Cubs Defeat A.L. Champ Toronto in Series; Toronto’s Guerrero A.L. MVP, L.A.’s Ohtani Top N.L. Player; Minnesota’s Lopez and L.A.’s Yamamoto Win Cy Youngs
Strat-O-Matic (@strat-o-matic) is the market leader in sports simulation games but I have to say, their annual Opening Day projections for the 2025 baseball season appears to be created for shock value and not by measuring the amount of total team talent that money clearly buys. The Chicago Cubs winning the World Series over the Toronto Blue Jays feels like picking BYU to defeat Alabama in their March Madness sweet 16 game, it was not going to happen. Even though the sim picks Toronto’s Vladimir Guerrero (.321, 45 HR, 130 RBI, 1.024OPS) as the American League MVP, I don’t believe they have enough overall pitching or hitting to win it all but Strat-O-Matic is rather good at sims as seen by their 2024 Stanley Cup hockey picks. The obvious favorite to win it the championship this year is the Los Angeles Dodgers after spending over $500 million in payroll ($330.5M) and competitive balance tax. The Miami Marlins spent around $68 million in payroll expenditures ranking the franchise on the very bottom at 30th of all ranked MLB teams. No MLB salary cap is the same as no NIL cap in college sports. For the first time in March Madness history, the top 3 seeds in all 4 brackets won, there were no early round Cinderella upsets by the 16, 15 and 14 seeds. The teams spending less money logically have a smaller chance of winning compared the larger bankrolled teams and universities. The Sports Techie community blog hopes our readers and followers make it to a professional baseball game this season. My son will be attending an Atlanta Braves ($213M payroll) game next week against the 300-1 Marlins who surprisingly have better odds to win the title than either the Colorado Rockies or Chicago White Sox, both at 400-1 odds. The Braves are projected to be the Al East champs and are +800 to win the World Series.
2025 MLB Season Sim Projects
With 107 wins and having the best MLB odds of +275 to win the championship, L.A. cruised down the 405 to a #1 seed in the National League, but surprisingly go down in a five-game defeat to Wild Card team, the Milwaukee Brewers in the Division Series, to end their promising season.
The Cubs battled to 91 wins and earn the Central pennant, then pull a miracle in sweeping Los Bravos, followed by ousting the Brew Crew in six games, 4-2, to reach the final, where the Chicagolanders swept A.L. winner Toronto (A.L. East champion, 92-70) for the title, last accomplished in 2016 when they ended a 108-year drought.
Look for the Minnesota Twins (92-70) and my Seattle Mariners (94-68) to win their divisions, respectively. The Wild Cards entrants consist of the New York Yankees (84-78), Houston Astros (84-78) and Kansas City Royals (84-78) in the AL and New York Mets (95-67) and San Francisco Giants (88-74) in the NL.
American League
National League
PLAYOFFS:
Wild Card:
KC over MIN, 2-1
HOU over NYY, 2-0
CHC over SF, 2-1
MIL over NYM, 2-1
Division Series:
SEA over HOU, 3-1
TOR over KC, 3-2
MIL over LAD, 3-2
CHC over ATL, 3-0
Championship Series:
TOR over SEA, 4-0
CHC over MIL, 4-2
World Series:
CHC over TOR, 4-0
2025 MLB Award Winners
Besides Guerrero’s AL MVP, other major award winners include Minnesota’s Pablo Lopez after a stellar 16-8 mark with 3.23 ERA and 212 strikeouts, winning him the Cy Young.
In the N.L., Japanese national, all everything Shohei Ohtani pounds his way to another MVP, at .298 with 38 HR and 124 RBI and .998 OPS for the Dodgers, while his teammate also from Japan, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, wins the top pitching award after a tossing a 20-7 record, 2.96 ERA and 190 Ks.
AL MVP
Vlad Guerrero, TOR: .321/45/130, 1.024 OPS
NL MVP
Shohei Ohtani, LAD: .298/38/124, .998 OPS
AL Cy Young
Pablo Lopez (16-8, 3.23 ERA, 212 K)
NL Cy Young
Yoshinobu Yamamoto (20-7, 2.96 ERA, 190 K)
Sports Techie, my buddy, Tim ‘T-Bone’ Rogers sent me a Happy Birthday text yesterday and this picture of him getting ready for the Mariners opening day victory over the A’s. Thanks, bro!
Us Seattle fans are loving the division championship prediction by this Strat sim. With perhaps the best starting pitching rotation in baseball, anything can happen but without more accomplished batters, it may not be enough. There is always the trade deadline to make things happen for the M’s but history shows that ownership doesn’t spend money to win as much as they like making profits first and foremost.
For you Cubby and Jays fans, this might be your season according to the new Strat-O-Matic sim.
Anything is possible except for the cheap Marlins, Rockies and White Sox, right.
See you later sportstechie in Seattle, Atlanta and around the world!
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