Rays, Nationals Top Standings, April Awards Issued In Strat-O-Matic Baseball 2020 Season Simulation

As the calendar turns to May, the Strat-O-Matic (www.strat-o-matic.com) simulation of the 2020 baseball season continues, with the Tampa Bay Rays (21-12) and defending champion Washington Nationals (20-10) posting the top A.L and N.L. records, respectively, through the first month-plus of action.

Strat-O-Matic, which updates results and standings daily at www.strat-o-matic.com/2020-season-simulation/, also issued its first monthly awards, covering play through April. Trevor Story of Colorado, with 13 home runs to date, which works out to a pace for 72 over a full season, was named National League Player of the Month. Jorge Soler of the surprising (18-13) Kansas City Royals earns the A.L. honor with a league best 12 home runs and MLB leading 32 RBI so far.

On the pitching side, Tampa’s Blake Snell, at 5-0 with a miniscule 0.59 ERA in seven starts, takes the A.L. Pitcher of the Month honors, while Stephen Strasburg of the Nats (5-0, 0.86 in six starts) picks up the N.L. award.

Other division leaders include Minnesota (19-12), Houston (19-12), Chicago Cubs (21-11) and Los Angeles Dodgers (19-11). Next best records in each league are held by the Yankees (20-12), Athletics (20-13), Padres (18-13) and Braves (18-15).

The Mariners (11-22) and Giants (11-20) have posted the worst records to date.

A few other notes of interest through the first five full weeks of the season:

• The Yankees’ Brett Gardner and Rangers’ Elvis Andrus, two players whose careers seemed to have stalled a couple of years ago, are tied for the best batting average at .366. 
• The White Sox have shown strong pop, with Eloy Jimenez (.356, 10 HR, 27 RBI) and rookie teammates Luis Robert (.901 OPS) and Nick Madrigal (.309 avg.) leading the way.
• The Yankees’ Gleyber Torres picked up where he left off last year against the Orioles, bopping three more home runs against Baltimore and putting together a season-best 20 game hitting streak as part of his 10-homer, 24-RBI campaign to date.
• Reigning HR champ Pete Alonso of the Mets started the year 0-23 but has picked it up lately, up to .203 with six home runs and 14 RBI after the rough beginning.

“The first month of the Strat-O-Matic simulation has shown some of the same kinds of early-season team and player surprises that can happen on the field,” said Hal Richman, Strat-O-Matic founder. “It will be fun to see which can keep it up and how the leaderboards and standings shake out as the year plays out.”