Can You Avoid Giving Up 47 Runs In The First Four Games?

[Harold Hutchison]

Think back through your Brewers fandom. Have you ever wondered if you could do better than Matt Arnold and Pat Murphy? How about past Brewers GMs and managers? Could you get the 2018 Brewers to the World Series? Could good defeat evil in the 1982 World Series? Could you avoid the Brewers' 2002 nadir?

You have a chance to find out with Baseball Mogul 2025. We reviewed it in 2023, but this year, it’s added some new features, while retaining the features that allow you to try and do better than the team’s General Manager or President of Baseball Operations or the on-field manager. As is the case with the previous version we reveiwed, you not only get to work with the major-league roster, but you also get to handle developing prospects.

New Features

The 2025 edition comes with some new features – perhaps the most important for those who want to see if they can do better than Craig Counsell or Murphy (or any other Brewers manager over the years) is the introduction of in-game injuries, a first for the franchise.

Previously, injuries were only revealed outside games. But as Brewers fan know (Christian Yelich’s kneecap in 2019, Ben Sheet’s lat in 2008), injuries can also happen during games as well. While the reviewer has yet to have one crop up in a game, that factor has to be taken into account when assembling your 26-man roster.

There are also tweaks to the play-by-play feature – you can now pause between plays in a simulated computer game. You also have the option to use the enter key as opposed to a mouse when in Manager or Player mode. Also, you not only now see what pitches that a hurler might have, you get to see how often they use them.

A Wealth Of Possibilities

In Baseball Mogul, you don’t just get to be GM or manager – you can also be the owner or even MLB commissioner. As owner, you could modify your team’s park.

For instance, let’s say you decide to replace the natural grass in American Family Field with artificial turf – you can do that, giving the Brewers’ home park a nice upgrade, and make it friendlier for the gap-power of Sal Frelick, Brice Turang, and other players on the 2024-2025 Brewers.  Want to help your ground-ball pitchers? You can have the grass grow longer to reduce the hits.

Or, you can play commissioner and alter the roster rules, including when draft picks can be traded, the size of the rosters (maybe you want to see how teams do with a 28-man roster in the regular season, with a 32-man expanded roster – or bring back a 40-man expanded roster to September).

Of course, as GM or manager, you can also make decisions. You can see what happens if you don’t move Ryan Braun from third base after 2007. Or maybe, you decide to see what sort of extension you can sign Willy Adames to prior to the start of the 2024 season. Maybe you decide to make a trade for that third baseman – who are you willing to give up?

You get to make the same type of calls Matt Arnold, David Stearns, Doug Melvin, Harry Dalton, and other famous GMs have mage over the years.

The Good Points

As was the case in the 2023 edition, the 2025 edition of Baseball Mogul has a superb ratings system that generally reflects performance, including the ability to replay a given season based on performance.

It also allows one to adjust ratings for players and create new ones. Players also will be able to manage the minor-league system– figure out who to promote, draft, and, if necessary, trade. A player of this game also gets a chance to negotiate extensions or contracts, and even handle arbitration.

One also gets to face many of the same choices Pat Murphy faces in the dugout. How do you manage your bullpen over the course of a season? What about giving your players a day off at various points? The game makes you address those questions.

The Stuff That Could Be Better

The Computer GMs of the other 29 teams will make trades with each other, and these deals sometimes aren’t necessarily logical. So, don’t be surprised if a player you know is on one team is dealt.

Roster management is a lot more simplified than in reality. You don’t have to deal with waiver claims, the Rule 5 draft, or some of the more esoteric manipulations of the 40-man roster. In fact, you can stash prospects for as long as you want. It’s not quite accurate, although there appears to be some of the infrastructure needed to create functionality for the 40-man roster management, along with suspensions for off-field conduct or on-field stuff (ejections would be nice to see implemented, say for excessive plunking of hitters or when a bench-clearing brawl occurs).

In addition, the minor-league rosters are not complete, the affiliates are outdated, and players on current MLB rosters (like Connor Thomas for the Brewers) aren’t featured as of version 28.05. Some blue-chip prospects (like Jacob Misiorowski, Craig Yoho, Jeferson Quero, Cooper Pratt, and Tyler Black) seem to be low-balled in the ratings.

Some of the managerial decisions are pretty simplified as well. There is no “shifting” the defense. Players can try to hit the ball or handle the pitching–but that can be time-consuming. The game also could be better at handling players who play 25-30 games at multiple positions in the course of a season. All too often, they end up sitting on the bench, or they keep another good player on the bench. There still are some glitches, particularly when it comes to implementing MLB’s “runner on second” extra-inning rules.

Overview

Brewers fans will find Baseball Mogul to be an excellent way to spend the months where there is no baseball as a fun pastime, but it can even entertain during the season. While its graphics may not be killer, and it looks pretty dry, it can run on just about any Windows PC, and when it comes to the strategy that goes into a game, series, season, or an entire dynasty, this game is the best choice out there.

Baseball Mogul 2025 is available from SportsMogul.com.

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