Conor Essenburg of Lincoln-Way West is the 2025 Herald-News Baseball Player of the Year

Sometimes picking the Player of the Year can be a daunting challenge with half a dozen players worthy of serious consideration. While there were plenty of players worth considering for the 2025 Herald-News Baseball Player of the Year, Conor Essenburg made the decision pretty easy.

In 2024, Essenburg earned Player of the Year honors for being a true dual-threat player at Lincoln-Way West. He struck out 101 batters and had a 1.48 ERA on the mound while hitting.388 with 29 RBIs. He stood out among a group of standouts.

Flash forward to this season. Essenburg improved his ERA to an astounding 0.94 in 44⅔ innings to go with 94 strikeouts. He gave up just 18 hits and six earned runs while finishing with a WHIP of only 0.918.

At the plate, he also got even better. He slashed .464/.591/.909 with a 1.500 OPS in 110 at bats. He smacked 10 homers, drove in 49, scored 42 runs and only struck out 10 times while drawing 36 walks.

Oh, and he went 19-for-21 on stolen base attempts to boot.

He was Southwest Suburban Conference Player of the Year, All-Region Player of the Year, and an All-State selection. He’s committed to play college baseball in the SEC for Kentucky, and boosted his profile enough this year that he’s projected to be an early-round MLB draft pick.

All of that is to say, for as many deserving players of the award, it wasn’t difficult to give Essenburg the honor for the second consecutive year.

“It’s awesome,” he said. “It’s a great honor.”

Success isn’t guaranteed from year to year in any sport, but baseball in particular is known for its lack of continuity. Even professionally, Cy Young winners find themselves out of a job a year later. For Essenburg to not only maintain his brilliance, but actually improve it by such wide margins was truly impressive.

“It’s a note to his work ethic,” Lincoln-Way West coach Jake Zajc said. “It shows how good he wants to be as a baseball player.”

Essenburg put the time in before and during the season to take his game to new heights. However, he credited a lot of his success to his new mindset. He remembered the reason he started playing baseball in the first place, which helped him keep calm even if the most intense circumstances.

“I just put in a lot of hard work and have a lot of dedication as a player,” Essenburg said. “I just took a lot of stress off my shoulders this year. I just tried to have fun in every moment. When you’re just having fun playing baseball it makes it a lot easier.”

No one accomplishes what Essenburg did without natural talent and hard work, of course. But to do so well in pitching and hitting together at the Class 4A level in Illinois is particularly impressive. Zajc feels the next-level work ethic was the largest factor in Essenburg’s success.

“It’s a lot of skill but he really does work at it,” Zajc said. “From one season to the next baseball has always been his thing. He’s done so well for our program and he’s just continued to work on it year round.”

While Essenburg may be asked to switch his focus to one or the other at the next level, he says he plans to pitch and hit “until someone tells me not to.”

Whether that someone is at Kentucky or the professional level is the next big question.

Essenburg had originally committed to Kansas State before switching to the SEC Wildcats earlier this year. He said Kentucky being closer to home and the opportunity to play in the SEC were a massive factor. If he does end up in Lexington, he’d pair with former Lincoln-Way East star Tyler Bell to make a heck of a combo.

However, Zajc pointed out that Essenburg has a legit chance to go in the early rounds of next month’s MLB Draft. MLB.com has him ranked as the 221st prospect overall, which would place him in the seventh round.

Essenburg didn’t tip which way he was leaning, only that he’d be happy no matter what the choice he makes.

“It’s going to be a really hard decision,” he said. “At the end of the day, though, I’m going to be taking a really good path either way.”