Hi everyone,
so here are two basic commands you can wrap in functions or anything else to run/stop VM of VMWare Workstation.
Important note, all commands are for Windows. They should work for other systems I guess with minimal or no changes.
vmrun -T ws start "C:\vms\workstation.vmx" nogui
nogui option in this case forces the vmrun NOT to open the GUI window.
workstation.vmx is a file, usually is the same as your VM name.