Review: MLS Power Rankings 2014

I'm finally comfortable in my fandom again, now that the Timbers are back towards the bottom of the table. Last season was an anomaly in my sports fandom, which made me unusually anxious and uncomfortable by the end of the season, constantly waiting for the epic collapse. Being a perennial Chicago Bears and White Sox fan has ruined my ability to know how to support a team that does well.

 

It would be kind of a neato achievement to set the record for earliest date to be mathematically eliminated from the playoffs. Not all that farfetched given how badly the West is pistol-whipping the East and how badly everyone is pistol-whipping us right now. We could yet salvage meaning from this season!

 

you sound like a TFC fan

 

Week 7

1. RSL
-Leaks in defence haven't punished them somehow. Unbeaten in 6 to start the season is pretty good, no matter how you look at it.

2. FC Dallas
-Goals come easily, and defence gets fixed once Stephen Keel gets replaced by anyone else. Even a pylon.

3. Seattle Sounders
-The Deuce has woken up, and he is scary.

4. Colorado
-Just lucky? Probably. But 2 away wins in a row is worth noting, and results are the only thing that matters.

5. Columbus
-Still mostly Higuain show, but nobody seems to be able to stop him.

6. Sporting Kansas City
-Missing Opara is going to hurt for CB depth. And still waiting for a striker to start scoring goals consistently.

7. LA Galaxy
-Things start to come together, and I think Robbie Keane is hitting form.

8. Vancouver
-Lots of young kids showing potential, and Mattocks may have finally gotten his head out of his ass.

9. Toronto
-Too many injuries esp to key players and Dallas has been traditionally a bogeyman team for TFC esp at Frisco.

10. Philadelphia
-Always seems to be on the cusp of putting it all together, and Hack makes a bonehead move. Wenger trade paid off last game, but throughout the season?

11. Houston
-Nobody knows what happened to Houston's awesome start, but they are back in where they belong, which is borderline playoff area.

12. New England
-What happened to Fagundez and why is Saer Sene still not being used as striker, because everyone else is pretty much turd?

13. DC United
-Winning ugly, but 2 in a row is good. And all it takes is a bit of confidence sometimes.

14. Portland
-Porter is scratching his head why Timbers can't put together a result. Complacency kills.

15. Chicago Fire
-Should be a basement dweller if not for unlikely hero Amarikwa firing it up.

16. New York
-Age has finally caught up to NYRB.

17. Chivas USA
-No depth, but they are grinding out points somehow. They need help badly though.

18. San Jose
-Wondo is about the only guy who's playing on this team. CCL hangover?

19. Montreal
-Too old, too slow and no Felipe magic.

 

FYP.

 

OK, I don't get this perception. Feels like people have not actually seen this team in 2 years.

The average age of our starting lineup last week was 27.

and 6 out of 11 starters were under 25.

Only 3 are over 30:

Perkins is 32, Ferarri is 34 and Di Vaio is 37.

Those latter 2 are literally the only "old italians"

/rant

 

Add in Bernier and Camara, who normally are starters. Mapp and Pearce will turn 30 this year. And who knows if Mtl will ever play Rivas, who was pencilled in as a starter to begin the season, no?

 

True enough, particularly Bernier(34).

Though I don't think 30 year old Mapp and Camara, among the fastest and more technically gifted players on the team, contribute to that impression.

Jury is out on Pearce, he's not particularly impressive, and I think he'll be replaced(or at least cycled though) with Brovsky(25) or Tissot(22).


Rivas (31) and Lopez(27) are both slated to be starters, and injuries aside neither were never accused of being old or slow.

Ferrari is the last prototypical slow Italian, and he shows it. He's been struggling and I expect he'll get some rest soon enough.

 

Less luck than people want to believe (really only 1 point, the draw in NY, was due to a "lucky" call IMO), you have to be attacking to get PKs called.

 

Here are the 2014 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 04/20.

Code:

Rank Team ELO+    Rank Team Points
 1   DAL   131     1   DAL   63.5
 2   SEA   131     2   SKC   63.1
 3   RSL   130     3   SEA   62.0
 4   SKC   126     4   RSL   61.9
 5   COL   124     5   COL   58.1
 6   LAG   119     6   CLB   55.8
 7   CLB   111     7   LAG   55.3
 8   DCU   109     8   TOR   50.8
 9   TOR   102     9   DCU   50.6
10   NER    97    10   NER   43.9
11   VAN    93    11   VAN   40.5
12   NYR    92    12   NYR   39.9
13   CHI    85    13   HOU   37.1
14   SJE    85    14   CHI   35.5
15   HOU    81    15   PHI   34.7
16   PHI    79    16   SJE   34.5
17   CHV    70    17   CHV   28.0
18   POR    69    18   MTL   26.5
19   MTL    66    19   POR   25.9

The average number of games played per team is now 6.53 (K=30.6), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.573 (H=15).

 

Here are the 2014 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 04/27.

Code:

Rank Team ELO+    Rank Team Points
 1   SEA   139     1   SEA   67.0
 2   DCU   120     2   DCU   57.0
 3   RSL   120     3   RSL   56.6
 4   LAG   118     4   LAG   55.3
 5   DAL   114     5   DAL   54.9
 6   NER   113     6   CLB   53.0
 7   COL   111     7   NER   52.7
 8   SKC   108     8   SKC   52.4
 9   CLB   107     9   COL   52.2
10   NYR   106    10   TOR   50.8
11   TOR   103    11   NYR   47.1
12   VAN   101    12   VAN   44.7
13   SJE    94    13   SJE   39.7
14   CHI    88    14   CHI   36.9
15   MTL    79    15   MTL   32.7
16   POR    74    16   HOU   31.7
17   HOU    72    17   PHI   29.9
18   PHI    69    18   POR   27.7
19   CHV    64    19   CHV   25.6

The average number of games played per team is now 7.47 (K=26.8), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.606 (H=21).

 

MLS Power Rankings, Week 9: Surging Seattle Sounders take over at No. 1

 

Here are the 2014 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 05/04.

Code:

Rank Team ELO+    Rank Team Points
 1   SEA   137     1   SEA   66.2
 2   RSL   130     2   RSL   62.2
 3   NER   124     3   NER   59.3
 4   COL   120     4   SKC   57.9
 5   NYR   120     5   COL   57.9
 6   SKC   117     6   NYR   54.8
 7   VAN   110     7   VAN   50.1
 8   LAG   106     8   LAG   48.9
 9   DCU   103     9   DCU   47.6
10   DAL   100    10   DAL   47.5
11   CLB    98    11   CLB   47.5
12   POR    91    12   TOR   42.7
13   TOR    89    13   HOU   40.5
14   HOU    88    14   POR   36.4
15   SJE    85    15   SJE   35.3
16   MTL    80    16   MTL   33.3
17   CHI    77    17   CHI   31.7
18   PHI    70    18   PHI   30.3
19   CHV    55    19   CHV   20.9

The average number of games played per team is now 8.42 (K=23.8), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.600 (H=20).

 

Here are the 2014 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 05/11.

Code:

Rank Team ELO+    Rank Team Points
 1   RSL   137     1   RSL   66.9
 2   NER   130     2   NER   63.9
 3   SEA   128     3   SKC   61.5
 4   SKC   124     4   SEA   61.1
 5   VAN   118     5   VAN   54.9
 6   DCU   111     6   DCU   51.9
 7   LAG   105     7   LAG   48.2
 8   NYR   101     8   COL   45.9
 9   COL    98     9   NYR   45.1
10   SJE    98    10   TOR   42.7
11   CHI    97    11   HOU   42.4
12   TOR    91    12   CHI   42.0
13   HOU    91    13   SJE   41.7
14   POR    90    14   DAL   40.5
15   DAL    86    15   CLB   38.3
16   CLB    80    16   POR   35.6
17   CHV    77    17   CHV   31.3
18   MTL    74    18   MTL   29.4
19   PHI    64    19   PHI   26.9

The average number of games played per team is now 9.68 (K=20.7), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.576 (H=15).

 

Here are the 2014 MLS ELO+ ratings and points predictions for 05/18.

Code:

Rank Team ELO+    Rank Team Points
 1   RSL   139     1   RSL   68.8
 2   NER   134     2   NER   66.2
 3   SEA   130     3   SEA   63.4
 4   VAN   116     4   VAN   54.3
 5   CHI   106     5   TOR   48.3
 6   DCU   104     6   DCU   48.2
 7   TOR   101     7   HOU   47.2
 8   HOU   101     8   SKC   47.0
 9   SKC    97     9   CHI   46.9
10   COL    95    10   COL   43.9
11   LAG    95    11   LAG   43.2
12   NYR    92    12   NYR   41.1
13   SJE    92    13   DAL   40.0
14   POR    89    14   CLB   39.2
15   DAL    86    15   SJE   38.7
16   CLB    85    16   POR   35.2
17   CHV    81    17   CHV   33.1
18   MTL    81    18   PHI   32.8
19   PHI    76    19   MTL   31.8

The average number of games played per team is now 10.7 (K=18.6), and so far home teams have a winning percentage of 0.583 (H=17).

 

Here's my table(s). HFA includes schedule, assuming the points already earned stand, and modelling the results for the rest of the games including home field advantage. EAP is the expected performance for a season given the goals scored and goals allowed (per game).

Team	HFA	EAP
RSL	62.3	66.5
NER	57.5	59.2
SEA	57.1	54.2
SKC	53.3	59.9
VAN	52.3	56.0
DCU	49.4	51.3
TOR	48.1	46.1
FCD	46.9	48.9
LAG	46.5	49.0
CHI	45.4	47.4
HOU	45.2	41.2
COL	45.1	41.8
CLB	44.6	44.1
NYR	43.6	45.1
SJE	40.9	41.0
POR	38.5	41.1
PHI	37.1	37.7
CHV	36.1	33.0
MON	31.6	24.2

Teams with a large difference between the two have probably either been over or under performing so far this year. It seems as though only two teams seem to be majorly varying, SKC (underperforming) and MON (overperforming). We are still early enough in the season that those can even out, though.

 

This is awesome. Thank you for keeping this going. NE is on a path that leads them to nowhere but down to go. July 4th may be a very interesting game between RSL and NE. I am also beginning to think that RSL had a better coach pulling the strings then who we thought.

 

Some credit for RSL's coaching should go to the staff they put together. Knowing that Jeff didn't have head coaching experience, 3 of the 4 new assistants are former head coaches at lower levels. IMHO that has kept Jeff from having as many bone-headed new coach moments than would be expected. Oh, and having pretty much the exact same players from last year helps as well.