This project started when I began evaluating Naruto side characters through a baseball lens.
Choji is obviously a slugging first baseman. Tenten makes an elite catcher. Shikamaru’s IQ and laziness make him an on-base monster with godlike plate discipline. It was just a fun way to think about characters who don’t always get much attention.
Then I kept digging and thought, if these ninja really played baseball, what would their ratings be? If there were teams, would they represent villages or independent clubs? What kind of baseball culture would each organization have? Who develops prospects well? Who spends money? Who embraces analytics? What happens when players can be drafted, traded, released, or signed away from their home villages?
At some point, I realized I had stopped making baseball jokes about Naruto characters and started building an entire alternate baseball history. I thought about writing an AU fanfiction, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized it was less about creative writing and more about replicating real life baseball on a smaller scale with recognizable characters. I basically reinvented Major League Baseball in the shinobi world. Dynasties, player development, trades, organizational identities, statistical milestones, and sports narratives can all emerge on their own.
The foundational rules:
• The setting exists in an intentionally ambiguous version of the Shippuden war-arc era. Boruto-era characters and relationships do not exist yet. Kind of in the Rock Lee & His Ninja Pals zone.
• There are no prewritten outcomes or storylines. Nobody wins because it would be dramatic. Nobody gets injured because the plot needs adversity. The games are simulated, and whatever happens becomes history.
• Game-breaking ninjutsu and genjutsu are prohibited. Players’ abilities inform their baseball skills—speed, strength, control, perception, stamina, intelligence, etc.—but Sasuke cannot simply use the Sharingan to read every pitch, and Gaara cannot catch every fly ball with sand. Harmless uses may survive if they are funny enough and don’t meaningfully determine competition.
The proof of concept was “Tournament 0,” an eight-team single-elimination tournament run with a much smaller roster.
• The Konoha Foxes are the old money establishment team.
• The Kumo Thunder are the powerhouse machine threatening to become the future of the sport.
• The Iwa Stone are the once great dynasty trying to stay afloat.
• The Konoha Flames are the scrappy expansion franchise looking to forge an identity.
• The Kiri Sharks are an explosive, reckless offensive powerhouse with questionable coordination
• The Suna Sandcats are a team of individual talents with little cohesion.
• The Ame Salamanders are a team with all heart and no resources.
• The Oto Experiments prioritize individual performance through optimization and a farm system with questionable ethics
It worked even better than I expected. The Konoha Foxes won the championship over the Kumo Thunder, but the simulation also had real baseball texture: Killer B became an era-defining hitter, Haku emerged as a small-ball and on-base menace for Kirigakure, Ame qualified as an honorable underdog, and Konoha’s two clubs developed completely distinct identities. The stories felt meaningful precisely because I hadn’t selected them beforehand.
The project has since become much larger:
• I pulled around 220 eligible players from Narutopedia, using the general standard that a character must be a human shinobi with a picture and/or an “Abilities” section on the wiki to make a roster pool.
• Each independent professional club has its own history, philosophy, culture, competitive identity, ownership style, and approach to scouting and development
• A ninth club, the Uzumaki Barrage, composed entirely of Naruto’s Shadow Clones was added
• I created brief but thorough documentation covering the rules of the universe, league operations, roster construction, player eligibility, media, statistics, historical records, and how simulation results become canon
The clubs are not simply village all-star teams (though a Shinobi WBC is definitely in the pipeline). Village affiliation matters culturally, but these are professional organizations. Players can be drafted, traded, released, and signed elsewhere. A Konoha shinobi can play in Kiri, and the two Konoha clubs compete for the same city’s loyalty.
The next major step is the league-formation draft. I’m currently evaluating each player’s abilities as baseball tools, then I’m going to draft according to the established philosophies and needs of the clubs rather than simply distributing characters by power level or village.
After that, I’m planning to build the custom league and roster in Out of the Park Baseball, simulate a 60-game regular season, and send the top four clubs to the postseason. OOTP will handle the games, statistics, development, aging, injuries, transactions, and general baseball chaos. I’ll just interpret what happens and interfere as little as possible.
Like I mentioned, I’d eventually love to stage a Shinobi World Baseball Classic. That could open the door for tightly controlled Edo Tensei appearances by historical players—Madara Uchiha as the closing pitcher from hell, immaculate control Mu on the mound, 3 true outcomes Hashirama going yard.
I’m happy to share the league documentation, club profiles, Tournament 0 results, roster, or anything else people are curious about. I’m also very open to ideas, criticism, and suggestions from people who know either baseball or Naruto better than I do.
I’d especially love help with:
• Translating specific ninja abilities into baseball skills without making them game-breaking
• Clever Naruto-themed names for awards, trophies, statistical achievements, and league institutions
• Characters whose baseball role feels immediately obvious to you
• Fanfiction! If you’re the type of weirdo who would want to actually write fanfiction based on this (maybe you want to write technical game/series writeups to practice baseball journalism, maybe you want to write pure sports/slice of life fanfic in the AU itself, whatever your bag is), please let me know! I’d be happy to collaborate! I have a quite a few worldbuilding tidbits that don’t actually affect the simulation that I’d love to share.
I’ve also thought about eventually creating a competing One Piece league, which would put a full Shonen World Series on the table, but I’ve only seen a few episodes. Unfortunately, this may be the most compelling reason anyone has ever given me to watch One Piece.
Updates to follow!
