[Foosinho]

I've been running these for two or three years over in the Crew forum. Started posting one of my rankings in a weekly compilation thread here. Thought I'd throw the whole table out here as an experiment and see how it goes over. Positive response, I'll be back. Negative/no response, and I'll just keep it to the Crew forum.

			GP	Foos	Rank	Pyth	Rank	Elo	Rank	Points	Rank	Form
Houston Dynamo		16	0.6677	1	0.6994	1	1511.05	1	31	1	WWDLW
Chivas USA		15	0.6560	2	0.6278	3	1454.07	3	27	2	DLWLL
Seattle Sounders FC	16	0.5946	3	0.6306	2	1466.82	2	25	3	LWDDW
Real Salt Lake		16	0.5569	4	0.5693	4	1420.00	6	20	10	DWDWD
Columbus Crew		16	0.5534	5	0.5132	8	1439.22	4	23	6	WWLWD
Chicago Fire		15	0.5386	6	0.5397	5	1427.76	5	24	4	WLLLW
Kansas City Wizards	15	0.5215	7	0.5154	7	1408.14	8	19	11	DDLWL
Los Angeles Galaxy	16	0.5214	8	0.5000	10	1405.48	10	21	9	WLLWW
Colorado Rapids		15	0.5165	9	0.5271	6	1405.68	9	21	8	DWDLL
DC United		17	0.5160	10	0.5112	9	1415.41	7	24	5	WWDLD
Toronto FC		16	0.4378	11	0.4506	11	1363.27	12	22	7	LLWWL
San Jose Earthquakes	15	0.4349	12	0.3769	14	1315.34	14	13	14	WDLWD
FC Dallas		16	0.4297	13	0.4369	12	1391.12	11	17	12	DLWDW
New England Revolution	13	0.3707	14	0.4054	13	1344.19	13	16	13	LWWLL
Red Bull New York	19	0.3150	15	0.3124	15	1232.45	15	10	15	LDLLL

For newbs to this table, I'll explain a few things in brief. "Foos" is a modified Pythagorean formula similar to what Ken Pomeroy does for college basketball. "Pyth" is a straight Pythagorean expectation calculation. "Elo" is the Elo Chess formula. "Points" are the standard points system used by MLS, and "Form" are the last 5 games. I have the code necessary to calculate RPI and a form of the FIFA rankings, but both are of limited utility, so they have been dropped from the table.

Despite having taken some graduate level statistics classes, I am not a statistician nor a mathematician. But I am an engineer, and I can program, so there you go.

[ElJefe]

For once, I'll refrain from mocking you for your program's ranking New England so low. They really do appear to be kind of crummy this year. However, I will mock you for its rankings of RSL and DC United.

My rankings:

1. Houston Dynamo
2. Chivas USA
3. DC United (tie)
3. Chicago Fire (Tie)
5. Seattle Sounders
6. Columbus Crew
7. Los Angeles Galaxy
8. Toronto FC
9. Colorado Rapids
10. Kansas City Wizards
11. Real Salt Lake
12. New England Revolution
13. FC Dallas
14. San Jose Earthquakes
15. New York Red Bulls

Honestly, I can't really separate DC from Chicago in the rankings. Yes, they're both getting the points, but neither one has the little added something to separate them from the other.

[Foosinho]

Originally Posted by ElJefe

For once, I'll refrain from mocking you for your program's ranking New England so low. They really do appear to be kind of crummy this year. However, I will mock you for its rankings of RSL and DC United.

Yeah, so it's a little weird seeing DC so low in cardinality and RSL so high, but the spread between them in the algorithm is just 0.03; pretty thin. Realistically, there are 8 teams that are very close to each other and difficult to distinguish between right now.

[Jasonma]

1. Houston - Just starting to run away from the pack

2. Chivas - Looked like they were fading, but maybe not yet
3. Chicago - Has the edge over DC based on their result at the Dick
4. DC - Lost 3-0 at the Dick, can't move them past Chicago

5. Seattle - I thought they would return to the pack, but keeping it up
6. Columbus - Moving up every week
7. Colorado - Still with a home game in hand, and personal bias
8. Toronto - Playing surprisingly well
9. LA - Either they're going to shoot up when Old Spice returns, or implode
10. KC - Haning on to the playoff pack, barely

11. FSL - Great at home, not so great on the road
12. New England - Should be renamed the Walking Wounded
13. Dallas - Heat and bad soccer, yuck
14. San Jose - Still look like an expansion team

15. NY - I'm pretty sure that some USL-2 teams could beat this group

[Knave]

Originally Posted by Foosinho

			GP	Foos	Rank	Pyth	Rank	Elo	Rank	Points	Rank	Form
Houston Dynamo		16	0.6677	1	0.6994	1	1511.05	1	31	1	WWDLW
Chivas USA		15	0.6560	2	0.6278	3	1454.07	3	27	2	DLWLL
Seattle Sounders FC	16	0.5946	3	0.6306	2	1466.82	2	25	3	LWDDW
Real Salt Lake		16	0.5569	4	0.5693	4	1420.00	6	20	10	DWDWD
Columbus Crew		16	0.5534	5	0.5132	8	1439.22	4	23	6	WWLWD
Chicago Fire		15	0.5386	6	0.5397	5	1427.76	5	24	4	WLLLW
Kansas City Wizards	15	0.5215	7	0.5154	7	1408.14	8	19	11	DDLWL
Los Angeles Galaxy	16	0.5214	8	0.5000	10	1405.48	10	21	9	WLLWW
Colorado Rapids		15	0.5165	9	0.5271	6	1405.68	9	21	8	DWDLL
DC United		17	0.5160	10	0.5112	9	1415.41	7	24	5	WWDLD
Toronto FC		16	0.4378	11	0.4506	11	1363.27	12	22	7	LLWWL
San Jose Earthquakes	15	0.4349	12	0.3769	14	1315.34	14	13	14	WDLWD
FC Dallas		16	0.4297	13	0.4369	12	1391.12	11	17	12	DLWDW
New England Revolution	13	0.3707	14	0.4054	13	1344.19	13	16	13	LWWLL
Red Bull New York	19	0.3150	15	0.3124	15	1232.45	15	10	15	LDLLL

I think you can quibble about the exact rankings and the (minimal) significance of some of the differences, but I will say this much: these rankings do lend some validity to my observation in the week 16 thread that DC United tends to be overestimated and LA tends to be underestimated. Aside from one extra game (and hence one extra win) for DCU, LA and DCU have identical records.

[TrueCrew]

OK, my weekly run down:

1. Houston

2. Chivas
3. DC
4. Chicago
5. Seattle
6. Columbus
7. Colorado

8. RSL
9. TFC
10. KC
11. NE
12. LA
13. FCD

14. SJ
15. NY