With the minor leagues' regular seasons over, it's time to present our second annual Prospect of the Year award, given to the prospect who showed the best performance in the minor leagues in 2017.

While the process of selecting the top prospects was ultimately subjective, I focused primarily on legitimate prospects who performed well relative to their age, level and experience in pro ball. In short, the younger a player was relative to the other players in his league -- especially when compared just to the players in his league with a chance to have some impact in the majors -- the more impressed I was with a strong performance.

The primary criterion here is performance as prospects, while still in the minors, because so many top prospects ended up in the majors this summer, performance I didn't count toward this list.

With that, here is my overall Prospect of the Year for 2017, as well as several other players who had outstanding seasons and deserved notice. I also gave a separate award to the 2017 draftee who had the best pro debut, as well as noted a handful of runners-up in that category.

2017 Prospect of the Year

Vlad Guerrero Jr., 3B, Toronto Blue Jays

• Midseason rank: 8 | Preseason rank: 48

I could make arguments for other players, but no one blew the doors off the hinges this year the way the 18-year-old son of possible Hall of Famer Vlad Sr. did.

At just 18 years old, the Baby Impaler hit .323/.425/.485 in 119 games across low-A and high-A, walking more times (76) than he struck out (62). His father walked only 76 or more times in a season once in his entire 18-year pro career, and needed 161 games to do it. Vlad Jr. would have led the Midwest League in OBP had he qualified, although he also ranked behind a teammate mentioned below who also didn't get the required playing time.

He already has started to show some of the power expected of him, with 43 extra-base hits across the two levels. He's younger than Austin Beck, the sixth player taken in the June draft out of a North Carolina high school, and just three months older than the first overall pick, Royce Lewis, and was among the very best hitters in two full-season leagues. For that reason, he's our Prospect of the Year for 2017.

Runners-up

Ronald Acuna, CF, Atlanta Braves

• Midseason rank: 9 | Preseason rank: 36

Acuna is just 19 and had a strange, upside-down year in the minors, playing his worst baseball in high-A, then hitting better after a promotion to Double-A, then hitting even better than that after a promotion to Triple-A, where his .344/.393/.548 line in 54 games would have placed him second in all three rate categories if he'd qualified.

Atlanta's top prospect and center fielder of the (near) future has quick hands and showed no trouble adjusting to advanced pitching, with more power than anticipated at his age and plenty of speed (44 steals in 64 attempts).

Fernando Tatis Jr., SS, San Diego Padres

• Midseason rank: 15 | Preseason rank: 47

Tatis was the other star 18-year-old in the Midwest League, along with Guerrero, and ended up leading the low-A circuit in OBP while going 20/20 with 21 homers and 29 steals before a late-season promotion to Double-A San Antonio.

Tatis, acquired from the White Sox in early 2016 in the James Shields trade, reached No. 15 on my midseason prospect update and will be in the top 10 when I rank all prospects in January, with huge offensive potential and a fair chance to remain at shortstop. He reminds me a lot of Manny Machado at the same age, and I think that's his ultimate upside as well.

Bo Bichette, SS, Toronto Blue Jays

• Midseason rank: 34

Bichette, aged 19, outhit Guerrero in Lansing, posting a ridiculous .384/.448/.623 line in low-A, moving up to the Florida State League with his teammate after the MLB Futures Game and continuing to rake at the higher level with a .323/.379/.463 line, striking out just 81 times in total on the year. Bichette is still playing primarily at shortstop, although I think it's more likely he ends up at second base, but wherever he goes his bat is going to carry him.

Rafael Devers, 3B, Boston Red Sox

• Midseason rank: 3 | Preseason rank: 11

Devers might have taken the top honor had he spent the entire summer in the minors, but the Red Sox promoted him just before the trade deadline, performance I don't consider for this specific award. The 20-year-old Devers hit a combined .311/.377/.578 in 86 games, mostly in Double-A with a few in Triple-A, setting a career high with 20 homers before he was promoted (and hitting eight more in the majors so far) -- and he did all of this as the Double-A Eastern League's youngest regular.

Forrest Whitley, RHP, Houston Astros

• Midseason rank: 36 | Preseason rank: 78

Whitley, the 17th overall pick in the 2016 draft out of a San Antonio high school, ripped through two levels of full-season A-ball and ended up with Double-A Corpus Christi this year, striking out 143 batters in just 92 1/3 innings (38 percent of batters faced) and posting a composite 2.83 ERA across all three levels.

The 19-year-old established himself as one of the top four or five pitching prospects in all of baseball this year between his performance, his size, and the three-pitch mix he used to dominate hitters several years his senior.

JoJo Romero, LHP, Philadelphia Phillies

Overshadowed by the bigger velocities of various teammates of his in the Phillies' system, especially Sixto Sanchez, Romero dominated across low-A and high-A this year at age 20, with a 2.16 ERA, just four homers allowed in 129 innings, and 128 strikeouts. The Yavapai College prospect was the Phils' fourth-round pick in 2016 and already has joined their top echelon of pitching prospects along with Sanchez, Adonis Medina, and Franklyn Kilome.

Alec Hansen, RHP, Chicago White Sox

Hansen led all of minor league baseball in strikeouts this year with 191 across three levels (low-A, high-A, Double-A) and 141 1/3 innings, along with a 2.80 ERA and walk rates much better than what he showed in his last spring at the University of Oklahoma. Hansen still has a ways to go in terms of command, but he already has made substantial progress since the White Sox drafted him in the second round 15 months ago, enough that if we redid that 2016 draft he'd probably go among the top 10 picks.

Best 2017 draftee

MacKenzie Gore, LHP, San Diego Padres

• Midseason rank: 45

Gore was the third overall pick in June and made seven abbreviated starts this summer for the AZL Padres 1 team (the Padres have so many teenaged prospects they ran two AZL teams), throwing 21 1/3 innings and striking out 34 of 84 batters he faced while allowing just 21 baserunners. The hyper-athletic lefty's power curveball is going to miss a lot of bats in the low minors, so he may be a candidate to move as quickly to the higher levels as his workload allows.

Others of note

Keston Hiura, DH, Milwaukee Brewers

Hiura played just 21 innings at second base after signing, but he certainly hit, spending a month in the low-A Midwest League and hitting .333/.374/.476 there after posting silly stats in the complex league in Arizona. Hiura was a young junior, still 20 on draft day, and will play most of next year at 21, likely starting in high-A and finishing in Double-A or above, as long as the elbow injury that plagued him this spring doesn't interfere.

Nate Pearson, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays

Pearson threw just 20 innings after signing with the Jays, but they were good ones -- he struck out 24, allowed just 12 baserunners, and didn't allow a run until his penultimate outing of the year. The College of Central Florida product, taken 28th overall in the draft, hit triple digits in a workout on Memorial Day, boosting stock that was already pretty high given his 6-foot-6 frame and solid showing for scouts in big matchups earlier in the spring.

Brent Rooker, OF, Minnesota Twins

Rooker hit .281/.364/.566 across the short-season Appy League and high-A Florida State League after signing, although at 22 -- he'll turn 23 in November -- he was still old for the latter level. That's an impressive debut for someone who was swinging a metal bat in early June and had no track record of performing with wood prior to signing.

Michael Gigliotti, OF, Kansas City Royals

The Royals' fourth-round pick out of Lipscomb hit .320/.420/.456 with 22 steals in 64 games between the Appy League and low-A Sally League, showing a little more gap power than expected after he struggled to drive the ball in school last spring. The speedy center fielder had first-round buzz after a solid Cape Cod League showing in 2016, and the Royals may have found a minor steal here on Day 2.