The rise of Simulation Baseball: Chasing the digital pennant

Take a journey into simulation baseball while the MLB teams figure out their season.

It was about around May where I realized I really missed checking scores of my favorite MLB teams, looking up how the farm system was doing, screaming at the TV when my team was on a downward slide.  I was at wit’s end.  Until I found, “Simulation Baseball” online.

I know all you die-hards out here are thinking, “So what, I’ve been playing fantasy baseball all year, I’m not missing anything”.  I never really could get into fantasy sports, but bear with me here.  I stumbled across a site called Pennant Wars.

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Let’s preface this by saying, I do own two teams right now, but I’m not affiliated with Pennant Wars other than being a user of the platform.  Pennant Wars allows you to pick a team, name the team, customize your stadium layout, trade players, and more.

Turns out no professional baseball in the United States has been quite good for Simulation Baseball.  I had a chance to interview the owner of Pennant Wars and business has been good.

“New signups were up 400% over the same two-month period in 2019”, said Madge.

Got a pitcher heavy team and want to adjust your starter workload?  You can do that.

Got a quick baserunning team and want to adjust your team to be aggressive on the basepaths?  You can adjust that as well.

I started out with a trial team, I took on this team about three-quarters of the way into it’s “season”.   For every real-life calendar day, there are “six-season days” which means you can quickly move through a season, which to me was much more exciting than a real-life 162 game haul.

Another option I became quickly addicted to, without access to real baseball games, was Pennant Wars TV (PWTV for short).  PWTV gives out the option to “watch” the game in real-time, with some text commentary from the simulation itself.

You can watch in joy as your team quickly jumps out to a solid lead and you can toss your laptop to the floor when it takes a lead into the 9th, only to see it get squandered by your rookie closer in the bottom half of the inning.   Or, you can watch your team take a 3-0 lead in the playoffs, only to have them squander a game in the 14th inning of Game 7.

“Features I never thought I would add, or didn’t see the value in, like the PWTV game viewer have become some of my personal favorite features in the game”, Madge added.  Pennant Wars will even frustrate you with injuries even though “they happen about half as frequently in Pennant Wars as they do in ML”, added Madge.

I can attest to rolling on a ten-game winning streak, then losing my best pitcher and best infielder to separate injuries.   Goodbye, ten-game streak!

If you’re like me, you like to play “mad scientist”.  Moving players from low minors to AAA ball and eventually the “Big Show” was one of my favorite features.  Although I think I was quick-handed on a few of my guys and sent them down to the minors quite quickly.

This feature called “promotion/relegation” was something new to simulation baseball for many people, said Madge.  “Many sports fans from the US had never heard of it before”, Madge added.  Madge felt that this created a competitive game that would keep people active.  Far too often “it’s common and easy for leagues to die out”.  This keeps the game fresh.

Looking to scrap your team to the core to land that five-star prospect with your newly found room on your payroll?  Or are you going the “Money Ball” route and looking for the best players at the least amount of money? So many choices.

There are other simulations out there, but Pennant Wars was my first foray into the genre and I’m quite happy.  There is an active forum base and a quick-moving chat to keep you entertained and informed.  The community is great as well, they’ve definitely helped me learn much more about the game than I knew just months ago and it’s really helped me get my “baseball fix” while the pros still decide whether they want to play or not in 2020.

Madge is quite proud of the community.   “Everyone who has played Pennant Wars for any real length of time generally feels personally invested in the continued growth and success of the game”.

Simulation Baseball is also affordable.  A multi-season pack will run you about $40/year whereas venturing to an MLB with your family will run you close to $235 for one game, according to Doug Whiteman in an article in Moneywise.

Granted, nothing replaces the smell of cotton candy and the sound of a hard-hit ball to deep center, Simulation Baseball may be what you need to get you through the rest of the year and let you chase the pennant right from the comfort of your living room.