The 2013 Table - Magic Numbers, Tragic Numbers & Other Fishy Figures [R]

So this is a little off-topic, but there's this weird Eastern/Western conference parity thing going on.

With apologies to @Knave, if you take DCU out of the equation and just compare the top nine teams in each conference, places 1, 2,7, 8 and 9 in each conference have exactly the same number of points, and places 3-6 are closely bunched, although there is a variation of between 1-3 points in favor of the western conference teams. After roughly 8 months and ~630 matches there is almost mirror image parity between conferences:



Freaky?

 

It's not so straightforward as that. Teams in the east have the benefit of playing DCU multiple times, yet still are on equal footing with the west. I wouldn't call that parity. What you have pointed out is a strange coincidence, but it does not necessarily point to parity.

 

But, that would fit for an analogy for resurrecting the Chivas USA franchise... if it were to happen.

 

So now we have to make Chivas USA arm-puppets to feed baby-future-Chivas-USA fans meals of soccer* in the hopes that when they grow up they will thrive in the Chivas USA wild?

* I'm not sure if it should be meals of 'good soccer' that will make them love the game or 'bad soccer' which will make them more tolerant of the Chivas USA game when they will be asked to endure it. I guess we'll have to have a study to see which is more effective.

 

Using PPG (so that differences in games played don't matter), here's the overall table when you exclude all results against DCU:

Code:

WTm PPG  ETm PPG  Delta*34
RSL 1.68 SKC 1.60 2.63
POR 1.61 NYR 1.59 0.91
LAG 1.57 MON 1.48 2.85
SEA 1.55 HOU 1.40 5.05
COL 1.52 PHI 1.34 5.82
SJE 1.52 NER 1.31 7.00
VAN 1.35 CHI 1.28 2.69
FCD 1.23 CLB 1.17 2.01
CHV 0.74 TOR 0.66 2.95

The delta*34 column is the difference in PPG multiplied by 34 games.
The average of this column is 3.54.

While the current standings for the top 9 teams in each conference are equal on points, the teams are probably not the same strength.

 

Gets a little tremulous when you start picking teams to pull out of the standings. For instance, San Jose and Real Salt Lake benefit from having DCU pulled out since they lost the one encounter with them this season - so whereas New York goes from 1.66 to 1.59, RSL goes to 1.68 from 1.63.

The resulting table would lead us to believe that RSL is better than the Eastern teams because the Eastern teams were buoyed by results against DCU, but RSL themselves lost to this very DCU team.

There may be a way to account for the arguably easier points that Eastern conference teams got from playing DC, but ultimately I think it's a slippery slope to go down... After handling DCU, you could argue that teams that only visited SJE, POR and LAG but didn't get to play them at home were at a disadvantage because they have such high Home to Away PPG differentials (1.44, 1.31 and 1.26 respectively).

Again, I figure there probably is a nice and fair way to account for the unbalanced schedules we have... but I don't know what that is and I do think that just taking DCU out of the mix is definitely not the right way to go about it.

 

I was only following the line of thinking someone else started by ignoring DCU entirely, not removing their results, and calling the conferences at parity. I was claiming that if you deciding ignore one team's points total, you need to ignore the results of that team playing other teams as well. Other statistics show that for EvW this year, the W wins out (see the appropriately named thread).

I was definitely not advocating removing any team from the standings because the tables only really work when you have everything accounted for.

Though your post did make me think of something interesting to do once the season is over, so thanks for that.

 

As an RSL fan, the faster we can move on from this topic the better.

 

Ok, then, just consider me to be arguing against their concept of pulling DCU out.

Though I still think that this should be taken with a grain of salt. I even consider the geographic location of Western teams to be a slight advantage considering that a 7:30 game Pacific time is 10:30 Eastern but a 7:30 game Eastern is 4:30 Pacific. But looking at that thread again it is amazing to see VAN be 7-1-2 and not even be in the playoffs in the West. Though I'll refrain from continuing down this tangent here anymore

You're welcome. I've been meaning to try a few ideas myself but I just don't have the time.

 

Here's a preview of that thought. The tables for the East and West if it were just the teams currently in 1-5 (only games for teams within the conference, because that's all that matters until the MLS Cup). I think that this could be an interesting way to gauge how well we'd expect a team to do in the playoffs. These standings will almost assuredly change significantly before the end of the season, so treat this as just a preview. I encourage people to comment on and criticize it heavily. The table is sorted based on GF:GA, which I find to be a fairly good indicator of relative strength of team.

I suppose I'll try to actually get real table formatting for the final table.

Code:

Tm  W-D-L PPG  GF GA GD  GF:GA
NYR 5-0-3 1.88 16  9 + 7 1.78
MON 6-1-5 1.58 17 14 + 3 1.21
SKC 4-3-4 1.36 10  9 + 1 1.11
CHI 3-4-3 1.30 12 12 + 0 1.00
HOU 2-4-5 0.91  7 18 -11 0.39

POR 5-4-2 1.73 16 12 + 4 1.33
LAG 4-2-5 1.27 14 12 + 2 1.17
COL 4-4-4 1.33 15 13 + 2 1.15
RSL 4-3-4 1.36 19 19 + 0 1.00
SEA 3-3-5 1.09  9 17 - 8 0.53

Based on this, it looks like NY would be the team to beat in the East, and Portland in the West. Interestingly, NY hasn't drawn against a team currently in the top 5 in the East, but their remaining schedule does include 2 teams currently in that spot, so they have plenty of time to do so.

 

Very good point. I will work on a way to incorporate this. Here are my initial ideas for how to address that:

1. Average home results against each team, same for away, then add all of those up like was done before.
2. Do the above table for home, again for away, then average the two PPG/GF:GA numbers
3. Just list #home/#away games as a reference.
4. Only use the first/last game against each opponent for each of home/away

Any opinions on which of those would better represent the overall strength?
I'm thinking that #2 works best, but am not entirely sold on that.

Any other suggestions on ways to include H/A split?

 

Arguing East/West parity by just looking at how each spot matches up between conferences is useless. Their schedules are totally different.

The only way you could even start to do it, in my opinion, is to make a league table that is based on each team's performance against all 18 teams equally, so all the inter-conference play plus some sort of average of the points from the multiple in conference match-ups, counted as 1 game..I'd suggest scoring it based on how they perform in the series, a win is if they won more, a draw if they went 1-1-1 or 0-3-0, and a loss if they lost more. A series left unfinished so far is scored as a game not yet played

For example Chicago is 3-4-2 against the West (WLD)+
1-2-0 against NE=a loss
1-1-1 against SKC=a draw
etc.
So overall they would be 5-7-4 for 19 pts with two games left (the final leg of their Toronto and NYRB series)

I'm not particularly interested in calculating all of those records manually, if someone has an easier way of doing it than just looking at the results table, go wild....

 

Abbreviated table with option #2:

Code:

Tm  HPPG APPG OPPG
NYR 2.25 1.50 1.88
MON 3.00 0.57 1.79
SKC 1.00 1.67 1.33
CHI 1.83 0.50 1.17
HOU 1.33 0.40 0.87

POR 2.67 0.60 1.63
COL 1.83 0.83 1.33
SEA 2.00 0.57 1.29
RSL 2.17 0.40 1.28
LAG 1.83 0.60 1.22

Tm  OGF:GA
NYR 1.78
MON 1.53
SKC 1.10
CHI 0.90
HOU 0.37

POR 1.25
COL 1.15
LAG 1.09
RSL 0.95
SEA 0.69

PPG is straightforward for calculation, calculate the PPG for each team at home and away, then average the two.

GF:GA isn't as much so. First, calculate GF:GP, GA:GP for each of home and away for each team. Then do this (HmGF:GP + AwGF:GP)/(HmGA:GP + AwGA:GP)

 

The problem with any parity calculations is that there was an unbalanced schedule regarding playing teams in the other conference. Each team played every team outside it's conference once, either home or away. There may have been some advantages for an eastern conference win or a western conference win that was more due to home field advantage against a strong team or an away game at a weak team. ex) The only current eastern conference playoff team the Galaxy played on the road is the NY Red Bulls. Meanwhile most of the Eastern playoff teams have played at least 3 of the 5 western playoff teams away.

 

The leg work is already done here:

SS by Season Series Won:
https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/...eason-series-won.1181503/page-3#post-28848639

 

I think the Red Bulls have qualified for the quarters now (before any Western team has claimed a spot).

 

Correct, NYR has now clinched a top-3 spot in the Eastern Conference, avoiding the play-in round. SKC can do likewise with a draw vs. DCU tomorrow night, while a win would ensure a top-2 spot.

 

Northern teams clearly hate the long summers that linger into fall on the MLS schedule.

4 wins in their last 18 league games (since June 20th) is "bad" only if compared to playoff contenders.

MTL is still looking good, relative to the 3 wins that DC United has earned across their 32 games to date this season.

 

And if Houston doesn't come away with 3 points vs NY this weekend, they very well could be "pulled back" to the group and there could/will be 5 teams in the East competing for 3 spots in the playoffs.