​Strat-O-Matic managers forecast MLB 2025

By Scott Benjamin

NEWINGTON – So what if morning host Steve Phillips did MLB Radio’s Spring Training Tour and provided predictions for each Grapefruit League team.

Forget about the projected team standings that have been published in Baseball Digest.

If you want to know whether Soto could lead the Mets to the World Series; if the Yankees made smart moves after losing Soto; can the Red Sox jump from 81 victories to the American League East crown; then take a seat near tables 32, 33 and 35 at the Tabletop Gaming Center.

In 2023 Brian Favereaux of Cromwell organized the Connecticut Strat-O-Matic baseball club.

Connecticut is a two-faced state. One side faces the Green Monster and the other side faces 41 Seaver Way and Monument Park.

Favereaux, 53, has been playing the fantasy board game since he was 12. A day earlier he made his annual trip to Glen Head, Long Island as about 200 people stood outside the Strat-O-Matic headquarters on opening day to buy their new sets.

Hal Richman, then a math major at Bucknell University, invented Start-O-Matic in 1961. It sells board, online and app games for baseball, football, basketball and hockey.

Jeff Edelstein of The Trentonian in New Jersey once wrote: “The idea is simple: You roll dice, you glance at the player cards, whatever happens, happens, and you manage your way around it.”

“We have so much data now,” John Garcia of Avon, chief content officer for Strat-O-Matic said in a phone interview with Patch.com. “We have 10 to 15 data points on every player. We also talk to Major League Baseball scouts.”

The biggest splash of the off-season was outfielder Juan Soto’s record-breaking 15-year, $765 million contract, which took him from the Yankees, where he played for one season, to the Mets.

Soto has been labeled the Ted Williams of his generation. Yet, he has never captured an MVP award and his contract is bigger than those for the Dodgers Shohei Ohtani, who also pitches, and the Yankees Aaron Judge, who holds the American League home run record.

Favereaux said, “The amount of money he got was way more than his actual worth. He’s not that good at defense He doesn’t steal a lot of bases.”

Phillips, who co-hosts The Leadoff Spot on MLB Radio, has said that given their roster, he was surprised that the Mets won 89 regular season games in 2024..

Favereuax agreed, saying, “They just got on a run,” regarding how the Mets had the best record in baseball from the last week of May through the end of the regular season.

The Mets, who are owned by Greenwich hedge fund giant Steve Cohen, have former American League All-star reliever Clay Holmes, another former Yankee, as their opening-day starter.

But the Yankees demoted Holmes last season as their closer and made him a set-up guy.

A year ago, Favereaux told Patch.com, “In Strat-O-Matic baseball he’s one of those guys who can get right-handed hitters out but can’t handle left-handed hitters. Nobody used him as a closer in Strat-O-Matic baseball.”

Favereaux commented this February that, “I wouldn’t have [Holmes] in my top five [starters] if it is a playoff team.”

The Mets magic carpet ride ended last season when the Dodgers, defeated them in the National League Championship Series.

The Dodgers are not only the defending World Champions, but apparently have assembled the most superstars since Harry Belafonte organized the 1985 “We Are The World” recording session.

Their starting rotation now has Blake Snell, a two-time Cy Young award winner, and Roki Sasaki, the top prospect in baseball.

“They’re ridiculous,” said Favereaux. “They have more pitching and more position players than they know what to do with.”

Since divisional play began in 1969, there have been eight teams that have reached at least 108 victories – a .666 winning percentage.

Strat-O-Matic manager Luis Richards of Norwich said if the Dodgers don’t garner at least 110 wins then “they wasted a lot of money.”

However, perhaps Dodgers manager Dave Roberts didn’t get enough credit for overcoming a slew of injuries in 2024. The pitching staff was so decimated that the Dodgers needed to make a deal at the trade deadline with Detroit for blue-chip hurler Jack Flaherty.

Who are the best managers?

Strat-O-Matic manager Jeff Cohen of Wakefield, MA., and Favereaux each said the Tigers’ A.J. Hinch. Cohen indicated he would add the Reds’ Terry Francona, who guided the Red Sox to two world championships and took the Guardians to Game Seven in the 2016 Fall Classic.

“They know how to handle players, which is a rare skill,” said Cohen.

Former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd (D-East Haddam), an avid Red Sox fan, once said Connecticut doesn’t have a Major League Baseball team, but there is a beauty attached to that.

He said how boring it must be to be a baseball fan in Massachusetts or New York City, because one team dominates the market. In Connecticut there are fun arguments between Yankee and Red Sox fans.

There are Parks & Recreation Departments in Connecticut that sponsor bus trips for games in the Bronx between the Red Sox and Yankees and watch the fans hurl mock insults at each other on the trip home.

Last season on July 9 the Red Sox were 50-41 and appeared to be exceeding expectations with a possible wild-card berth on the horizon. However, they went 30-40 the rest of the season for an 81-81 campaign.

Favereaux, a Red Sox fan, praised the off-season moves by Chief Baseball Officer Craig Breslow – the former major league pitcher who is a graduate of Trumbull High School and Yale – which have turned Boston into “a great team.”

“They’ve improved their pitching, they’ve improved their defense. They signed [Alex] Bregman,” he said, referring to acquiring the talented infielder from the Astros who has boffo statistics hitting at Fenway Park.

Favereaux noted that their top three minor league players - Roman Anthony, Kristian Campbell and Marcelo Mayer - are among the most coveted rookies.

“If they’re not up at the start of the season, they will probably come up at some point,” he commented.

Breslow might be in about the same position that then-Red Sox President of Baseball Operations Dave Dombrowksi was eight years ago when he acquired ace pitcher Chris Sale from the White Sox for four prospects.

Breslow gave up four rookies to the White Sox to acquire emerging starter Garret Crochet.

However, Cohen, also a Red Sox fan, commented, “I’m more on the skeptical side.”

“There is still a gap,” he explained. “There is a lot to do to present consistent pitching and defense.”

However, Favereaux insisted, “The Red Sox are going to compete for the division title.”

Going from 81 wins to a division title is plausible

Consider that the Orioles, with a young roster, had 83 wins in 2022 and then jumped to the American League East title in 2023 with 101 victories.

Between 2023 and 2024 the Yankees went from a mediocre 82 victories to 94 in 2024 and American League East crown.

Richards, a Yankees fan, thinks that even though they lost Soto the Bronx Bombers will compete for the American League East title.

“They made some good moves,” he commented.

The Yankees – under general manager Brian Cashman, a resident of Darien - have added relief ace Devin Williams, marquee starting hurler Max Fried, relief fireballer Fernando Cruz and former National League MVPs Paul Goldschmidt and Cody Bellinger.

Remarked Favereaux, “I think that is better than keeping Juan Soto.”

Resources:

Interview with Brian Favereaux, Patch.com, on Saturday, February 22, 2025.

Interview with Jeff Cohen, Patch.com, on Saturday, February 22, 2025.

Interview with Luis Richardes, Patch.com, on Saturday, February 22, 2025.

Phone interview with John Garcia, Patch.com, on Tuesday, February 25, 2025.

https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/strat-o-matic-baseball-goes-numbers

Steve Phillips, “The Lead-Off Spot,” MLB Radio.

Baseball Digest, February 2025.

Chris Dodd, interview with The Litchfield County Times, April, 2009.