Pennant Wars: How to Play Fantasy Baseball all Year Long
By Clave Jones
I’ve been playing Pennant Wars, which is a fantasy baseball dynasty league simulator. If you’ve ever dreamed of being a General Manager of a baseball team, then you might want to give Pennant Wars a shot.
It’s completely free to try it for a season and I named my team the Crackerjacks, of course. The game is web-based, meaning that you don’t need to download anything to play. The design, stability, layout, and overall attention to detail is top notch. I can’t emphasize this enough.
Even though Pennant Wars is just a few months old, the developer knocked the launch out of the park and into the swimming pool into Chase Field. I check my team all the time on my iPad, so mobile works well also.
I took over for an existing team, but the game is so week designed that it was pretty easy to get in there and start making some roster moves. With my budget of $150 million imaginary dollars I signed a couple of older free agents to one year deals as a stop-gap, then turned my attention to aquiring a few 21-24 year olds to build for the future.
Players are computer generated and each have 9 attributes scored on the stand 20-80 scouting scale. You want a speedy center fielder? Then he better score high on the SPD scale. You want a masher? Then he’ll need 60+ on the SLG scale. A pitcher who doesn’t walk many? Then target the CMD score.
You get the idea. I have to tell you, it’s a heck of a lot of fun scouting through the players’ “builds” to ultimately offer a contract to a guy that you think is just what you are looking for. Once you have your roster built, you set your lineups and let the computer simulate the games.
Nolan, the developer, emailed me that when it comes to understanding how the simulations work, that “just relying on general sabermetric theory (based on real life baseball) will get you 99% of the way there”, but more on Nolan in a minute. A game is simulated about every 3 hours, so a full MLB season rolls through pretty quick and makes the game feel action-packed.
I like to see the badge reminder pop up that tells me another game has been “played”, and I’ll click through to read the highlights. This is an area of the game where you can be as casual or hard-core as you want. Pennant Wars does all the work, but you can decide how much of a micro-manager you want to be. Pennant Wars is simple, without being simplistic. It’s easy to learn, yet hard to master.
There are a ton of other great things about Pennant Wars don’t I don’t have time to go in depth on, but are worth listing:
- Trade and make waiver claims
- Jockey players between the majors, Triple A, and the Low Minors
- Edit pitching roles
- Set dimensions of your home stadium
- Adjust your hitting approach and pitcher hooks
There are a couple of things in the game which in my opinion can be improved, but I’ll also tell you why I think that is actually the games biggest positive.
One negative is that these are computer generated players and unlike traditional 5×5 fantasy baseball, you aren’t drafting Yasiel Puig or Evan Longoria to your team. My left fielder is a computer generated 29-year-old named Nelson Stowell, not Mike Trout. This extra level of abstraction makes it more difficult to “root” for your players at first, and you’ll need to give yourself a little time to warm up to them.
The other negative was that I had a hard time knowing if some of the changes I was making to my lineup were doing any good. Sure, the computer was simulating the games, but I wanted to know if my efforts as an arm chair general manager were tilting the odds in my team’s favor. This was an issue I reached out to the game’s developer about, and that brings me to the reason that I think some of the game’s weaknesses are a strength.
Nolan, the developer, is working his butt off to make Pennant Wars be the best baseball sim out there and it shows. Not only is he very responsive to player suggestions – like mine – but he actively solicits the Pennant Wars community for feedback. It seems like every day he cranks out another feature that adds to the game and the forums has thread upon thread of future plans, enhancements, and improvements. And these aren’t empty promises, Pennant Wars is getting better and better every day.
One final positive about Pennant Wars before this review gets much too long. The forums and community are active, positive, and fun. People like playing this game and that enthusiasm and positivity comes across from the other players. I’m not suggesting you’ll meet your best friend out of a pool of Pennant Wars players, but i am saying that you’ll have a fun and positive experience, which is sadly often lacking on the internet.
Nolan at Pennant Wars didn’t pay me a nickel to review this game. I reviewed it for two reasons, 1) I genuinely enjoy playing the game and I’m thankful to have a little fantasy baseball to play in the off-season and 2) I felt like our Crackerjack readers would enjoy Pennant Wars as well. But full disclosure, although I didn’t receive any payment, I will get my personal gameplay extended if you sign up. So try and beat me.
Click here for your free trial season of Pennant Wars. There are just a couple weeks worth of games to simulate this season, so now is a good time to get yourself on the waiting list for when the next season opens up.