We are now a quarter of the way through our inaugural season of the AOA so I felt it would be worth doing a slightly more in-depth review of the league so far this season.
We’ll start with a brief recap of the past week which saw some very exciting games, three of which had a margin of victory of less than 10 points!
In our game of the week, Cory Puffett and Eric Meyer became the first matchup between the top two weekly scorers in league history, with Cory outlasting Eric by a score of 151.75 to 142.25 to take home both the Rickey Henderson and Manny Ramirez awards for the week.
Eric had a distinct advantage on offense as his team set a new single-week record with a .307 batting average and had more home runs, runs, and RBI than Cory’s team. It was pitching that did Eric in.
Despite maxing out at 7 starts, Eric’s pitching staff logged the second fewest innings in the league with just 40 in Week 5 and in that limited work their combined ERA was 5.40, also second worst in the league. Cory, meanwhile, saw his pitchers log a record 51.1 innings and it was the first week in the AOA in which a staff combined for an ERA under 2.00!
This week’s matchup between Cory Frontin and Sam Martin was also an exciting one. Cory became the first manager to see his team in the negative after a full day was in the books as his players combined for -1.5 points on Monday, May 10. But his team came roaring back and a 46 to 25.5 advantage over the final two days of the week allowed him to notch a victory by a margin of just 3.5 points.
Cory led Sam in most statistical categories this week, including batting average, OPS, ERA, and FIP. Sam led in volume stats like plate appearances and inning pitched. But part of Cory’s final advantage game from the league-record 15 home runs his team jacked in Week 5, five of which came courtesy of Yankees outfielder Aaron Judge! Oddly enough, Cory’s team hit 15 home runs this week but had only 19 RBI, the second lowest total in the league last week.
And then there was the matchup between Evan Ash and Alex Mayo, with Alex coming off his first win of the season. Evan wound up winning by 3.75 points despite Alex having 14 more optimum points than his opponent. Wednesday was a particularly rough day for Alex as left 13.25 points on his bench, including 3 from Yankees reliever Aroldis Chapman and 8.25 from Braves starter Max Fried.
Alex’s team has actually been solid and his early-season pitching woes have largely evaporated, but his team had a bit of a slow start and as his team has improved, so too have most of his league mates’.
And then there was Andrew Perez’s 30-point blowout victory over Sean Kennedy, whose pitching staff turned in a respectable week. The problem for Sean was that his team logged just 176 plate appearances for the week, the second fewest we’ve seen so far this year and 30 fewer than the next lowest in Week 5.
Sean left Padres outfielder Wil Myers in his lineup all week after he tested positive for COVID and didn’t appear in a game after Tuesday when he could have moved Rockies utility man Garrett Hampson into the outfield and put Trea Turner into his lineup. Turner, incidentally, scored 15 points last week all while on Sean’s bench.
Before we close out this week, here are our league’s statistical leaders through the first quarter of the season:
Hitting
Hits: Cory P (284)
Home runs: Cory F (49)
Runs: Eric (179)
RBI: Eric (151)
Total bases: Cory P (492)
Stolen bases: Eric (30)
Walks: Eric (139)
Strikeouts: Eric (209)
Hit by pitch: Sam (18)
Ground into double play: Eric & Andrew (13)
Batting average: Eric (.271)
On base percentage: Eric (.362)
Slugging percentage: Cory F (.486)
On base plus slugging: Eric (.843)
Stolen base percentage: Sam (96.0%)
Pitching
Wins: Andrew (16)
Losses: Sean & Alex (9)
Quality starts: Cory P (20)
Saves: Evan (16)
Holds: Sean (8)
Blown saves: Evan & Eric (1)
Innings pitched: Evan (235.1)
Hits allowed: Alex (153)
Earned runs: Andrew (58)
Walks: Andrew (52)
Strikeouts: Cory P (296)
Home runs allowed: Andrew (16)
Hit batters: Andrew (6)
ERA: Andrew (2.68)
WHIP: Evan (.974)
FIP: Andrew (2.88)
Save percentage: Evan (94.1%)
Other
Total Points: Cory P (694.50)
Hitting points: Eric (420.50)
Pitching points: Cory P (30.9.75)
Cory Frontin has earned the highest percentage of his points from hitting with 62.4% of his total points coming from his offense. Evan has gotten 49.8% of his total points from pitching, which is also a league-high.
Check out our Week 5 recap below followed by this week’s power rankings:
Game of the Week: Cory Puffett at Eric Meyer
In a fairly tight contest decided by less than 10 points, Eric’s team had a decisive edge at the plate, with a batting average 40 points higher than Cory’s and an OPS advantage of about 150 points. Cory made up for that and then some, though, on the pitching side with an additional 34 outs and a massive ERA advantage.
