Five Tool: Pro Baseball Career

Scouts call the rare player who can hit for average, hit for power, run, field and throw a five-tool player. Five Tool hands you a seventeen-year-old high-schooler nowhere near that, and you play every season he gets: the pitcher on the mound or the hitter at the plate.

◆ Draft night, or a contract from abroad
After two high-school seasons, the board shows your draft chances: first round, rounds 2–5, rounds 6–20 or undrafted. Americans and Canadians can go to college and try again. Korean, Japanese and Taiwanese players enter their own pro draft, or sign with a big-league club as a top prospect. From the Dominican Republic, Brazil or Europe, a tryout at seventeen earns an amateur deal.

◆ The farm: A, AA, AAA
A big-league contract starts in the minors, and each month shows your chance of moving up a level or being sent down. Then come September call-ups, option trips to AAA and a debut you play as its own scene.

◆ Pitcher or position player, and two-way
Pitchers keep wins, saves, holds, innings, strikeouts and ERA; catchers, infielders and outfielders keep hits, home runs, RBI, steals and average. With the position pack, a hitter can be built two-way: both lines grow, with more fatigue, more injury risk and fewer games on each side.

◆ Growth cards, every second season
Attributes grow as you play. Every second season you pick one of three growth cards of the same rarity (Common, Rare, Epic or Unique), with two free rerolls. Some raise an attribute now, some lift its hidden ceiling, and some pay out as you play, like power +1 for every five home runs.

◆ Contract talks
When a deal is up, you and your agent ask for a salary and clauses, then answer the club's counter-offer.

◆ October, series by series
A best-of-three wild card, a best-of-five division series, a best-of-seven championship series, then the Grand Series for the title.

◆ Posting
After six seasons in an Asian pro league you can ask to be posted. Your club decides whether to let you go, then you see how many teams bid, then the contract.

◆ Odds on the screen
More than 160 situations come month by month: a mound visit, a slump, a contract year. Every choice shows the chance of each outcome before you tap, and that is the chance the game uses. Nothing for sale changes it. Miss the top result several times in a row and its chance is lifted in the next scene, shown in the table.

◆ Rankings and records
Retire with your totals, awards and a career title. Finished careers enter a weekly online ranking under your owner name, where your top three of the week add up for medals or a top-10% emblem, and an all-time record board keeps the leaders. You can opt out. Each week's top 3 win gold and reroll tickets and the top 10% win tickets, claimed from your gift box.

◆ Free to play
Starting pitcher, infielder and outfielder are free; the position pack adds middle reliever, closer, catcher, designated hitter and two-way. Remove ads, the High School Start Pack (start at 15, two seasons earlier) and a supporter shelf for 50 retired players instead of 10 are one-time purchases that never make a player stronger. Gold, free daily or bought, raises club facilities and buys cosmetics. Ads never cover a choice. Each one-time purchase also comes with an owner character, and more come from the shop and owner levels.

9 leagues and 90 clubs, all invented. No sign-up, three careers saved at once, offline seasons, 11 languages. Search FiveTool or Five Tool baseball to find it again.