2025 Big League “Fast Forward” with History Maker Baseball
Update 09.18.25: We’re back from Iowa, and congrats to the Milwaukee Brewers, who are our 2025 Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY champions! We’ve posted the details below. Thanks to all who helped out, both at home in the wild card series and in Iowa for the LCS and Championship!
Travis Jansen piloted the Brewers to a dramatic game seven win over the Yankees as Milwaukee captured our History Maker Baseball “Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY! That’s Harvey Couch off-camera making the “V” (for victory?) sign over Travis’ head, haha! Thanks also to Brian Hoxsey, James Cast and Chad and Andy McEvoy for helping manage the final four. Details on each series are posted below!
We're getting ready for our 11th annual History Maker Baseball "Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY" to be held Saturday, September 13th at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Davenport IA. We'll crown OUR 2025 big league champion a couple months BEFORE the real thing happens! You're welcome to join us, read more about it here.
In anticipation of the event we, of course, had to fast-forward the 2025 regular season to its conclusion to see who made the playoffs. (In recent seasons, we've begun this project after the real-life regular season had concluded, plugging in the actual playoff teams and starting the "pre-PLAAY" with the Wild Card round. Prior to COVID, though, we would "fast forward" the regular season starting in early-to-mid September and determine our OWN playoff field!) We did this by using the HMB "Instant Results" chart to determine the winner for every game on the schedule, from September 4th through the 28th (this took about an hour to do). Here's a side-by-side comparison of what the standings were when we started rolling (8am 09.04.25) and how they ended up. Division leaders are highlighted in blue, wild card teams are highlighted in magenta...
As you can see, the same twelve teams who would have made the playoffs had they been held September 4th ended up earning playoff berths in our "fast forward" project. However, there were a couple of interesting twists in the playoff seeding, some near-misses that could have changed the field (worth noting as the real-life season unwinds), and a couple of notable surges and nose-dives!
Here's a quick re-cap of the "fast forward," division by division...
AL East
Down by four games when we started, New York finished the season with an 18-5 run (best of any team) to steal the division from Toronto by a game. The Jays had a chance to tie for the division lead with a win in the season finale over Tampa Bay--but lost, settling for the #4 seed.
AL Central
Detroit finished poorly (8-13) and saw their division lead shaved to five games by surging Cleveland, which won 8 of its last 9, 13 of its last 17 to jump into the Wild Card conversation but fell just short.
AL West
Houston started our project with a seven game losing streak, and lost 11 of 14 games before stringing together some wins at the end to salvage a Wild Card berth. Seattle--four games back as of September 4th--finished 14-8 and spent much of the "fast forward" in first place. It was back-and-forth over the last week of the season. Texas held the division lead on September 21st (84-74) but ended up losing its last five games to fall out of the playoff picture entirely. Seattle's win over the Dodgers in the season finale clinched the title for the M’s.
NL East
Philadelphia finished 12-11 but had a big enough lead to easily hold off New York, who clinched a Wild Card berth. Miami won 9 of 11 games to start the "fast forward," within a whisker of .500, but then tailed off. Washington stumbled badly, losing 17 out of 20 games before two wins in their last three games got them past the 50-win mark.
NL Central
Milwaukee cruised to the #1 seed, but Chicago hung right there with them—both teams finished 15-7 in the "fast forward." Surprisingly, Pittsburgh was ALSO 15-7 (including a sweep of the Brewers September 5-6-7) that moved them up to tie for third-place in the division! Notable was the "crash and burn" by Cincinnati: they were at .500 (70-70) when the project began, but won just 3 of their last 22 games.
NL West
San Diego started out our fast-forward with a TWELVE game winning streak! Wow. That quickly eclipsed the gap between them and Los Angeles (who finished 12-11) and put L.A. in the "catch up" role for the rest of the season. However, the Dodgers had a shot: the Padres lost to the D-Backs on the last day of the season and L.A. would have pulled into a tie for the division lead IF they could beat Seattle—but alas, they did not. Interesting: If the Los Angeles HAD beaten Seattle, BOTH the AL WEST and NL WEST divisions would have ended in a tie!
Fall Classic Wild Card Pre-PLAAY-offs
Here's how our Wild Card round shapes up, these are best-of-three series with the higher seed hosting all games on consecutive days. Each series will be played by a member of the PLAAY Games community (in parentheses)...
• Houston at Seattle (Keith Avallone): The only series that didn’t end in a sweep by the home team, the Mariner bats were silenced by Astros pitching: Seattle scored just four runs in three games, three of them in a game one win, 3-2. Arozorena with the winning RBI in the 11th inning in that one. Game two also went to extra innings, with Meyers’s 10th inning two-run double winning it for Houston 4-1 and tying the series at a game apiece. Game three saw Gordon pitch six shutout innings to protect a 1-0 Astros lead before loading the bases in the seventh. But Hader came in and got XXX to strike out, and the bullpen kept the Mariners off the bases the rest of the way. Correa’s RBI single in the eighth provided an insurance run and the final 2-0 margin.
• Boston at Toronto (John Wise): Toronto swept the series, winning both games, 4-3 and 7-4.
• New York at San Diego (Micah Wimmer): Padres swept the series, winning 1-0 and 8-4. The Mets did have some truly astonishing bad luck in that second game. First, Fernando Tatis Jr. made a home-run saving GLOVE catch to erase two Met runs. Soon after, Juan Soto took what he imagined was a ball four to walk in a run but a questionable ump instead ruled it a strike out and the end of an inning that left three Mets stranded. This same ump would grant Tatis, Jr. a walk instead of a strike out later in the fifth and he came around to extend the Friar lead!
• Los Angeles at Chicago (Michael Bratta): Cubs swept the series taking the first game 5-4 in 11 innings. (a really fun game to play out) Game Two was less exciting as the Cubs scored in the first 3 innings, posting a decisive 8-3 win.
Fall Classic Divisional Pre-PLAAY-offs
The winners advanced to the divisional round, which we streamed live 09.11.25 as a “Game Five” win-or-go-home affair for each matchup…
• Houston at Detroit: Tarik Skubal was flawless in a 4-0 Tigers win, keyed by Kerry Carpenter’s three-run homer in the third inning.
• Toronto at New York: Addison Barger’s two-run homer in the Jays second inning staked Toronto to a 2-0 lead, but the Yankees chipped away with runs in the third and fourth innings, and the game-winning in the bottom of the ninth, Jazz Chisholm with a dramatic walk-off homer to win the series.
• San Diego at Philadelphia: Jackson Merrill scratched out an RBI single in the top of the 13th for the games only run, and the Padres bullpen made it stand.
• Chicago at Milwaukee: Eric Haase’s solo homer in the Milwaukee 4th inning was the game winner for the Brewers, 1-0.
Fall Classic League Championship Series, AL
• Detroit 5, @ New York 2: (11 innings) RBI single from Dingler in the seventh inning tied the game, Perez’ three-run home run in the top of the eleventh was the game winner.
• @ New York 2, Detroit 1 : Judge with a walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth evened the series for the Yankees!
• New York 10, @ Detroit 1 : All Yankees in this one. Bellinger’s home run keyed a four-run second inning, he and Judge added homers in a five-run fifth to complete the rout.
• @ Detroit 3, New York 2: The Tigers stayed alive thanks to clutch bullpen work sparked by Hanifee a solo homer from Greene and RBI singles from Carpenter and Dingler.
• New York 4, @ Detroit 2: Grisham’s RBI single in the 8th broke a 2-2 tie, and Rice added a solo HR for insurance in the ninth.
• @ New York 10, Detroit 5: The Tigers looked to be forcing a game seven with three runs in the top of the fifth, but the Yankees answered back with SEVEN runs of their own! Goldschmidt laced a bases-loaded double, Volpe knocked in two more with another double and Chisholm added a two-run homer! New York added three runs in the eighth to close it out.
New York wins the series 4-2
Fall Classic League Championship Series, NL
• @ Milwaukee 2, San Diego 0: Two run double from Vaughn in the first inning was all the Brewers needed behind the stellar pitching of Woodruff.
• San Diego 8, @ Milwaukee 1: The Padres chased Peralta early, scoring four runs in the third, adding solo runs in the fifth, seventh and ninth.
• Milwaukee 7, San Diego 4: Huge comeback for Milwaukee, trailing 4-0 at the end of three innings, Miseroski with a shaky performance. The Brewers chipped away, though, with solo runs in the fourth and fifth and a four run explosion in the seventh to steal the win.
• Milwaukee 9, @ San Diego 1: Hoskins fourth-inning grand slam gave the Brewers a comfortable lead. In the eighth inning, Yelich’s two-run double followed by a two-run homer from Vaughn provided plenty of cushion for Priester, who got the win.
• Milwaukee 3, @ San Diego 0: Another pitching gem from Woodruff, who recorded his second playoff shutout. Solo runs in the second, third and fourth innings were all the support he needed.
Milwaukee wins the series 4-1
Fall Classic Pre-PLAAY
• New York 5, @ Milwaukee 3: A fourteen-inning thriller to start the series, as New York siezed home field advantage with a dramatic road win. The Yankees failed to score after loading the bases in the thirteenth. But a two-run homer from Grisham in the top of the fourteenth proved to be the game winner
• @ Milwaukee 4, New York 0: Peralta pitched flawlessly, the Brewers managed to eke out runs in the second and fifth innings against Rodon. Yelich with a two-run double in the eighth to seal it.
• Milwaukee 2, @ New York 0: Miseroski (starter) and the Brewers bullpen extended the Yankees scoreless streak to eighteen innings. Vauhn’s solo homer in the third and Frelick’s RBI single in the eighth were all Milwaukee needed to re-take the series lead in New York.
• @ New York 3, Milwaukee 1: Gil was the star for New York, giving up only a solo run in the sixth (Chourio RBI). The Yankees got early solo runs (first, second and fourth innnings) and Gil made them stand up to even the series.
• @ New York 8, Milwaukee 6: Big bats returned for game five! Grisham his two homers—a two run shot in the third inning and a three-run blast in the seventh. That and Bellinger’s two-run double gave the Yankees an 8-2 lead. BUT, the Brewers rallied with four runs in the eighth, Chourio driving in three of them to make it a game again. New York’s bullpen (led by Williams) closed it out and put the Yankees on the verge of the World Championship as the series returned to Milwaukee…
• @ Milwaukee 5, New York 1: Three runs in the second inning (Vaughn, Turang) were enough production for Peralta, who gave up only an RBI single (Bellinger) in the seventh inning.
• @ Milwaukee 1, New York 0: A classic pitching duel to end this hard-fought series, Schmidt for the Yankees, Miseroski for the Brewers. Milwaukee clung to a 1-0 lead generted by Haase’s RBI single in the fourth—they threatened to break it open in the seventh inning, but Hurter came on the shut it down. The Yankees went down quietly in the eighth and ninth, and Milwaukee celebrated!
Milwaukee wins the series 4-3