It is an interesting topic, especially for the sabre acolytes. I don't profess to have answers, only anecdotes.
I just finished 11 games under pythag in the BS finals league, and I think I finished about where I'd expect. I know that sounds weird.
https://365.strat-o-matic.com/league/expanded/464012But in my case,
* 9 shutouts by Santana and a handful more by others affects the chance for large differentials,
+76* Whereas when I was shutout, it was
-52* I was 23-5 in games decided by more than a 5 run difference. And only 25-24 in 1-run games.
That dynamic was weird for a smallball team but I didn't get any heartburn
* from the pythag stat because quite frankly it is indeed descriptive, not predictive. It is highly dependent on the environment, which of course in SOM is not homogenized at all, unlike MLB.
We play to the extremes to gain an edge and it makes for occasional lopsided matchups that have outsized impacts on run differential, so the distribution of scores follows a more bimodal pattern of differentials in the tails.
Now one of the playoff teams managed to get almost 600 PAs each out of IRod (INJ 4) and Napoli (Inj 3) -- that is a great way to beat expectations in a different discussion of creating value differentials.
* Ok, the heartburn was admittedly mitigated by winning home field advantage