Astros, Dodgers Lead League Standings; Weaver, Maeda, Soler, Murphy Earn May Awards As

Strat-O-Matic Continues Baseball 2020 Season Simulation

All-Star Voting Also To Begin Thursday; Rays, Indians, Nationals, Cards Also Top Divisions; Repeat A.L. Winner Soler Now Has 25 Home Runs After Blasting 13 In May; Murphy Hits .402 For The Month

GLEN HEAD, N.Y., June 4, 2020—For the second straight month, Jorge Soler of the hanging-in-there (31-29) Kansas City Royals earned American League Player of the Month honors, highlighting the May award winners as Strat-O-Matic’s (www.strat-o-matic.com) simulation of the 2020 baseball season enters June. The Houston Astros (41-19) and Los Angeles Dodgers (40-18) hold the best A.L and N.L. records, respectively, with Tampa Bay (37-24), Cleveland (37-23), Washington (37-21) and St. Louis (34-26) leading the other divisions through two months of play. Strat-O-Matic updates results and standings daily at www.strat-o-matic.com/2020-season-simulation/.

Strat-O-Matic also announced today that it has opened All-Star voting, based on the statistics generated in the simulation to date. Fans may vote at http://www.strat-o-matic.com/announcements/2020-strat-season-all-star-voting/, and may view each player’s statistics via links from the main simulation page linked above. Voting continues through July 1, with the All-Star Game scheduled for July 14.

In addition to Soler, who hit 13 home runs and drove in 38 runs (1.215 OPS) during May to increase his MLB-leading totals to 25 and 70, winners include A.L. Pitcher of the Month Kenta Maeda of the Twins (3-1, 1.62 ERA), N.L. Player of the Month Daniel Murphy of Colorado (.402, 5 HR, 19 RBI, 1.110 OPS), and N.L. Pitcher of the Month Luke Weaver of Arizona (4-0, 1.77 ERA).

Despite a league-best eight wins from off-season prize pickup Gerrit Cole, the Yankees slumped in May, dropping to 31-29, 5.5 games behind Tampa Bay in the A.L. East and three games out of the wild card, with Oakland (36-25) and Minnesota (34-26) in a virtual tie for the two spots. Atlanta (33-27), San Diego (32-28) and Chicago (32-28) are tied atop the N.L. Wild Card standings.

Some of the other individual league leaders through May 31 include:

• Tommy Edman, St. Louis, N.L. batting (.359);

• Luis Arráez, Minnesota, A.L. batting (.351)

• Trevor Story, Colorado, N.L. home runs (23); N.L. runs (51)

• Keston Hiura, Milwaukee, N.L. RBI (52)

• Nelson Cruz, Minnesota, A.L. runs (44)
• Yonny Chirinos, Tampa Bay, A.L. victories (8, tied with G. Cole, NYY)

• Clayton Kershaw, Los Angeles, N.L. victories (8); ERA (1.85)

• Blake Snell, Tampa Bay, A.L. ERA (1.36); strikeouts (119)

• Jacob deGrom, New York, N.L. strikeouts (109)

“As the season unfolds, we are seeing some of the outstanding individual performances and exciting games that mirror the accuracy that are typical of Strat-O-Matic simulations,” said Hal Richman, Strat-O-Matic founder. “There are some surprises, like how Soler has dominated and the Yankees have struggled, but there is still a lot of baseball to be played.”

About Strat-O-Matic

Strat-O-Matic was invented by 11-year-old Hal Richman in his bedroom in Great Neck, N.Y. in 1948 as a result of his frustration with the statistical randomness of other baseball board games. He discovered that the statistical predictability of dice would give his game the realism he craved. Over the next decade, he perfected the game at summer camp and then as a student at Bucknell University. After producing All-Star sets in 1961 and ‘62, he parlayed a $5,000 loan from his father (and made a deal that if it didn’t work out he would work for his father’s insurance company) into the original 1962 Strat-O-Matic Baseball season game. Needless to say, Hal never had to take a job with his father.

Strat-O-Matic, based in Glen Head, NY and on the Internet at www.strat-o-matic.com, manufactures the top selling sports board games and realism/stats sports digital games. The Company publishes baseball, football, basketball and hockey games to play both on and off your computer and mobile screens. “Strat-O” games are known throughout the sports community for their statistical realism and accuracy. The Company has the world’s greatest sports game stat libraries with top-of-the-line seasons dating back to the early 1900’s. At the start of the 2016 MLB season, Strat-O-Matic introduced Baseball Daily, its first product featuring digital player cards that update every day to reflect real life current player performance as the season progresses.

The Company has a loyal celebrity following including a bevy of sports broadcasters such as Bob Costas, Jon Miller and Dan Shulman, former MLB’ers Keith Hernandez, Doug Glanville and Cal Ripken Jr., and sports super fans including Drew Carey, Ben Bernanke, Bryant Gumbel, Spike Lee and Tim Robbins. More information is available at: www.strat-o-matic.com.