2016 ladder prediction contest

I was only able to watch one and a half games this weekend, (bits of four halves from two games,) so I won't do a full Power Rankings, but I do have a few comments.

On a half-by-half breakdown, I'd put Seattle first overall. Utterly dominant in what I saw of the first half, and even after losing Fishlock kept enough control to add a goal in the second half. Boston got blown out, but I wouldn't put them at the bottom of the rankings - having a bad half against Seattle is nothing to be punished for, and in the second half they turned up the pressure and arguably had the better of play despite giving up another goal - lower-middle-table for them I guess. I also watched ORL-HOU, and in the first half they were pretty darn even. And honestly, for most of the second half, they were also pretty darn even; HOU just fell asleep for the first 15min of the second half. I'd put HOU around the same place as BOS, and ORL upper-mid-table but not upper-table.

Anyway, also wanted to point out a bit of ladder trivia:
With the results this season so far, the Dash and the Spirit have hit the top of the NWSL ladder for the first time each. Although the top-of-the-league club looked in 2013 to be a fluid thing, it turned out to not be in the next two years.
2013 - Four clubs hit the top (NJ, POR, KC, WNY) though WNY only hit the top at the very last week on a tiebreak
2014 - Just two clubs, only one new, hit the top (SEA, POR) though POR only hit the top in the second week when SEA had a bye
2015 - Three clubs, just one new, hit the top (SEA, POR, CHI); no real asterisks on this year
2016 - Two clubs, both new, have hit the top so far (HOU, DC) neither of which being picked to be at the top by the end of the season by any of us here. Only two clubs now have never hit the top, and it's the expansion team ORL that looks best-poised to go top soon. Poor BOS.

And one last note on the top-of-the-ladder trivia:
Portland is, so far, the only team to have led the ladder at any point in a season and still missed the playoffs that fall. Pressure's on, HOU and DC!

 

Well, all four current top-four teams have qualified for the playoffs at least once before. And of the two past-playoff teams I let in my predicted top-four, the one that's been in every playoffs so far is near bottomed out.

The question now is whether I want to redo my ladder now for a six point penalty, or wait one more week and take an eight point penalty....

 

I have to say, I'm not really happy with how NWSL does its power rankings. Aside from putting Orlando of Houston, Week 4's power rankings were basically just the standings.

Anyway, at this point, I'd definitely going to take the four-week 8pt penalty and redo my ladder prediction. Previously it was 1SEA 2POR 3ORL 4KC 5HOU 6CHI 7DC 8BOS 9WNY 10NJ. Clearly I need to raise CHI and DC and drop SEA and KC, even though I could easily see both of the latter two recovering from their slow-ish starts. Four teams to moves, 8pts penalty - I think it's worth it.

1 - Chicago Red Stars : Based on current performance, I could see any of POR/CHI/DC topping out, with ORL/HOU/SEA knocking. Of all those teams, I think everyone else will likely get hit with Olympic sickness (POR/ORL/HOU), have a bit more proving to do (SEA) or are overperforming at the moment (DC). The 4x against KC also looks helpful right now.
2 - Seattle Reign : As much as I think they have more to prove, I also think they still have the highest ceiling of any team. I can't drop them much more than this, especially since I expected them to be energized with a win over Heath-less Portland this coming week and thus likely find their groove.
3 - Washington Spirit : While I think Portland has the stronger roster on paper, I think Washington has more chemistry, and Garbagga is actually surprising me. So I'm giving DC the nod over POR here.
4 - Portland Thorns : Still a strong roster with a great coach - and the 4x against SEA doesn't look as intimidating anymore, so I can't drop them too far.
5 - Houston Dash : The next comparison I'm making is between ORL and HOU, and again, while I think Orlando has the stronger roster on paper, Houston is surprising me with its rookies and scoring option. Houston will also take a softer Olympic hit.
6 - Orlando Pride : The unintended victim of my reshuffling with CHI/DC/SEA/KC, I'm suddenly dropping Orlando three spots. If I made any really bad decisions in this revamp, I'm guessing it's right here.
7 - FC Kansas City : Oh my, have the wheels come off here. I still think Andonovski is an excellent coach and will get KC out of its funk, but it might be too little, too late at this point, since I don't see a KC recovery for another week or two.
8 - Western New York Flash
9 - Sky Blue FC
10 - Boston Breakers : For my bottom three, I haven't see anything to really think there's much worth changing in how I view each of these three teams, but Boston has just been sooooo unlucky - they're doing everything except scoring - so they're in an even bigger hole than Kansas with a lower ceiling, which is why I have to put them last despite the fact I think they're just as strong as any of the other teams currently 7-9.

 

Aside:
All these Friday matches are really screwing with how http://www.sportsclubstats.com/USA/f/NWSL.html designs its graphs and calculations X-D

 

Well, now that the regular season is in the books, time to crunch the prediction numbers here I guess. Will do that sometime this week.

 

Ahck, so sorry! I completely forgot. Anyway, I'll lead off saying that next year I'm going to reinstate weekly predictions again, just to keep people (myself included) involved more. Will also change the ladder predictions to increase scoring opportunities - both to make the early predictions important and because the current scoring is really low. X-D

Anyway, our runner-up is....
@amerinorsk59 , who predicted the finishing positions of three teams (HOU, KC, & NJ) perfectly as well as being just one off for BOS and 3/4 on the playoff group, for a total of 12pts

Our winner actually earned a -2 penalty on their ladder since they predicted after the first matchday was played, but despite having just one game played to base their ladder on, they placed a whopping five teams perfectly (BOS, KC, ORL, POR, and WAS - which also meant getting the Shield and Spoon bonuses, offsetting the late penalty) and was just one place off for another two teams (NJ, WNY), for a total of 17pts
So congratulations to @Tokonta !

Some fun things to point out:
----The safest bets for our 17 participating members to have picked were BOS (25pts) and, surprisingly, KC (20pts)
----The teams that completely bucked expectations were POR (midtable), SEA (shield), and NJ (spoon), as our group of 17 members earned a grand total of 7pts from those three teams combined (our two winners were 100% of those 7pts).
----Expansion team ORL was (maybe reasonably) almost as hard to pick for us, as we earned 7pts from our ORL placements.
----No one picked all four playoff teams, though many people got three of the four.
----On a personal note, my original ladder prediction in the first post would have earned me a whopping 2pts if I had stuck with it, which would've been good for last place... But then I re-predicted after week 4, and the -8 penalty I took more than offset the 7pts my new ladder got me, leaving me at an embarrassing negative-1pt.
----One person scored 4pts, one person 9pts - everyone else landed in the 5-8 range.