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Written by Cory Puffett
Published April 8, 2024
I'm going to try and begin writing brief weekly recaps for this league in 2024. Like I was in the early years for A Football Life, I was a bit inconsistent for the first three years of this league in how frequently I published, posted, or simply shared information during the middle of the season. But as we've now grown from 8 to 10 teams and I'd like to try and keep our engagement up throughout what can certainly be a bit of a grind in fantasy baseball, I figured I'll try and do a little something for this league, too.
I won't write very much about each game, and I don't have the same depth of stats as I do for fantasy football. With so many more players at more positions moving in and out of lineups on a daily basis rather than weekly, it's simply too much data to sift through. I'm hopefully that LeagueLegacy will offer individual player support at some point to help with that. I have all the data stored and ready to go for that day.
I do have team-by-team data points I can use to offer a little bit of historical reference, but keep in mind that with our move to 10 teams this year, it's going to be difficult to compare this season to our first three. We had 200 players draft this year compared to 160 in previous years. That's 40 fewer draftable players available on waivers. The most talented players are now spread out amongst more teams than in previous years, so we'll expect to see league scoring up but team averages down from previous seasons.
With that in mind, I'll still be curious to see if that expectation will hold true, consistently, throughout the season.
Let's get into this week's matchups.
Sean Kennedy (185.00) vs Eric Meyer (148.25)
Sean Kennedy (185.00) vs Eric Meyer (148.25)
All-time H2H: Eric leads series 6-4
As we do every year in both our fantasy leagues, we began the 2024 campaign with a rematch of last year's title bout as our opening game of the week.
In the 2023 Scully Cup, Eric beat Sean pretty handily by a score of 154.50-105.00 thanks in large part to an incredible .335 batting average for the week.
To begin this year, Sean got a measure of revenge. Though he didn't win by 50 points, his victory margin was just a few points shy of 40. It helps with you have the six highest scoring players of the matchup on your team.
With the win, Sean secured his third career Manny Ramirez Award, improving his record to 3-6 when playing in the game of the week while dropping Eric's record to 5-11 in these games. Eric will get his chance for revenge when the two meet again in Week 16.
Sam Martin (172.50) vs Alex Mayo (237.25)
Sam Martin (172.50) vs Alex Mayo (237.25)
All-time H2H: Sam leads series 8-1
Unlike fantasy football where we have a weekly award for everything under the sun, we only give out two awards on a weekly bases in the AOA. One is the Manny Ramirez Award, given to the winner of the game of the week. The other is the Rickey Henderson Award, given to the league's top scorer each week.
Aside from our two newcomers, Alex entered the 2024 season as the only manager without one of either weekly award. He also entered the year as the only returning manager who was winless against any opponent. He took care of both of those in one fell swoop this week.
He secured his first ever win against Sam and did so in blow out fashion, securing the season's first Rickey Henderson Award as one of just two managers to eclipse 200 points in the extended week. In fact, his point total is the fourth most in league history, with the three totals ahead of his also coming in season-opening 10-day matchups.
Stephen April (173.25) vs Richard Blorstad (201.75)
Stephen April (173.25) vs Richard Blorstad (201.75)
All-time H2H: Richard leads series 1-0
Because the newcomers to the AOA were split between two divisions and slotted in as the #5 teams in each division since they don't have results from 2023, they're set as inter-division rivals for the 2024 season. This created a season opening matchup between the two and also means they'll match up one more time in Week 16.
In their first match, Rich came out on top by a comfortable margin despite a solid showing by Stephen. With similar pitching performances from the two managers, it was Rich's offense that gave him the edge.
Rich led the AOA with a .305 team batting average in the opening week, which also helped secure him the league's best OPS at .879, solid numbers that far outpaced Stephen's .246 and .744, respectively.
Evan Ash (160.00) vs Cory Puffett (162.50)
Evan Ash (160.00) vs Cory Puffett (162.50)
All-time H2H: Cory leads series 6-2
In a rematch of the 2022 AOA title game, which Cory won comfortably, we got our closest matchup of 2024's opening week.
Evan held a sizeable pitching advantage as Cory's team posted a league-worst 5.96 ERA and 5.01 FIP for the week, which included multiple pitcher outings netting significant negative point totals.
Fortunately for the eventual victor, Cory's batters stepped up to the plate and delivered. Cory led the AOA in plate appearances with 383, 12 more than any other manager and 26 more than Evan.
Cory held a significant advantage in batting average and OPS for the matchup and his runs plus RBI were 22 more than any other manager in the league, and that was enough to get a win in the second lowest scoring game of the week.
Cory Frontin (141.25) vs Andrew Perez (118.50)
Cory Frontin (141.25) vs Andrew Perez (118.50)
All-time H2H: Cory leads seried 4-3
Coming into this matchup with the all-time series tied, it was the only one where Cory's opponent didn't have the advantage in their head-to-head.
Cory now holds the series lead thanks to this win, the 10th in AOA history where the second lowest scoring team of the week happened to be matched up up against the only team they could have beaten.
Despite posting the fewest home runs of the week (7) and the worst batting average (.221) and OPS (.635), Cory got the victory in large part because Andrew didn't put any effort into his pitching situation. Despite the matchup lasting 10 days and so every manager being allotted 10 pitcher starts, he had only four. He also has no relief pitchers rostered, meaning he had no opportunities for points from saves or holds.
Eric had the second fewest innings pitched of any manager this week with 36.2 while the eight manages ahead of him averaged just shy of 59 innings pitched.
Andrew's team totalled just 22 and a third innings! Because of that, it didn't matter that his pitchers led the AOA with a 2.01 ERA and a .896 WHIP, there just weren't enough counting stats for it to make a difference.
Game of the Week: Sean Kennedy at Eric Meyer
Despite a slight advantage in several offensive counting stats, and only a 1.5-point overall deficit in offensive production, Eric couldn’t defend his 2023 Scully Cup victory against Sean thanks to poor pitching production. Eric was one of two managers to finish the week with fewer than 50 innings pitched, and he didn’t even reach 40 innings. Add to that the third highest team ERA and WHIP for the week, and the result was a loss to last year’s runner-up.
Note: MLB issues stat corrections up to 7 days after games. These corrections will be applied to games, including those that have been completed, but these articles will not necessarily be updated with those stat corrections.
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