A Pokemon Fan’s Guide to Major League Baseball
When I wrote our Star Wars Fan’s Guide to the MLB back in 2015, the conversation centered on the existential and never ending battle of good vs evil that is overt in Star Wars. Maybe my memory of Pokemon is clouded in the impressions of the world imprinted on my conscience at age 7 that still reverberate as I approach 27 or maybe I am too far removed from my academic self, but the storytelling archetypes that define Star Wars are not as apparent in Pokemon. It feels much more like a world in which you’re just wondering around collecting new friends – Gotta Catch Em All!
But when contemplating the game through a critical lens, as any role-playing game hopes to warrant, it is easy to see how Pokemon mirrors life. I still remember beating the final boss and becoming the Grand Trainer (Champion) and feeling a bit disappointed; I thought it would be more rewarding to overcome the mountain of fictional Pokemon adversaries. Alas, the game, just as life, is best enjoyed without thinking too critically of the purpose.
In Pokemon, we collect little creatures called Pokemon, which do serve a purpose for us in that they assist in accomplishing our goal (either to become the best trainer the world has ever seen or as a scientific exercise akin to a Charles Darwin expedition). The thing about Pokemon that always frustrated me was that the creatures (Pokemon) were some sort of cross between friends, pets, trained pawns in a cruel and inconsequential war, and scientific specimens. In life, do we collect any of those? Is collect just a poor word choice for what we do with those entities in our own lives?
But ostensibly you are here as a Pokemon fan looking for guidance on today’s MLB landscape. I am going to assume that you can go elsewhere for a complete academic discussion of the hidden meaning of Pokemon. For now, this guide functions as a Pokemon addict’s introduction to the major actors and themes of modern Major League Baseball.
The Professor: Off The Bench Blog
When you first turn on Pokemon, you are greeted by a Professor, who serves as something of a mentor throughout the game. He gives you your first Pokemon and gives your life a bit of meaning. While there are other mentors in the game of baseball (each team has a manager who could qualify, their job is to give young players their marching orders and first opportunities), you’re a Pokemon fan and we’re introducing you to baseball. We can’t provide you with your very own baseball player as the professor does in the game, but we can arm you with the knowledge to know a good player when you see one. We can tell you about the world that you’re considering entering, and we can mentor you as you become a happy baseball nerd like us. Welcome to the world of baseball.
Gyms: Major League Cities
The idea of a city is mostly the same in both Pokemon and in the real world. In Pokemon, the gym within a certain city will typically specialize in one flavor of Pokemon over another. Similarly, Major League teams tend to specialize with specific strengths across their roster, rather than attempting to dominate all aspects of a game. Whether the team tries to dominate with pitching, hitting, or defense in baseball is similar to how Pokemon trainers typically build rosters of fire, water, or grass type Pokemon.
Another note on this concept: We can understand the size of a city by it’s Major League affiliation. A city with a Major League team is probably pretty big, while a city supporting a AAA franchise is a step down in size, with AA yet another step-down. Similarly, within Pokemon, we know we have stumbled upon a noteworthy city if and when there is a gym. No gym? Just passing through. Gym? I’ll look around a little while.
Bicycle: Airplanes
At some point in the game, we get a bicycle for motoring around the world. The bicycle functions to speed the game up. Major Leaguers don’t usually use bicycles to get between cities. The cities are simply too far apart. Instead, players know they have made it in the game when they stop riding the bus around to minor league stadiums and upgrade to the airplane, the faster mode of transportation. (Editors Note: Isn’t the part of the game where you fly on a flying-type Pokemon’s back from city to city more like an airplane? Like, it’s almost exactly like an airplane. Just sayin’)
Starter Pokemon: Prospects
When you first start out in Pokemon, you select one of three Pokemon to build your squad around. This guy will develop over time and usually becomes one of your top forces. You train them from the time they are lowly level 1 babies, through to when they help you become World Champions. That last sentence can apply to either baseball prospects or starter Pokemon. Baseball prospects are typically seen as the foundation upon which championship teams are built.
Legendary Birds: Free Agent Pickups
Once you get fairly far into the game, you can go find one of the legendary bird Pokemon (Articuno, Zapdos, or Moltres). These birds are very powerful, and help to supplement the solid roster that you have already assembled. Similarly, a baseball organization can go out and sign a big-time and established player to help supplement a roster on the verge of competing for a Championship.
Pokeball: Corollary is Complicated
As I mentioned at the outset, the primary function of Pokemon is to collect Pokemon for various purposes. The primary way that you can do this is by throwing a Pokeball at a weakened wild Pokemon and hoping to trap it. Simple enough, but what is the corollary in baseball? Well, since you are adding Pokemon to your roster, I would suggest that the Amateur draft is most akin to “throwing a Pokeball.”
But Pokemon gifted us with different levels of Pokeballs for capturing different types of Pokemon. Similarly, baseball has multiple, multiple ways of acquiring new players for a roster. These methods do not follow the same hierarchy of strength as the different levels of Pokeballs, but they do apply to players at different proximities to the Major Leagues.
If the Pokeball is used for acquiring the youngest talent, then the Great Ball should be used to bring in talent that is slightly closer to the Major League level, but not quite established yet. Ergo, the Rule 5 draft. MLB’s Rule 5 draft provides organizations the opportunity to select players from other minor league organizations to play for their MLB squads. These guys have varying success rates, but the catch is that the player has to stay on the MLB roster for the full year. It’s a great way for rebuilding teams to take a chance on talented, nearly ready MLB players. I’m also going to throw MLB’s waiver system into the Great Ball umbrella. MLB’s waiver system essentially allows teams to claim other teams’ MLB players. The players’ original team has to agree, of course, but often the new team gets the player merely in exchange for the right to pay an oversized salary.
Next up in the Pokeball hierarchy is the Ultra Ball. I’m going to call the Ultra ball the trade system. MLB organizations can trade players, money in exchange for players, managers, or even some draft picks. Basically, they can trade anything. They do it a lot. It’s fun.
Next up is the Master ball, which always catches its target. When an MLB organization wants to sign a free agent really, really badly, they can essentially throw lots of money at him. Does it always work? Well, if you put enough money on the table, negotiations tend to be pretty easy.
Finally, we have the Safari ball, which is used only in the Safari Zone. MLB has a whole different set of rules surrounding the signing of international amateur players. It’s complicated and rarely covered across the national media because players are so far from helping the MLB. These international systems are also complicated and somewhat seedy, as many handlers and psuedo-agents attempt to profit from the talent of 16-year-old baseball prodigies. (Kinda like a wild west atmosphere)
We have more Pokemon Week coverage coming all week! Hope you Pokemon fans are properly primed with a good introduction to Major League Baseball.
-Sean Morash
