Aces Only Association:

2025, Week 1

Written by Cory Puffett
Published March 30, 2025

Our fifth season is officially underway. After two original managers opted to depart the league this offseason and a failed venture to replace them with a pair of Reddit users, our league returns to the format we operated under for the first three seasons of play with eight managers split between two divisions.

We have new scoring settings this year that will take some time to get used to. It will be very interesting to see if we ever get a double digit game from a position player. Even an incredible Saturday outing by Aaron Judge with three dingers and a double did not net 10 points. On the flip side, we will see very few games with players scoring one or more points in the red.

Let's jump right into things. Because of our return to a 20-week regular season schedule, we are not combining the first two weeks of the season, or the games following the All-Star Break with the following week. So we will have two short weeks this year, including the four-game season opener we just concluded. Expect team scores to hover back near or above triple digits on average beginning in Week 2.

Players of the Week

Catcher - Adley Rutschman, 7.00 points (Rich Blorstad)

1st Baseman - Freddie Freeman, 5.00 points (Rich Blorstad)

2nd Baseman - Jordan Westburg, 8.20 points (Sam Martin)

3rd Baseman - Jazz Chisholm Jr, 8.75 points (Alex Mayo)

Shortstop - Oneil Cruz, 6.20 points (Alex Mayo)

OF - Aaron Judge, 13.75 points (Alex Mayo)

UTIL - Kyle Schwarber, 6.30 points (Sean Kennedy)

SP - Framber Valdez, 11.25 points (Sam Martin)

RP - Robert Suarez, 8.40 points (Sean Kennedy)

Aaron Judge was the only position player in our 4-day season opener to hit double digits, joining Valdez and three other starting pitchers (MacKenzie Gore, Shota Imanaga, and Logan Gilbert) with huge contributions for their respective teams. Judge was a big part of Alex earning his second career Rickey Henderson Award as the league's highest scorer.

Game of the Week: Sean Kennedy (62.65) vs Sam Martin (68.15)

All-time H2H: Sam leads series 7-3

If we played our matchups as a series of single-day games, Sean would have taken the series 3-1 over the AOA’s reigning champion. Unfortunately for last year’s runner-up, Sam’s 18.5-point cushion after Opening Day was enough to withstand 1.3-point, 0.15-point, and 11.55-point advantages for Sean in their matchup’s final three days.

Sam earned his 19th career Manny Ramirez Award, improving to 19-12 when playing in the game of the week; Sean is now 7-9.

Sean's top scorer: Kevin Gausman, 9.65 points (1 start)

Sam's top scorer: Framber Valdez, 11.25 points (1 start)

Alex Mayo (76.95) vs Cory Frontin (34.00)

All-time H2H: Alex leads series 7-5

Alex's top scorer: Aaron Judge, 13.75 points (3 games)

Cory's top scorer: Tanner Bibee, 6.70 points (1 start)

Stephen April (57.85) vs Rich Blorstad (64.75)

All-time H2H: Rich leads series 2-1

Stephen's top scorer: Zach Eflin, 9.50 points (1 start)

Rich's top scorer: Shota Imanaga, 11.05 points (1 start)

Cory Puffett (37.35) vs Eric Meyer (29.80)

All-time H2H: Cory leads series 8-4

Cory's top scorer: Bryan Abreu, 7.80 points (2 relief apps)

Eric's top scorer: Paul Skenes, 5.05 points (1 start)

Alex finds himself atop our power rankings for the second time in his career. The first time was after last year's season opener. He finished the 2024 season 9-9, third in the AOA East and out of the playoffs. Hopefully this year's early success will not fade in the same way.

Eric is at the bottom of the power rankings for the 11th time in his career. Seven of his previous 10 weeks at the bottom came last season.

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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