Written by Cory Puffett
Published April 29, 2024
We've got quite a few firsts after four weeks this season:
Evan Ash has not led the league in scoring in any of the first four weeks of the season. He won Rickey Henderson Awards in Week 4 of the 2021 season, Weeks 1, 3, and 4 of the 2022 season, and in Week 2 of the 2023 season.
We have not had a repeat winner of the Rickey Henderson Award yet this season. Eric Meyer won two of them in the first four weeks of the 2021 and 2023 seasons, and Evan won three of them in the first four weeks of the 2022 season.
All four Rickey Henderson Award winners so far this season had never won one previously. Alex Mayo won the first of his career in Week 1, Rich Blorstad and Stephen April, both in their first season in the league, won their firsts in weeks 2 and 3, respectively, and Sean Kennedy won his first this week.
Andrew Perez has won all four of the newly established and named John Gouchnaur Awards so far this season. It's the first time anybody has won more than two of the first four in any season.
We have a remarkable level of parity right now in the league, at least in terms of records. Outside of our two winless managers, everybody else is either 3-1 or 2-2 entering Week 5. We still have a lot of season left for teams to sort themselves out, and even those two 0-4 teams can still make a run and get back in the mix with 14 games left.
All-time H2H: Sean leads series 1-0
Sean won his first career Rickey Henderson Award this week by leading the league in scoring. Finally, every manager in the AOA has led the league at least once.
To go with it, Sean becomes the 22nd manager to win the Manny Ramirez Award while leading the league in scoring. It's his fourth career Manny Ramirez Award in his 10th appearance in the game of the week. Rich falls to 1-1 in his appearances.
With the win, Sean takes the lead in the AOA West due to the head-to-head tiebreaker. There'll be two more matchups between these two down the stretch. If they can hold their spots at the top of the division, they could very well draw the game of the week designation in either or both of those rematches.
All-time H2H: Series tied 5-5
Eric again failed to reach triple digits, though he came painfully close this week.
Now, he did get a 1.25-point stat correction after last week's game went final, so a similar situation this week could give him his first 100-point total in a 7-day game this season. We'll have to see how that goes.
Evan's been off to a hot start, and he enjoyed a terrific pitching week. While Eric had a slight advantage in ERA, FIP and a virtually identical WHIP, Evan had a 9-inning volume advantage.
Likewise, a lot of the offensive numbers between the two were similar, but Evan had 21 more plate appearances from his batters than Eric did. Count this as a managing win for Evan.
All-time H2H: Series tied 5-5
Sam enjoyed a moderate hitting advantage over Cory. While neither had a particularly strong week, Sam at least got the benefit of a handful of long balls while Cory's Fireflies could only muster a league-low three home runs for the week. Cory is the only manager without at least one 5-homer week since our 10-day season opener.
Despite Cory having a 4-inning volume advantage on the mound and a better ERA and WHIP than his opponent, Sam finished the week with an 87-68 advantage from pitching points, which was a difference maker in their matchup.
All-time H2H: Alex leads series 6-3
Even with a pretty rough WHIP of 1.302 this week, Cory actually held a slight pitching advantage in this matchup thanks to an additional 7.1 innings pitched and just three more earned runs allowed than Alex.
It was on the offensive end that Alex won this game, despite 24 fewer plate appearances and three fewer home runs. Alex's squad posted the second highest batting average of the week and fourth highest OPS. That was enough for him to keep pace with Evan and move a game ahead of Cory in the AOA East.
All-time H2H: Stephen leads series 1-0
Andrew actually had a pretty solid week at the dish. Despite a league-low 179 plate apperances, his was one of just three teams with 10 or more home runs in Week 4. If he had bothered to get Trevor Story, who is on the 60-day IL, out of his lineup and replace some other players on off days, maybe he could've competed for his first win of the season.
Instead, Stephen got his second straight win, this one a lucky one to offset his unlucky loss back in Week 1. Though Stephen tied for the league lead in home runs, he had an atrocious pitching week, capped by back-to-back meltdowns by Craig Kimbrel to close out the week. Fortunately for him, Andrew failed to capitalize on the opening.
Game of the Week: Sean Kennedy vs Richard Blorstad
Sean’s Marauders were excellent on both sides of the ledger, this week. They posted the best team batting average of any matchup this season, beating Rich’s .305 average from Week 1. His team’s OPS also broke this season’s high, his own Week 2 mark of .925.
Add to that a strong pitching week, and he was simply too much to handle for Rich’s Hydro Dredgers, who enjoyed a solid week of their own, to be fair. Some poor late-week pitching dashed his hopes for a comeback, but he still finished fourth in scoring the week.
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.