Written by Cory Puffett
Published April 21, 2025

This week, the AOA saw its fifth tie in league history. It's quite an impressive feat, this time moreso than the previous four instances.

The first two ties in league history came in Weeks 11 and 17 of the 2022 season, both involving Eric Meyer and Cory Frontin. Then in Weeks 3 and 15 of the 2023 season, we first saw Alex Mayo and Evan Ash tie, and later that season Evan tied Cory.

This week it was Alex and Eric playing to a tie, largely thanks to an absolute meltdown on the mound from Ryan Walker on Sunday afternoon just two weeks removed from being the AOA's relief pitcher of the week.

Prior to this year, all point values were multiples of a quarter point, so there were only so many combinations of team point totals, making ties relatively easy to attain. But with a more intricate scoring system this year, including stat values that can swing team totals by as little as 0.05 points, I did not expect to see the league's fifth tie so soon.

Players of the Week

Catcher - Cal Raleigh, 8.60 points (Stephen April)

1st Baseman - Bryce Harper, 13.90 points (Alex Mayo)

2nd Baseman - Tommy Edman, 5.05 points (Rich Blorstad)

3rd Baseman - Matt Chapman, 11.75 points (Rich Blorstad)

Shortstop - Oneil Cruz, 9.90 points (Alex Mayo)

OF - Fernando Tatis Jr, 15.00 points (Alex Mayo)

UTIL - Spencer Torkelson, 9.50 points (Stephen April)

SP - Max Fried, 22.15 points (Sean Kennedy)

RP - Tanner Scott, 15.90 points (Stephen April)

Cal Raleigh has now won three straight Mike Piazza Awards as the AOA's highest scoring catcher of the week. Interestingly, after winning the award twice in a row as Sean's starting catcher, this week Sean dropped him and Stephen picked him up and benefited from the Raleigh's continued success.

Oneil Cruz won the Barry Larkin Award back in Alex's season-opening victory over Cory Frontin when Alex was the AOA's leading scorer. His team hasn't won since but at least this week they don't add to the loss column, thanks in part to Cruz.

Sean is the first manager with two Bobby Witt Award winners on his team this year. Spencer Schwellenbach earned the award in Week 2 and now Fried joins his teammate after being the league's only 20-point scorer in Week 4.

Tanner Scott earned his first Eric Gagne Award of the season. The last time he claimed the award was after the final week of last year's regular season, also playing for Stephen April's BBGC Orange Team.

While there was a lot of jostling for position in the middle of this week's power rankings, the top and bottom spots remained the same from Week 3.

Rich earned his 6th career #1 power ranking and third of the season.

Cory Frontin, meanwhile, is at the bottom of the power rankings for the 18th time in his career, tying Andrew Perez for the second most in AOA history.

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.