PENNANT: Baseball OwnerPENNANT: Baseball Owner

PENNANT hands you a baseball club and makes you the owner. The GM works for you.

It is a text-based baseball management sim with 30 generated franchises. You buy one, big market or small, with your own money or the bank's. Then you hire the twelve people who run it, from the general manager and the CFO down to the head trainer. They do the daily work with whatever judgment they actually have. The big calls come up to your desk: the budgets, the hires, the trades, the free agents, the draft.

EVERY RATING IS AN OPINION

You never see a player's true ability. You see your scouting department's estimate of it, with a confidence tag. Hire a sharp staff and the estimates tighten. Hire a confident staff that happens to be wrong and you will pay ace money for a Triple-A arm.

The other 29 clubs price players through their own scouts, too. Every trade is two sets of mistakes meeting in the middle. Busts and steals come out of that gap, and nobody writes them.

MONEY IS THE HEALTH BAR

A full business runs under the baseball: the gate, media deals, sponsors, payroll, the luxury tax, stadium projects and debt service. Every season's profit or loss lands in your wallet. Fall below -$150M and the league forces a sale.

You also answer to a board. It sets a mandate every season and counts the years you miss it. Miss it long enough and your partners vote to sell the club out from under you. In Classic they also claw back the money you saved running a cheap payroll while you were missing it.

ONE SAVE

The game saves after every move. There is no undo button. The trade your GM talked you into stays made.

When a club is gone, your career goes on. The Hall of Owners keeps every run, the dynasties and the wrecks, and your owner card follows you to the next franchise.

THE LEAGUE HAS RULES FOR OWNERS

Classic runs your club on rules the AI owners do not face. Each one shows its price on screen before it costs you.

• The national media check pays in full only when your payroll reaches the league's $155M. Pocket the money on a $60M roster and the check shrinks.
• Payroll above $186M is billed on top of the luxury tax: 30 cents on the dollar the first season over, 60 the second straight, 90 from the third.
• Let a player your GM calls a core piece walk without a fair offer and the fans hold a grudge. It comes off next season's revenue, half of it again the season after, and his row shows the figure in dollars before he leaves.
• Keep trading prospects for big leaguers and the league notices. Past six in five seasons, agents and clubs charge you a win-now premium, up to 60%.

THREE WAYS IN

Classic. Buy any club and run it for as long as you can keep it. No clock and no brief.

Situations. Six jobs, each one a club you would not have picked on terms you would not have taken. Every job has a clock and a tier from I to III, and the brief says what wins it. Pay off a $200M note in six seasons. Reach October on a payroll of $120M or less in a town three owners gave up on. Finish one and the badge goes on your career with the job's name beside it.

The Challenge: The Pariah. The worst club in the league, a hostile small-market town, $200M of debt, and a league that prices you worse for asking, from trades and free agents to coaches and credit. The prices come down as you win. Win a pennant in your fifth season or later. The first owner who does it names the League Championship trophy, in every save, for every player. The game tells the winner how to claim it the day it happens.

EVERY SEASON BECOMES A CARD

When October ends, the game writes your season up from your own books: the record, what you did, what went right and wrong, and what next year already owes. Save it as an image or copy it, and post it. Your whole run fits on one more card, the franchise history.

THE SIMULATION UNDERNEATH

• Every plate appearance is simulated, and the league is checked against real MLB numbers.
• 29 AI owners run the other clubs with their own budgets, blind spots and tempers.
• A farm system from rookie ball to Triple-A, a 20-round draft in July with bonus pools, and an international signing day in January.
• A full calendar: spring camp, 162 games, the July 31 deadline, an eight-club October that plays out a round at a time, free agency in November and extensions in December.
• Pitcher wins, losses and saves, batting races and season awards.
• Nobody is hand-authored. Every player, club and season is generated.

No licenses and no real rosters. Every franchise and every player is generated, so every story is yours.