What is the grind score? A 0-100 score for how fully, and how long, a team kept playing all season. NFBC doesn't publish lineups, so it's read from what the team produced each week:
• Hitting (30%): each week, the team's at bats compared with the typical (median) team's at bats that week. 98% of typical or more = full credit for the week, 65% of typical or less = none, partial credit in between. Leaving injured or benched hitters in the lineup shows up as low at bats.
• Pitching (20%): the same with innings pitched (full credit at 90% of typical, none at 40%, because pitching weeks swing more with two-start weeks).
• FAAB (30%): four pieces. Weeks with a FAAB move (half of it): 25+ weeks = full credit, 23-24 good, 22 better, under 20 low (20 weeks ≈ 50%, 15 weeks ≈ 20%). Even spread (15%): each fifth of the season needs moves in 3+ of its weeks, so steady bidding beats a busy first 20 weeks and then nothing. Still bidding at the end (15%): no FAAB move in the last 5 weeks loses this piece. Budget used (20%): all $1000 spent = full credit.
• Late season (20%): hitting and pitching over the last 8 weeks, plus a FAAB pickup in that stretch: teams that kept grinding to the end score higher than teams that faded.
Week 1 and the All-Star week (week 17) are half weeks and count half, so the season is 26 full weeks. League competitiveness = the average grind score of the league's teams. "Still grinding late" counts teams whose late-season part is 80 or more; "Least active" is the league's lowest team score.