.09 ERA season — produced a 75% vote share. Two of the three finalists came from Southwest Virginia Class 1A and 2A communities where every neighbour knows the pitcher and local pride translates immediately into repeat voting.

When organic reach has been fully activated and the gap remains large, some families and school communities use a paid vote promotion service to add genuine additional volume. For this poll's uncapped mechanic, the key requirement is that votes arrive paced over the window, not all at once — our sports fan poll service is designed around exactly that sustained-delivery model. For broader context on the legality and practical distinctions, see the section below or visit buy-votes-online.

Rules for the Virginia Baseball POY poll — and can you buy votes?

The High School on SI Virginia Baseball Player of the Year is a reader-engagement fan poll with no cash prize, no formal sweepstakes structure, and no state prize-promotion law framework. The relevant constraints are the platform's own terms of service — primarily prohibitions on automated scripts that fire rapid-fire requests at the voting endpoint. For a comprehensive look at legality across online polls generally, see our full guide.

In practice, two types of activity exist on this poll:

• Automated bot scripts — rapid-fire programmatic requests that fire at machine speed from the same fingerprint. These violate platform terms, produce anomalous traffic patterns, and result in vote removal.
• Paid outreach to real human voters — real people casting genuine votes by hand from their own devices across the open window. Because there is no per-vote cap, this is structurally equivalent to a school community where every supporter votes daily — just reached through a different channel.

Whether paid real-voter promotion satisfies the spirit of the contest's own terms is a judgement each entrant and family must make after reading the current official poll article. The practical risk for this format — an uncapped fan poll with no prize and no formal contest law — is reputational rather than legal. The 2025 final vote percentages (75.44% to one candidate) show that highly lopsided results are normal for this award when one school's community mobilises decisively; a large vote margin alone does not indicate rule violation.

See our Virginia contests hub for all Virginia high school voting polls currently active, including athlete-of-the-week, football POY, basketball POY, and other spring sport awards.