The 2016 Table :: Magic Numbers, Tragic Numbers & Other Tawdry Tallies

Fiends, degenerates and fellow MLSN&A posters:

It's time to ...

Make MLSN&A Great Again!

But instead of helping with that cause, I'm gonna go ahead and begin the annual embarrassment that is the tables thread.

That's right folks, it's back. The shoddy spreadsheet, the terrible analysis, the petty griping about teams I don't like. Trite and recycled jokes. Worn out cliches about toast. It's all right here, folks! Back again once more, just like that recurring nightmare you told your therapist about last week.

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Things that nobody reads.
Links that nobody clicks.

I should just copy and paste what I wrote last year. Maybe edit it the tiniest bit. Nobody would notice. After all, the old-timers already know the deal. The newbies stupidly think they know the deal. And nobody even gives a damn. But let's go through the motions once more, anyway. Because why not? Whatever. It's just time ticking off the clock as we hurtle along toward inevitable death.

• Previous editions: 2007, 2008 (apparently lost), 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, and 2015.

• Companion threads: DCU 2010, and DCU 2012.

• Parity related notes: "Yoshou’s Blind Squirrel Theory,” Parity, Player Selection & The DCU Front Office, (Dis)Parity and The 2013 MLS Season.

• Background on the Calculated and Actual Despair Numbers: 2010 incarnation, 2011 explanation, 2012 revision.

• Toast: The taxonomy of toast (which runs from untoasted bread to burnt toast) is rigorously scientific, and certainly not some back-of-an-envelope calculation based upon an anecdotal sense of the probable, improbable, and highly improbable. Nor is it purposefully designed to infuriate Crewligans. That is, however, an unintended, but quite welcome, attribute. As per the 2015 thread, once toasted, a team may become untoasted only once back in playoff position (by PPG).

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Toast-A-Palooza 2016 is sponsored by BHP Billiton, the official mining company of MLS playoff failure.

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It's not my fault.

Han Solo had it right. It's not my fault. Last year it was @sitruc's fault. And to the extent that this year's spreadsheet is just a recycled version of last year's spreadsheet, a whole lot of things are almost certainly still @sitruc's fault. But going forward, I feel like I'm gonna need another scapegoat.

I mean, can I really hold @sitruc responsible for the errors that are almost certainly to be found in the schedule below? I could. And fairly too. But I think there's enough blame to go around. It's time to spread the guilt.

I've got some candidates in mind, but for now the guilty will remain unidentified. Don't worry, @JasonMa, you're on the list. I mean, the very fact that your horrible team sits atop the combined table has my sense of order all discombobulated. There's only so much a man can take before his mind turns to goo and dribbles out his ears!

In any event, if you find something wrong, just let me know. It'll be fixed no later than the next update. If you think nothing's wrong, you're wrong. Look harder.

Also, it was Greedo's fault that Han shot first.

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@DynamoEAR's Terrible Bet

A while back @DynamoEAR did something really foolish by making a bet with @EvilTree that HOU would finish ahead of TFC on the overall league table at the end of the season. Then he did something even more foolish when he consented to having me oversee the bet and administer the loser's punishment. What's the punishment? For one month beginning on the first day of the post-season, the loser will sport an avatar of my choosing. Except, I'm not going to be the only one choosing it!

While I will retain a final veto over any choice that I deem insufficiently diabolical, I want to give you, the ignoble posters who read this trashy thread, the power to select an appropriately humiliating new avatar for @DynamoEAR.

"But, wait," you say, "the season's not over, but you're talking as if @DynamoEAR has already lost. Is this just another example of your terrible analysis?" Could be. But I think I'm on pretty solid ground when I say that @DynamoEAR will be sporting a humiliating new avatar beginning on October 24? Why? Well, more on that below.

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Onto the tables!

And the bullshit.

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Notes

And now for something truly disappointing: the first post of the season.

Half the time I open this thread saying there's not going to be much of a playoff race this year. And half the time I say things are shaping up in interesting ways. Half the time I'm right about half of what I say in these openers.

It's still a little early to speak in definite terms, but broadly I think we have reason to hope for a pretty good playoff race this year. For the league overall, parity is more or less in line with where it's been the last several years. Granted, if you break down those numbers in the conferences, disparity in the WC is far greater than in the EC. But that doesn't really matter because the playoff race does not occur at the top and the bottom of the table. It occurs in the mediocre middle of the table.

For those mid-table teams, it's not about winning the WS or the less glamorous SS. It's just about squeaking into the playoffs so that the FO can tell all those suckers who continue to support those teams and shell out their hard earned money to buy tickets to attend their games that, actually and contrary to popular belief, they really are a successful soccer team. After all, they made the playoffs!

This is, of course, rubbish. Terming that sort of mediocrity a success is pure delusion. But here on this thread we esteem mediocrity, and we love the delusional! And so far this season, most every team in the mediocre middle (and even most teams in the table's abominable bottom) are still in play for the playoffs.

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Speaking of mediocrity, let's take a look at the EC. The story isn't TFC, NYC and MTL atop the table, as appalling as that is. (Really! Two Canadian teams and Chivas NYC? Is this some sort of cruel joke?) No, the real story is with ORL. Granted, ORL fans always think they're the story, but this time, for once, they're not wrong. ORL currently sits in the final playoff spot (not even a real playoff spot -- that fake play-in game playoff spot), with a puny 1.18 PPG. Extrapolate that out to 34 games, and that's a mere 40 points. As a former New York Military Academy varsity soccer player would say: Sad. But thanks to ORL's fecklessness, NER, DCU, CLB and even CHI are still (at least theoretically) in the playoff hunt.

It's a similar story in the WC. This is, supposedly, the better conference, but with COL currently atop the table, that seems a pretty difficult characterization to argue. Here again, the top of the table doesn't matter. What matters is POR. Currently POR is holding up the bottom of the playoff contenders with a minimally respectable 1.33 PPG (which is 45 PTS for 34 games). SKC is barely doing any better, and more importantly, both SJE and VAN are only doing a little bit worse. From 5th to 8th, it's a pretty densely packed field. Sadly, even SEA is still theoretically in the hunt.

That means, with only one exception (which we'll get to momentarily) all MLS teams remain in playoff contention. Indeed, most of them have a pretty reasonable shot. So I expect a fun and exciting playoff race in both conferences. I also expect some pretty terrible playoff games. As I see it, in MLS it's hard to have both an exciting playoff race and great playoff games. That's because bad teams making the playoffs make for an exciting playoff race, but bad teams in the playoffs also make for bad playoff games.

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There is, however, one saving grace here: it doesn't look like we'll have that heap of miserable orange soccer souring the playoffs this year. With a CD# and an AD# above 2.00 PPG, HOU is toast. Let us all rejoice!

I shouldn't have to say this again, but there's always some newbie or numbskull who doesn't understand what it means to be toast. Toast is not mathematical elimination from the playoffs. Toast is the point at which reasonable hope of making the playoffs is gone. If you're a crappy team (like, say, HOU), and you get to a point in the season when you need 2.00 PPG or more just to sniff at the playoffs, then you cannot reasonably hope to make it. You should just sink down in despair and thank Toast Jesus that MLS doesn't have relegation. Because for all practical purposes, it's over. How do we know this? Because no toasted team in the history of tracking toast has ever made the playoffs.

Ah, but I hear you now. "My team will surely be the first! We're special snowflakes." No, you're not. No you won't. And you annoy us. Also, if Toast Jesus really does come down from soccer heaven to save your sorry ass and rise your team up to be the first toasted team to make the playoffs, then Toast Jesus made a dreadful mistake, and I'm gonna have to rethink my religious affiliations.

So that's the story with HOU. It's over. HousDone. DynaNope, 1830-Nixed. Meanwhile, TFC is virtually certain to make the playoffs. Which means our dear friend, @DynamoEAR, should start preparing to be avatared and feathered!

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Quick Hits

Back in the day CHV traditionally played better away than at home. That tradition continues today with Chivas NYC, who are doing 0.25 PPG better away from Yankees Stadium, than in it. But don't worry NYC fans, eventually the day will come when you're no longer playing at that venerable insult to a soccer field. After all, the world will end someday. Maybe when the sun goes nova. Maybe before then. Point is, nothing lasts forever. So there's always hope, if only of the irrational variety.

Indeed, NYC has the second worst home record in the league. So how are they in second place in the EC? They have, by far, the best away record in the league. What the hell is up with that?

Who has the worst home record around? Why that's DCU. Behold Fortress RFK!

I'm kind of doubting you, PHI.

Congratulations, CHI! You're MLS's new running joke. Though I do think HOU might give you some competition for the WS.

Is CHI really the most likely team to win the WS? I don't know about that. They only have two more games against WC teams, and their schedule gets easier from this point forward. Indeed, their Strength of Opposition (SoO) is the lowest in the league, right alongside NYC. Meanwhile, look at HOU. They're a terrible team, and except for two games, their competition is all from the WC. In fact, they've got the second toughest schedule in the league. So while CHI might actually scrape together a few points here and there, HOU is facing a buzz-saw. So that's why I'm thinking maybe the first toasted team will be this year's WS as well.

Week 31, man ...

They did something right in the calendar right this year. The remaining schedules are dominated by in-conference games. For instance, after this weekend's game against POR, DCU's entire schedule consists of EC teams.

LAG's GD is +15. The next best is TFC way down at +9. Meanwhile, the team with the second worst GD in the league (NER at -11) is just barely out of playoff position

With NER and FCD vying for the USOC, NER is certainly our best hope for a DCU Double -- winning both the USOC and the WS in a single season. But I expect the chances of this occurring are pretty slim.

How about the SS? Personally, I don't want to contemplate who is likely to win the SS this year. The only outcome with any dignity would be for FCD to take the prize, but I fear it'll be COL (the horror) or LAG (the recurring horror).

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Housekeeping

Full updates once a week.

Mini-updates as warranted.

Some updates half-assed.

Others full-assed.

 

HOU is toast. @DynamoEAR too.

For COL that number will get smaller and smaller and smaller, and then LAG will win the SS.

 

In due time ...

 

To be fair, it's not a very high bar.

 

SEA would be wise to beat RSL this weekend.