Are Lower-Scoring Worlds "Better"?

As my hamster-mind attempted to distract itself from the task at hand (Season 36 previews - yes, we'll have them this year) and marveled at Minnesota's defensive prowess (122/11 on +/- plays last year, continuing a long run of 100+ good plays and bad plays in the teens/twenties), I started wondering about the correlation between "Good" (meaning a high level of play, I think) worlds and scoring.

I've long thought that as worlds got "better" ( and I'm not real sure what I mean here...it could be that I mean "as the owners of a world get more experienced"), they manage their pitching better and play better defense (and sacrifice a little offense here and there), and scoring goes down.

So I took a look at 7 private worlds I consider to be "High-level" (either from personal experience, reputation or your recommendation) and noted runs per team for their latest completed season (the worlds were Major Leagues, Kinsella, Hobbs, NCAA, Mantle, Moonlight Graham, NCAA II).

Then I did the same thing for 7 public worlds (Are there only 7 public worlds now?):  Aaron, Clarkson, Minor Leagues, Musial, Puckett, Ryan, Williams.

The average RPT for the private worlds was 728, with a high of 767 (NCAA) and a low of 690 (Major Leagues and Moonlight Graham).

The average RPT for the public worlds was 813, with a high of 867 (Aaron) and a low of 744 (Minor Leagues).  All the other public worlds averaged over 800 RPT.

Just for the heck of it, I compared the average +/- plays in Mantle (at 729, the closest to the average RPT of our private worlds) to those in Musial (at 817, the closest to the average RPT of our public worlds).

Mantle teams averaged 69 + plays and 34 - plays.  Musial teams averaged 55 good plays and 42 bad plays.

Maybe this is self-evident and maybe it means nothing. Subjectively (as an owner in both worlds) I'd say Major Leagues and Hobbs are about on par in quality of play, but Hobbs teams outscored their counterparts here in their recently-completed seasons by 75 runs per team (that said, I've also subjectively thought of Major Leagues as a pitcher-dominated world and Hobbs as a slugger's paradise).

Is there a point here?  Do worlds score less as they get "better".   What else affects scoring?  Interested in your comments.

New Owner Intro - BastanRedsox

Who is BastanRedsox in real life?

I am a Loss Prevention Manager at a hotel in Houston.  I play softball 3x a week and play on a tournament team that travels the country. I play high stakes fantasy, and recently learned I am in the top 1% that spend money in fantasy baseball every year. I don't know if that is a good thing or not though. ;)

Cubs or Indians? Why?
Have the Indians to win the WS at 15/1 so I'll let you guys decide on who I'm rooting for. Plus, can't have the lovable losers if they don't lose... 

Best and worst HBD moments?

Best HBD moment was my first WS win in Rickey. I had maybe the best pitching staff ever assembled from top to bottom and played in Augusta. We all remember these stupid players names when they cherry gets popped. My worst? Man I don't know, I lost the love for the game a year ago, so maybe that's it. I'm hoping that it can come back in this world with this team.

HBD strategem you tried that didn't work?
When I first started I tried to win in international free agency but didn't know how crazy it was and who to wait on or who to pounce on. I ended up leaving 25-30 million on the table in one of my first seasons.
HBD strategem you tried that didn't work?

Welcome New Owner (OK, new last year) jsturgis5866

Who is jsturgis5866 in real life?

Jack Sturgis the 5866th. OK, not the last part. Just the first. Resident of Massachusetts, USA, although some might argue that it's really it's own socialist republic. Yes, Red Sox - slash - Patriots - slash - Celtics - slash - Bruins fan. Turned 6-0 this year, Previously lived in the Washington, D.C., and New York City metro areas as a newspaper journalist, then rebounded to Mass. where I took up a second career as a community college professor (of journalism and English). 

Cubs or Indians? Why? 

I'll flip a coin on the World Series participants. They both have ties to the Red Sox: I'm a big fan of Theo Epstein and chronically ill franchises, and Terry Francona is the best manager the Red Sox have had, maybe ever. I'll be happy either way, but right now I'm hoping: Indians, 2016 champs; Cubs 2017 champs.

Best and worst HBD moments? 

Best moments WS titles, rebuilding destroyed franchises, commissioner of two worlds plus commissioner "assistant" in others. Most of all the connections I've made to the owners over the years, probably met in person 10-12 different guys, maybe more.

Worst moments: Consistently good teams in divisions that are ultra competitive so playoffs always just out of reach. Constant trade rape and destruction of minor league systems by quote-unquote "good" owners. 
WIS continued idiotic tweaks, e.g. budget transfers.

HBD strategem you tried that didn't work?

I don't go crazy with strategy attempts in the fringe. Perhaps the most disappointing was the era where pitch-calling became all the rage then turned out not to matter a whit. The few times I've used closer conistently: dumb, dumb, dumb. Recs put 'em there, and owners think it's necessary.

Welcome New Owner mjdato

Who is mjdato in real life? 

I am a IT Infrastructure Engineer, specializing in VMWare and Cisco technologies.  I am a husband and father of an 8 year old son. I coach baseball and basketball and have been on WIS since 2006. Played GD for a long time before jumping in to HBD and now I solely am focused on HBD.

Cubs or Indians? Why? 

I am indifferent on the WS. I'm a Reds fan, but truly have no tie to either team.

Best and worst HBD moments?

Best WIS moment was my first GD National Championship. And then I won two WS in 2 days a while back so that was a big thrill too. I never have more than 3 teams at a time typically, so to win 2 in 2 days was awesome.  Worst WIS moment was every other season that I didn't win. It's truly disappointing when you have a WS caliber team and don't win it. I think about it on my drives to and from customers, and really all the time.

HBD strategem you tried that didn't work?My very first season I sorted all free agents by previous season stats and signed a slew of guys who had awesome prior seasons. Not realizing that it listed their minor league stats and not ML stats. So my first season I thought, this is easy, I'm going to roll through this. I won 54 games.

Failed Strategies: Budget Bobbles and the End of the $20MM Medical Bug

cyben5150:  As a rule I try to keep my payroll as efficient as possible.  If I don't have a serious WS contender there is little reason to spend $4 mil re-signing a guy who will provide only a marginal upgrade over what I have in the minors or can find on waivers. 

At some point I figured I had a squad of great defenders so I could skimp on pitching and still put up respectable numbers, saving millions in the process. My staff at the pinnacle of this strategy had 4 starters making minimum and one making ~$5 million. Bullpen topped out at one guy making ~$1.5. 

Great in theory, but in practice? Well, my staff posted an ERA of 4.20 helped in large part by my two "best" starters posting ERAs about half a run and a full run better than their career averages. This season resulted in a grand total of 69 wins. 

Over the course of this strategy my team was generally mediocre and good for wins in the mid 70s to 80s; too good to get a high draft pick, too low to make the playoffs causing the franchise to stagnate for a short period. 

Now, the failed strategy here? It wasn't the skimping money per se, rather it was trying to force a strategy onto my team when I didn't have the make up to support it. Looking back I wasn't getting high draft picks and had few potential superstars in the organization. This was most apparent in my pitching where I was at this point churning out mid rotation starters and fringe relievers. 

This meant that I wasn't centering my staff around a couple stud pre-arb guys and filling it out with league average arms, rather I was centering my staff around league average arms and surrounding them with more of the same. 

I have gotten the low payroll pitching to work (3.49 ERA, only guy over minimum made $710K), but the low payroll came organically via a couple solid draft and international classes coming up together and being better options than the guys that would have been making more money. When forced upon a roster however, it was an unmitigated failure.


Blanch13:  I arrived too late at $20MM for the "Supersoldier Medical Bug," which is apparently no longer in effect.  

With $20MM medical, you used to be able to put any injured player on the 60-day DL and get super-normal ratings improvements as he recovered from injury, even surpassing previous ratings by big amounts (if you could keep them on the DL a long time and get a lot of cycles).  

I finally got up to $20MM medical last season, and Tony Baerga blew out an elbow after only 2 starts.  I kept him on the 60-day DL the whole season and he only got 1 injury recovery cycle.  WIS even kicked him off the DL during the offseason (you used to be able to keep those guys on the DL over the offseason and they would roll up even more ratings improvements).  

Bye-bye, $20MM medical bug.