MLS Playoff Race: 16 September [R]

El Jefe's playoff situation thread seems to indicate that the MetroStars will be assured a spot in the playoffs if they tie NE, and that KC will be assured a spot in the the playoffs if they tie Colorado.

If this indeed is the case, would that make their magic numbers 1 instead of 3?

 

Since LA and SJ are playing each other, shouldn't LA's magic number for clinching the conference title be 1? If they draw, LA will win it. LA will gain one; SJ will lose two, but only one point is needed.

 

Since the Metros and Revolution each have 35 points and play each other, at least one team will have 36 or less points. DC United will only have 35 points even if they win. So wouldn't the Fire's magic number be 3? If they win (get 3 points) then they would have 37 points which would mathematically eliminate DC United and also necessarily be more than 1 either the Metros or Revolution (or possibly both if they draw)?

-Tron

 

No, because for Metros they gain 1 point and New England loses 2, therebey making the magic number 3. For KC, they gain 1, but someone else must tie or lose, to ensure the playoffs, thus again making the number 3.

 

Help me out here,
If all the home teams win this weekend, Kansas City and Metros miss the playoffs?

and NE is conference champion?

I guess basically, does DC United hold the tiebreakers over Metros and KC?

not so unlikely a scenario.

 

DC holds the tiebreaker on the Metros, but not on Kansas.

 

Is this first time in mls history no team has been eliminated from the playoffs going into the final game?

 

I think you're wrong here, John.

Hala's thread says the magic number is number points gained plus the points lost by the #9 team.

Since New England is no longer in the #9 seed spot, what points they lose if they draw the Metros is irrelevant to the magic # computation. According to Jefe's thread, the MetroStars will be assured of a playoff spot if they tie NE, no matter what Chicago does vs. Columbus. So that seems to say the Metros magic # is 1, doesn't it?

And Jefe's thread says that KC will make the playoffs if they tie Colorado, no matter what happens in the Chicago, Metros, or DC games. So again, that seems to say that KC's magic # is 1.

 

The difference I guess is in what a "magic" number is.

For Metros, IF it were physically possible for New England, KC and Chicago to win and Metros to tie, they would be out of the playoffs with 36, as the others would have 38, 38, and 37 respectively. Alternatively, if it were physically possible for all of these teams and the Metros to lose, and DC wins, they'd have 35 points and tiebreakers would decide it. (That gets too theoretical to figure out).

For K.C., the same is true. IF it could happen that Metros, NE, and Chicago could all get three points to their one, they'd be out with 36 vs. 38, 38, and 37.

It just so happens that two of the teams that need to get 3 points play each other, so it CANNOT happen. It is a guarantee that one of the teams will lose magic number points in the NE v. Metros game. So, you may be right that both only need a tie to get in (one real point), but the "magic number" is still 3.

In any event, magic numbers are just hypothetical, so the on-field goal doesn't change just because different math leads to the same result.

 

Tie-breakers -- possible scenarios

The simplest scenarios are Chicago loses and DCU ties or loses -- they're both out and everybody else is in.

The two most complicated scenarios are this:

1) DCU, Colorado, New England all win, Chicago ties.
2) DCU, Colorado, Metros all win, Chicago ties.

In situation #1, that leaves KC, Chi, Metros & DCU all tied on 35 points. Since this involves a western team and eastern teams, there's an uneven number of games, so I assume that they'd use points per game for the first tiebreaker rather than total points. The head to head competition among those 4 is this:

Chicago 5-3-2, 17 pts, 1.7 pts per game
DCU 5-4-3, 18 pts, 1.5 ppg
KC 3-3-2, 11 pts, 1.375 ppg
Metros 3-6-1, 10 pts, 1.0 ppg

Chicago gets 7th seed, DCU 8th, KC & Metros stay home.

In situation #2, KC, Chi, NE & DCU wind up tied on 35 points. In this case, it winds up:

KC 5-2-1, 16 pts, 2.0 ppg
Chi 4-3-3, 15 pts, 1.5 ppg
NE 4-5-1, 13 pts, 1.3 ppg
DCU 3-6-3, 12 pts, 1.0 ppg

 

How does it work for both the Metrostars and KC not to make it in?

 

See this thread for all possible playoff scenarios.

 

lol....I'm wit you......go Fire......

 

Haha! It's so sweet to see us above that ************ing line.

Hopefully it'll stay that way...

 

Gee, I wonder who you support...

Posted above:

<<<<<<<<<<1) dc, Colorado, New England all win, Chicago ties.
In situation #1, that leaves KC, Chi, Metros & dc all tied on 35 points. Since this involves a western team and eastern teams, there's an uneven number of games, so I assume that they'd use points per game for the first tiebreaker rather than total points. The head to head competition among those 4 is this:

Chicago 5-3-2, 17 pts, 1.7 pts per game
dc 5-4-3, 18 pts, 1.5 ppg
KC 3-3-2, 11 pts, 1.375 ppg
Metros 3-6-1, 10 pts, 1.0 ppg>>>>>>>>

KC would pay the ultimate penalty for being in the West. I wouldn't bet the parlay on all of that happening, though. Ties happen 1 in 4 roughly, making picking winners mathmatically 3 in 8 - all things being equal.
(.375^3)*(.25) for all 4 to hit, that's a 1.3% shot - or about 75:1. Even with favorites as winners in all 3, you have maybe a 5% chance of hitting all 4. 20:1 at best. It could happen.

 

The crazy thing is, I think even the Miami Fusion have a chance of making the playoffs.

Later,
COZ

 

MLS just posted all this on their website.

It's a .pdf file at http://www.mlsnet.com/special/mlscup/02/media/playoff_scenarios.pdf

In looking through that I realized something wrong with a couple of the scenarios I had posted. I took a couple 4 way tie situations and just said top 2 get in.

However, that's not how it works. You take the 4 way tie and the top ONE gets the #7 seed. Then you refigure everything with 3 remaining teams and they get the #8 seed.

For example, in my Scenario #2, KC, DC, NE & Chicago wind up tied on 35 points. KC takes the #7 seed using the 4 way tiebreaker as I've outlined. However, Chicago does not get the #8 seed for ranking 2nd in the 4 way tiebreaker. Refigure it for a 3 way with DC, NE & Chi and New England winds up winning the #8 seed with a 4-3-1 record over Chicago's 3-2-3.

Take a look at the MLS stuff -- it spells EVERY possible situation out VERY clearly.

 

That sure is one bizarre (and screwed up) way of breaking ties.

 

Maybe.

But I would think the goal of the tiebreaker is to award the best team of the bunch the highest seed, the 2nd best team the next highest seed, and so on.

And the fairest way to do so, in my opinion, is model the tiebreaker after the way we rank teams during the regular season.

However, instead of ranking teams by comparing their records against all the teams in the league, rank the teams tied with the same number of points by comparing their records against all the other teams with the same number of points.

 

Scenario #36

Five way tie, Tampa Bay Mutiny get #8 seed

 

Is it just me, or is it gay to post a team's record as W-T-L instead of the more conventional W-L-T?