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+---- Thread: *PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) (/showthread.php?tid=31774)
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*PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - JuOSu - 05-01-2021
Inspired by my latest article about the comparison between the PBE and ISFL, I came up with a new idea and went to slm to ask for help. My idea was this: He would write a list of topics or questions and I would have to write about which league has the better one. There are some obvious ones like what league has the better sim, but I figured with enough creativity, there would be some fascinating discussion topics there and I will be able to discuss which league is better in each topic.
Slm thankfully loved the idea and he gave me the following (first) list. (I am assuming that we will do this again, since it is honestly super fun and I think there are endless comparisons possible). Anyway, here is his list of topics:
Less boring position – OL or Reliever
Better Sarasota team
Best inaugural 6 teams
Better minor league
Better conference names
Better Mike Boss
Better sim
Better index
Better update scale
Better regression
Better GM slm or slm
Better commish Kolbe or Dwyer
Better podcast, 20 for 20 or Searching for Benton Mackaye
Better Beaver player – Oakes or Do
Better Scandal – ER or Benton
A great list and I immediately had thoughts on almost all the questions. So below are my responses:
Less boring position – OL or Reliever
This one is absolutely easy one to answer. For clarification, relief pitcher in the PBE is a position where you are a pitcher that only sometimes gets used and therefore has less innings than a starter. While it is easily the least impactful position in PBE in terms of value (unless you count maybe a DH), it is still endlessly more fun than an Offensive Linemen here. OL here has a much bigger impact on win percentage but you basically have no stats. There are way more stats for relievers and they can actually have pretty awesome careers at reliever. So with this one I must say, Offensive Line is the more boring position. So on this one the winner is the PBE (1-0 PBE)
Better Sarasota team
Well, this is a more interesting one. The Sarasota Sailfish here are obviously the reigning champion and also the original Sarasota team. The PBE one was originally the Florida Space Rangers and then rebranded to the Sarasota Supernovas. I don't mind either branding but I think Sailfish has a cool ring to it and I quite like it, plus they were the original one. In terms of success, the Sailfish obviously just won a title and are doing pretty well. Supernovas were originally quite successful as the Space Rangers with 7 straight playoffs to start out with but they haven't been back to the playoffs since then and never won a title. I think ultimately the ISFL wins this one. (1-1 tie)
Best inaugural 6 teams
Alright so what do we have here. ISFL had the Colorado Yeti, the Yellowknife Wraiths, the Baltimore Hawks, the Arizona Outlaws, the Orange County Otters and the San Jose Sabercats. Whereas the PBE had the New York Voyagers, the Outer Banks Aviators, the Providence Crabs, the Vancouver Vandals, the Death Valley Scorpions and the Berkeley Bulldogs. As much as I love the PBE, I must say I do lean towards ISFL here. I really like the Wraiths branding and the Otters always seemed cool to me too. Outlaws and Yeti are alright as well. Whereas I don't really like Sabercats and Hawks as brands. So that is basically 2 cool, 2 in the middle, 2 bad. On the PBE side, I like the Aviators branding somewhat, the Vandals are pretty good too. Scorpions and Voyagers branding is kind of in the middle for me. Crabs is kind of boring and the Bulldogs was a bad branding that also immediately got erased after one season. So I would say 2 decent, 2 in the middle, 2 bad. But ultimately I still think that I prefer the ISFL ones here. (2-1 ISFL)
Better minor league
Oh man, my favorite topic. As people who know me well know, I am not a particular fan of minor leagues. They kind of bore me and I just want to get to the real deal as quick as I can. Neither league really impresses me ultimately. But I do think the PBE one has the upper hand here. As the other article discusses, you kinda have to stay down longer in the PBE and therefore ultimately the minors matters more. The games here are shown fully, whereas in the PBE you have to share time with the majors on stream. That being said, I think that the PBE does more for the minor league to be exciting for players. So yeah, PBE here. (2-2 tie)
Better conference names
I honestly had to check what the ISFL ones even are cause I never pay attention to it, but admittedly they are just what I assumed the sort of boring and yet expected answer of NSFC and ASFC. Nothing flashy there. PBE only just introduced conferences with this current expansion, so this upcoming year will be the first season to feature conferences. We somehow called them Legends and Champions. So yeah, as boring the ISFL ones are, they win this one just by not being kinda meh. Maybe the PBE ones will grow on me over time, but so far they haven't impressed me. Maybe I get used to them, but honestly for now I struggle to even remember which one my own team is in. (3-2 ISFL)
Better Mike Boss
This one won't take very long. While PBE Mike Boss was a solid First Baseman who started off very strong, inactivity kinda ruined his career a bit. 21 WAR isn't terrible for a 1B but for a S1 guy it was never close enough for hall of fame. Meanwhile ISFL Mike Boss has a legitimate claim to be the best of all time, or at least he would be in that conversation. His quarterback is one of the all time greats and holds several league records still to this day. Easily a win for the ISFL here. (4-2 ISFL)
Better sim
This might be the easiest one of them all. OOTP is one of the best sim games out there, maybe the best, with a great engine, live games, etc whereas the ISFL game is a frustrating piece of meh game. I would not really sit down and play hours of the ISFL game whereas I have sank hundreds of hours into OOTP personally. Fun fact, my three most played games on steam are all OOTP games. I think combined I would be over 2,000 hours. What am I doing with my life? PBE wins easily (4-3 ISFL)
Better index
Similar as the last question, the PBE index is just by far superior, has way more information and is just fantastic. ISFL one is alright but not a stand out like PBE. You can easily find all the information you want on the PBE one, whereas that is not true for ISFL. I will also say that this move to the new game has ruined the history portion of the index in the ISFL with records no longer being there how they used to be. PBE wins easily. (4-4 tie)
Better update scale
This one is genuinely a tough one. I described my thoughts on the update scale in my other article in quite a bit of detail. ISFL makes it easy to max, and even easier to get to 70 cheaply, while PBE makes it possible to still get a legitimate help even in your prime season since you never really max your player out. PBE is a lot more frustrating at times since it just costs so damn much to be good in, whereas ISFL sometimes is a bit too cheap for my taste. Ultimately I think that the perfect update scale would be somewhere in the middle of the two. I guess ultimately I think that ISFL is easier to remember since it's just more intuitive, whereas I think the PBE one is ultimately slightly better for the league. So while it is close, I will choose PBE here. (5-4 PBE)
Better regression
Another tough one, as I already talked about this in the other article. Similar to the update scale, I feel like the regression is also sort of too extreme in both leagues in a way. A middle ground would be perfect but ultimately the PBE is too soft on it and the ISFL is too harsh on it. I would say ultimately I also slightly prefer the PBE here, longer careers are fun to me and I like the soft start to regression. I think it is fun to know that regression isn't yet the end of your player, but ultimately you can easily get like 3 more prime years in the PBE in your regression years, which prolongs your career further. (6-4 PBE)
Better GM slm or slm
Well what a fascinating question. In the ISFL, slm was a GM of the Hawks I believe. According to stats I found in a spreadsheet, he has a win loss record of 56 to 41. He won 5 playoff games and lost 4 of them. He won one championship and won one GM of the year. In the PBE slm was an inaugural GM with the Vancouver Vandals. After drafting by far the best team in the initial draft, the Vandals went on to win five straight titles from S2 to S6, however slm was only the GM for the first three of them (though he was obviously responsible for the major parts of the roster even beyond that). He was also then a GM for an expansion team, the Florida Space Rangers which have been mentioned before here. They reached 7 straight playoffs but never won a title. Ultimately, while I think slm was fantastic here, his work in the PBE shines through, especially the titles with the Vandals. Hard to beat that. He also won three GMs of the year in the PBE. Another win for the PBE. (7-4 PBE)
Better commish Kolbe or Dwyer
Well, this is an interesting one. I must confess, I don't know many stories about Dwyer as commish. Based on how the question is phrased, I must assume that he was not a very good one. But ultimately, he doesn't need to do much in order to be the better choice here. Kolbe did save the PBE in some parts, without him I do think the league would be dead but ultimately his accomplishments as commish in the PBE have to be a net negative. There were many issues, from a tough relationship with GMs, ignoring rule proposals by them, to deleting the index and his failed second stint as well. Essentially Dwyer just wins by default here and gets a point for the ISFL. (7-5 PBE)
Better podcast, 20 for 20 or Searching for Benton Mackaye
Wow, that is a fascinating question too. I am a huge fan of both of the podcasts and I think they both fill an incredibly important part of preserving league history, with slm being one of the people around that just knows a ton about league history because he was around at the time and still is. Both podcasts have great side kicks in Beaver and Bex. Ultimately I really want many more episodes of both podcasts and I want them NOW. Both deal with league drama first and foremost, though I think that the 20 for 20 series also focuses on positive league happenings, not just drama. They also highlight the good things and I think ultimately I think it's great that way. You need some positives with negatives. So I will pick 20 for 20 here. (7-6 PBE)
Better Beaver player – Oakes or Do
Min-Joon Do was a very good PBE player. While he had a slow start despite max earning, in the end Do had a very good career, especially on the defensive end and he was around as one of the longest players. In the end, he did make it to the Hall of Fame, though not right away. He was a really good player honestly. Currently he is 23rd among hitters in career WAR, which frankly is a bit lower than maybe he should have been. Blackford Oakes on the other hand was a safety who also reached the Hall of Fame in the ISFL, so he ties it up in that way. Oakes was really impressive, ending up with over 800 tackles, 48 sacks, 46 interceptions and 99 pass deflections. His 46 interceptions rank second in league history as far as I can tell. Ultimately, I feel like these two players were similarly impressive, but the clinching factor for me is that Blackford Oakes was voted for the First team in the 25th anniversary team rosters. No offense to Min-Joon Do but I don't think he would make the first team in the PBE for that, so I think Oakes is better. Would love to know what @Beaver thinks about this as well. ISFL ties it up with one more question to go. (7-7 tie)
Better Scandal – ER or Benton
For those unfamiliar with Benton in the PBE, he was a guy who joined in S2, immediately max earned and found himself as my co-GM within his first season. After a couple of drama filled posts, he retired without a word and left the league. Since then, we have seen several new players sign up and then immediately retire post-draft, revealing to be Benton who came back to annoy the league and specifically teams he hated. There was even briefly a time when we thought there was an imposter Benton who was different to the original. Fun times! Er on the other hand was arguably the biggest user in the ISFL in the first three seasons, including the simmer, before it was revealed that he was something like 9-13 players in the league, most on his own team. The ultimate multi. I think given Ers role as simmer and huge member of the league that scandal had a much bigger impact. Benton did also change the league as we moved to the 1 season draft skip mainly to make it harder on him to annoy teams again, but realistically he was never a high ranking member of the league, nor did his retirements really hurt the league as a whole as much as Ers scandal did. That scandal shook the sim league world and I would say is remembered much more directly still. (8-7 ISFL)
And there you have it! After being down 7 to 4, the ISFL somehow comes back to win this round! A narrow victory, but still a victory. These were some fascinating topics and I really hope that slm will have many more of these for me to write about in the future. This was really fun to discuss and some of it to research and I hope it will be interesting to some people besides him and me.
If you have any questions yourself, reader, please don't hesitate either. I am always happy to get questions from other areas as well, these basically are easy to write and creativity is all that matters.
Congrats ISFL! You win this first round!
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - C9Van - 05-01-2021
WTF. OLine and Reliever position aint boring.
You'd get sacked way more without the OLine fair rubs happening and Relievers just dominated the past 2 seasons.
(Other than that, great piece of media Juosu. Cant wait for the legacy updates lol)
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - WildfireMicro - 05-01-2021
Those are all fair comparisons. Honestly PBE never clicked with me as much as ISFL but I can see all your points. But stills glad ISFL won
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - Big Edd - 05-01-2021
(05-01-2021, 03:25 PM)C9Van Wrote: WTF. OLine and Reliever position aint boring.OLine is boring ASF
You'd get sacked way more without the OLine fair rubs happening and Relievers just dominated the past 2 seasons.
(Other than that, great piece of media Juosu. Cant wait for the legacy updates lol)
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - Mooty99 - 05-01-2021
Better draft presentation:
Confusing as hell Pokemon themed or normal football themed
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - caltroit_red_flames - 05-01-2021
(05-01-2021, 03:56 PM)Big Edd Wrote:(05-01-2021, 03:25 PM)C9Van Wrote: WTF. OLine and Reliever position aint boring.OLine is boring ASF
You'd get sacked way more without the OLine fair rubs happening and Relievers just dominated the past 2 seasons.
(Other than that, great piece of media Juosu. Cant wait for the legacy updates lol)
You trying to catch hands?
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - caltroit_red_flames - 05-01-2021
(05-01-2021, 03:56 PM)Big Edd Wrote:(05-01-2021, 03:25 PM)C9Van Wrote: WTF. OLine and Reliever position aint boring.OLine is boring ASF
You'd get sacked way more without the OLine fair rubs happening and Relievers just dominated the past 2 seasons.
(Other than that, great piece of media Juosu. Cant wait for the legacy updates lol)
I've got a server of 50 people who would beg to differ, link in the sig if you want to state your objectively wrong case
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - PaytonM34 - 05-01-2021
(05-01-2021, 03:56 PM)Big Edd Wrote:(05-01-2021, 03:25 PM)C9Van Wrote: WTF. OLine and Reliever position aint boring.OLine is boring ASF
You'd get sacked way more without the OLine fair rubs happening and Relievers just dominated the past 2 seasons.
(Other than that, great piece of media Juosu. Cant wait for the legacy updates lol)
Bruh
RE: PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - CalvinGolladay - 05-01-2021
Had to stop reading at the OL question. I'm with Cal and Van, can't let a shot at the superior position pass like that
RE: *PBE vs ISFL (with help from iamslm22) - Beaver - 05-02-2021
(05-01-2021, 03:11 PM)JuOSu Wrote: Better Beaver player – Oakes or DoI think it's Oakes and don't think it's really that close. I was pretty shocked that Do Min-joon made the Hall of Fame and think that if I wasn't such a beloved user who everybody likes, adores, and reveres he wouldn't have made the cut. The way I look at it is to compare how the two players rank at their respective positions. I haven't kept up with this league that closely but 20ish seasons into this league Oakes was one of the best safeties in league history -- certainly top 5, probably top 3? If the Wiki is to be believed he's still the only true safety inducted into the HOF, which seems unlikely.
Min-Joon Do was a very good PBE player. While he had a slow start despite max earning, in the end Do had a very good career, especially on the defensive end and he was around as one of the longest players. In the end, he did make it to the Hall of Fame, though not right away. He was a really good player honestly. Currently he is 23rd among hitters in career WAR, which frankly is a bit lower than maybe he should have been. Blackford Oakes on the other hand was a safety who also reached the Hall of Fame in the ISFL, so he ties it up in that way. Oakes was really impressive, ending up with over 800 tackles, 48 sacks, 46 interceptions and 99 pass deflections. His 46 interceptions rank second in league history as far as I can tell. Ultimately, I feel like these two players were similarly impressive, but the clinching factor for me is that Blackford Oakes was voted for the First team in the 25th anniversary team rosters. No offense to Min-Joon Do but I don't think he would make the first team in the PBE for that, so I think Oakes is better. Would love to know what @Beaver thinks about this as well. ISFL ties it up with one more question to go. (7-7 tie)
It's different in baseball of course but at the same 20ish season mark DMJ was slightly lower (certainly top 5, maybe top 3) in 2nd base history but with the significant caveat that he played just under 6 seasons at other positions and he was abysmal for almost all of that -- 1B and DH for his first three and second-to-last and C for his last: 415 games, -3.7 WAR, 42 HR with four of those five seasons below .300 OBP, below .400 SLG, below .700 OPS, below 90 OPS+, and below 80 wRC+. Had he spent those non-peak seasons at 2B his dominant lead in ZR would be much smaller while his WAR would have gone from competitive with the top players to a clear step below. His rate/efficiency stats would've taken a huge hit too and are already not that great to start out with: .334 OBP would drop a bit, that's 9th now and was maybe 6th or so a few seasons ago; .817 OPS would also slide a few spots, it's 5th now and was 4th a few seasons ago but would probably drop to 7th.
In the end I feel like Oakes was an easy HOF induction (he was nearly unanimous, in fact) while DMJ was an accumulator who had several extremely fortunate things go his way:
-not playing 2B at the beginning or end of his career to make his efficiency/rate stats look better than they should have been, compared to other 2Bs
-playing 2B for a long time in the peak of his career to make his counting stats look better when compared with the many players who didn't spend as much time at the position (only Baton played more games at 2B than Do until Love)
-playing on a dynasty
-being on a team with @majesiu and possibly @Trautner when he/they caught on to the fact that defense was much more important on a per-TPE basis than most of the league appreciated at the time
In real life terms I think he was the type of player that gets his number retired by his team and/or inducted into the Team Hall/Ring/Whatever of Fame and who has his case for the real HOF made by the fans of that team but nobody else really cares that much. Hall of Very Good.
Also OL rocks