[This is copied/edited from a discussion from a previous season in one of my other leagues]:
How the Formula Works in Practice:
More or less the score is a reflection of what % you are over/under achieving based on your expected wins. Your expected wins are based on your salary relative to the salaries of your competitors. All the team salaries are averaged over the course of the season -- a team with a salary equal to the league average salary is estimated or expected to win at a .500 W%.
The salaries are calculated to reflect the fact that a team with the lowest salary in the league will never play itself and will only play teams with higher salaries and vice versa (this is calculated to be exact for each team). Factoring all of that in, a team with a score of 20.00 overachieved by 20% and a team with a score of -20.00 underachieved by 20%.
A league average team would be expected to win 81 games. So, winning 81 games would give that team a score of 0.00 as they didn't over or under achieve their expectations. So, if you want to see what it might take to get a the top pick, a score of 30 would pretty much assure you a lock for the first pick... a 30 would mean over achieving by 30%. 30% over 81 would be 105 wins. A score of 30 would have equaled the #1 pick in 56 of the previous 79 seasons (and no worse than the #2 pick in the rest). Only 127 teams in the previous 79 seasons have reached a score of 20 or higher (an average of less than 2 per season), so 79 of 127 with a score of 20 got the 1st overall pick, but a score of 20 or higher has resulted in a top 5 pick in every season but one (in that one a score of 20 netted the 7th pick). In the example above 97 wins (a score of 20) would give an average team a 62% chance at the first pick and a 98% chance at a pick in the top 5.
Now, the top teams have a harder time getting top picks as they have to win more. This is the nature of percentages. A team expected to win 100 would need to win 120 for a score of 20 and 130 for a score of 30. Whereas, a team expected to win 50 would need only win 60 for a score of 20 and 65 for a score of 30.
[I will include a TrgtW column to the standings so that everyone can see what number of wins they should try to reach to achieve a score of 20.00 and 30.00, and thus essentially guarantee themselves a top 5 pick.]
How You Can Win More (With Less):
The two simple keys for getting a higher score are to win as many games as possible and to keep your salary as low as possible. I'll focus on the latter part of that strategy first.
Streamlining Your Team Salary:
The easiest way to do this is to not draft for depth. If you have a full time SS, you don't need to draft or trade for another full time SS or even a SS with 300 PA. All that will do is add salary to your team that will not help you win. If the part time SS is better than your full time SS, you're better off trading the full time SS for another part time SS and/or picks. You want to have as few PA and IP as you're comfortable competing with. Don't shortchange yourself though, there's no AAA, and tired players play horribly, so plan accordingly. And play smart. Also, remember, draft picks aren't the only (or even the fastest or best) way to add talent to or rebuild your team.
Winning As Many As You Can:
The whole point of the formula is to encourage every team to win all season long, essentially to stop the practice of tanking. That said, you can still play smart with your team to ensure more wins over the course of the season, especially if you are a weaker team, by managing your roster and your losses. Particularly if you are short on PA or IP, or only have a few quality PA or IP, this strategy is recommended. Play your stronger players together to ensure a better chance of winning those games and play them against key opponents (division rivals, interleague games, against stronger or weaker teams, etc...). If you have only one or two quality starters put your better hitters in for their starts and play your weaker hitters when the other starters are pitching (assuming a shortage of quality PA, as well). Likewise, manage the pitchers so that you maximize their chance of wins. If you have two quality starters and a bunch of sub 120 IP pitchers, don't try to maximize your IP by running a two man rotation with a bunch of low quality arms in the bullpen. Instead run a three, four, or five man rotation so that your two quality starters go deep into their starts and basically assure you of winning their starts and run the rest of the lower quality pitchers in as the rest of the rotation in tandems or as lower IP starters with the bullpen behind them this way you have a legit shot at winning at least 40-67% of your teams games as opposed to the possibility of your bullpen blowing every game and barely winning 25-30% of your teams games.
How The Formula Effects The League As A Whole:
This does two things for the league: First, it assures that parity is greater as everyone is trying to win as many games as possible all season long, and; second, more talent is dispersed as stronger teams trade away their excess to weaker teams to streamline ensuring a stronger competitive balance across the league as the weaker teams then have the PA & IP needed to compete