Every year since 2012, NBC Sports Boston has turned to you to identify the best young athletes in Boston sports as part of our “20 Under 25” voting contest.
In most cases, there’s a clear-cut winner. But this year featured our closest race yet for the top spot.
For context, here’s how the contest worked: Over a two-week period in February, fans submitted video-game-style ratings for the top athletes in Boston under the age of 25, assigning them a number on a scale of 1 to 100 based on where they could peak in their careers.
Here’s the rating criteria we gave to fans:
50 – Borderline pro
70 – Depth piece
80 – Starter
90 – Borderline All-Star
100 – Hall of Fame potential
We then tallied up your votes, took the average for each player, and compiled a ranking of the top 20 Boston athletes under age 25. Below are the final results, with Patriots quarterback Drake Maye beating out cornerback Christian Gonzalez by 0.1 percent for the No. 1 spot.
20 Under 25 – NBC Sports Boston