I've been doing these for a few years now, thought I'd share. Thoughts, comments and criticisms welcome. http://flashpages.prodigy.net/klindstr/Etc/MLSATR.html
Drum'r, I must salute you in that you actually made an attempt to display your system for ranking clubs in MLS. I must also salute you for admitting that your rankings do have room for improvement/alteration. Routinely, whenever someone posts their "All Time MLS Rankings" threads, [Seemingly every few months or thereabouts] they invariably slant along fandom lines. Another issue is the "secret squirrels" who have no basis for their "rankings," or who refuse to give up their "secret formulai" for ranking. A third commonality among these "All Time" threads is the defensive nature a poster has when faced with critique. My query is this: Have you considered the inclusion of a means to measure player discovery/player development? Perhaps a club at the A-League level has been reknown for it's ability to produce players who then go on to play at a higher level. [Be it MLS or abroad.] Perhaps a club within MLS has been more successful in generating newly-capped players for the national teams of US and other nations. Although one would assume that clubs that succeed in discovering/developing talent would enjoy excellent results, myopic coaching/injuries may prevent the predictable outcomes. As such, perhaps it would be of value to track player discovery/development. At the same time, perhaps "ranking" points may be deducted for MLS-sanctioned gifting. [i.e. the endless series of "weighted lotteries" that a certain Eastern Conference club seems to win year after year; The same club given both an allocation AND a discovery player to replace one who transferred out of MLS; MLS raping your favored club so as to gift a player to another club; Certain clubs being able to recieve more than the "league mandated limit" of one discovery player per season.] The point being that a club's ability/inability to garner favors from the league offices should not be rewarded with "all time ranking" points. In any case, thanks again for your efforts, Drum'r. Cheers!
Drum'r Boy, Good stuff. I think that this is interesting to see since there is alot parity in MLS and it is still a young league. Boy, those Revs sure do suck!
Thanks for the comments! Well, I've been doing my MLS weekly rankings since '96, and I have always tried to do them based on an accurate statistical analysis. Mostly, they were designed to take out the skew of shootout wins and an unbalanced schedule (a team who had played a lot of home games v. a team that had played a lot of games on the road) by using points-per-game and a +/- system based on what I call "The Pace" - every team tries to win at home and tie on the road. See: http://www.3rddegree.net/ (although I am not sure that anything is set up for this season yet.) And a few years back I decided to apply that to the league as a whole, and this is what you get. (I think I first did them in 2001.) As for not being fan-based - trust me, if I wanted to let my colors show, it sure as hell wouldn't be Chicago at the top! Thanks for noticing. As for working in the weighted issues of MLS allocations and player development - boy, that would be incredibly subjective.... Although I will admit that it isn't too surprising that the team that have done the most with their allocations and other gifts (LA, Chicago, DC) are at the top of the list. Bad news for Metro is that they have had to endure a lot of negatives since Donadoni, et al. And I think Columbus and Dallas can take a lot of pride in overcoming a lack of MLS help to be above average. As for room for error/subjectivity, etc. - I went through a number of versions trying to find a system that lent itself to weighing things accurately. Let me ask you - do you think I've put too much weight into the USOC? What about the other things? As for the other results, I wasn't surprised by the Revs results as much as I was in seeing how little San Jose has moved - boy did they suck early on! Thanks again.