

MLS Power Ranking Averages - Week 22



"If two teams played tomorrow, given their current injury concerns, form, and other considerations, who is likely to win on a neutral field? This list is designed to tell you who we feel is most likely to win that matchup. All things being equal, who is the best team going forward, based on what we know now?"



-Richard Farley, NBC Sports ProSoccerTalk. 3/11/14





Sites Used:

Allvoices (www.allvoices.com/users/zacwassink) - (No ranking Week 22)

Black & Red United (www.blackandredunited.com) - (No ranking Week 14-22)

Dallas News Soccer Blog (www.soccerblog.dallasnews.com)

Deseret News (www.deseretnews.com) - (No ranking Week 13-22)

ESPN (espn.go.com/sports/soccer/mls)

Fansided-MLS Multiplex (fansided.com/category/soccer/mls/mls-multiplex)

Major League Soccer (www.mlssoccer.com).

Northbank-RSL (www.northbankrsl.com) - (No ranking Weeks 9-22)

Oregon Live (www.oregonlive.com/timbers)



ProSoccerTalk (prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com)

Reddit/MLS (www.reddit.com/r/MLS) - (No ranking Weeks 10-22)

Seattle Times Blog (blogs.seattletimes.com/soundersfc)

Soccer America (www.socceramerica.com)

Soccer by Ives (www.soccerbyives.net) - (No ranking Week 21-22)

Sports Illustrated (www.soccer.si.com)

UTN Sports (www.utnsports.com/category/soccer) - (No ranking Weeks 6-22)

If you know of a Power Ranking site that I have not included, please send it to me via this site or on reddit.com/r/MLS and I will consider using it.



Weekly Power Ranking Averages

Using the "Olympic" method of dropping the highest / lowest scores, and averaging the rest.

Week 22 Week 21 Week 20 Week 19 T eam

W22 Avg W21 Avg W20 Avg W19 Avg Low

High

Range

1

1

4

5

Los Angeles 1.86

1.60

4.43

6.00

6

1

5

2

4

2

1

Seattle 2.26

4.00

1.71

1.00

4

1

3

3

2

1

3

Kansas City 3.00

1.80

1.57 2.60

9

1

8

4

5

6

8

Salt Lake 3.43

5.20

6.71

8.20

5

1

4

5

6

5

6

Dallas 5.29

6.40

6.57

6.40

9

1

8

6

3

3

2

D.C. 6.29

3.20

3.00

2.40

12

5

7

7

9

9

7

Vancouver 7.29

9.40

8.57

6.80

8

6

2

8

7

8

4

Toronto 7.43

7.00

8.14

5.60

11

5

6

9

12

10

11

Portland 10.00

11.4

9.86

11.60

12

4

8

10

11

13

13

Philadelphia 10.14

11.20

11.71

12.40

12

5

7

11

8

11

10

New York 10.71

8.80

11.29

10.20

15

8

7

12

14

14

17

San Jose 11.71

13.40

14.14

16.80

14

7

7

13

9

7

9

Colorado 12.14

9.40

7.57

8.80

17

11

6

14

13

11

14

Columbus 13.57

11.80

11.29

12.80

17

12

5

15

17

16

15

Chicago 15.14

16.60

16.00

14.60

17

10

7

16

16

15

11

Chivas 16.57

16.00

14.29

11.60

18

14

4

16

18

17

16

New England 16.57

17.20

16.71

15.40

18

14

4

18

15

18

18

Houston 17.14

15.60

17.43

17.60

18

16

2

19

19

19

19

Montreal 19.00

19.00

18.86

18.60

19

19

0







Biggest Changes

Point Gaps High / Low Variance

Rise

Portland: +3





Fall

Colorado: -4

New York: -3

Houston: -3

La rgest

Toronto - 2.57 - Portland

Salt Lake - 1.86 - Dallas

Houston - 1.86 - Montreal



Smallest

Chivas - 0.0 - New England

Portland - 0.14 - Philadelphia

Vancouver - 0.14 - Toronto

0 positions: Montreal

2 positions: Vancouver, Houston

3 positions: Seattle

4 positions: S.L., Chivas, N.E.

5 positions: L.A., Columbus

6 positions: Toronto, Colorado

7 positions: D.C., Philadelphia, N.Y., S.J., Chicago

8 positions: K.C., Dallas, Portland





Season Average Power Ranking



W22 W21 W20 W19 W18 T eam

W22 Avg W21 Avg W20 Avg W19 Avg W18 Avg W17 Avg W16 Avg W14 Avg 1

1

1

1

2

Seattle 3.27

3.32

3.29

3.37 3.50

3.65

3.82

3.88

2

2

2

2

1

Salt Lake

3.82

3.84

3.78

3.62

3.37

3.09

2.90

2.29

3

3

3

3

3

Kansas City 3.97

4.02

4.13

4.27

4.36

4.35

4.31

4.62

4

5

6

6

6

Los Angeles 6.76

7.00

7.27

7.42

7.50

7.55

7.45

7.65

5

4

4

4

4

Vancouver 6.99

6.98

6.85

6.76

6.76

6.73

6.97

6.62

6

6

5

5

5

Toronto 7.20

7.19

7.20

7.15

7.23

7.38

7.44

7.59

7

7

7

7

7

Dallas 7.67

7.79

7.86

7.92

8.01

7.99

7.95

7.38

8

8

8

8

8

Colorado 8.70

8.53

8.49

8.54

8.52

8.61

8.68

8.62

9

9

11

11

12

D.C. 9.67

9.84

10.17

10.54

11.00

11.50

12.00

12.19

10

10

10

10

10

Columbus 10.29

10.14

10.10

9.99

9.83

9.53

9.36

8.78

11

12

12

12

11

New York 10.71

10.71

10.81

10.78

10.82

10.91

10.90

11.54

12

11

9

9

9

New England 10.72

10.44

10.05

9.75

9.44

9.23

9.23

9.37

13

14

14

14

14

Portland 12.16

12.26

12.30

12.43

12.48

12.42

12.52

13.45

14

13

13

13

13

Houston 12.20

11.96

11.78

11.48

11.14

10.72

10.27

9.79

15

15

15

15

15

Philadelphia 12.63

12.75

12.83

12.89

12.92

12.84

12.75

12.90

16

16

16

16

16

San Jose 14.44

14.57

14.63

14.65

14.54

14.33

14.10

14.23

17

17

17

17

17

Chivas 15.17

15.10

15.06

15.10

15.30

15.54

15.60

15.29

18

18

18

18

18

Chicago 15.45

15.47

15.41

15.38

15.43

15.52

15.51

15.60

19

19

19

19

19

Montreal

17.81

17.75

17.69

17.63

17.57

17.56

17.55

17.87





Team High/Low

Best and worst placement for each team

In the weekly averages 7 teams have been ranked 1st (Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles, New England, Salt Lake, Seattle, Kansas City), and 3 teams have placed last (Chivas, D.C., Montreal).

In the season averages 2 teams have been ranked 1st (Salt Lake, Seattle), and 2 teams last (D.C., Montreal).

Houston has the distinction of being the only team to be ranked both first and last in the weekly rankings, with New England close behind with first and 2nd to last. D.C. has risen from last to 2nd.





Site Evaluations

I've broken the sites into 4 groups of 4 for easier publishing.

Group 1 - the "Big" sites (ESPN, SI, MLS, PST) - (weeks 16 & 17)



Group 2 - the "dead" sites (Northbank, Reddit, SBI, UTN) - (week 18)



Group 3 - Newspapers (Dallas, Deseret, Oregon, SA) - (week 20 & 21)



Group 4 - Fan blogs (*Allvoices, B&R, *Multiplex, Seattle) - (* this week)



To avoid making each article longer than necessary I've split the groups of 4 into 1 or 2 separate weeks. Each site will be evaluated based on the Week 14 PR Averages above, I'll do a post-season evaluation for the latter half of the season.



Here's my evaluation criteria.

Consistency - Publish regularly.

Bias - Teams are rated equally, not on any obvious bias.



Fairness - Teams dropping / rising significantly due to one result is not a fair representation of overall performance.

MLS Multiplex Blog (fansided.com/category/soccer/mls/mls-multiplex)

The author is a L.A. Galaxy fan who also writes for Bleacher Report.

Pub Date

WK CHI CHV COL CLB DCU FCD HOU LAG MON NER NYRB PHI POR RSL SJE SEA SKC TFC VAN 03/11/14 1 18 11 9 8 19 6 3 10 15 17 13 14 5 1 12 4 7 16 2 03/17/14 2 18 13 10 9 19 6 2 11 16 17 15 8 5 3 12 14 7 1 4 03/24/14 3 17 16 8 6 19 3 2 10 18 15 13 12 9 5 14 11 7 1 4 03/31/14 4 17 11 12 4 19 2 8 9 18 7 14 10 13 1 16 15 5 6 3 04/07/14 5 14 19 4 8 11 1 16 5 18 15 12 9 13 3 17 10 6 2 7 04/14/14 6 14 16 1 9 7 5 18 2 19 11 17 8 13 4 15 3 6 10 12 04/21/14 7 13 16 5 7 8 4 18 6 19 9 11 12 17 3 15 2 1 14 10 04/28/14 8 13 19 12 8 2 10 18 4 15 3 7 16 17 6 11 1 5 14 9 05/05/14 9 19 18 7 12 8 13 11 9 14 2 5 16 10 4 15 1 3 17 6 05/12/14 10 11 7 13 19 4 18 14 10 17 1 12 16 6 3 8 9 2 15 5 05/19/14 11 5 7 16 17 4 18 9 19 11 1 15 13 6 2 12 3 14 8 10 05/26/14 12 13 10 8 9 11 17 19 5 16 1 15 18 2 4 7 3 14 12 6 06/02/14 13 12 19 3 14 5 17 18 8 10 7 15 13 9 11 4 1 16 6 2 06/09/14 14 16 18 9 8 5 12 19 11 6 15 3 10 2 17 14 1 13 7 4 Average



14.13 14.60 8.40 10.27 10.60 9.80 11.93 8.27 14.80 8.53 11.53 12.60 8.67 4.60 12.20 5.73 7.13 9.73 6.47 All Site Average



15.54

13.86

9.11

6.42

15.68

5.25

7.80

6.97

17.82

13.76

12.67

10.14

12.92

2.05

15.24

5.32

4.28

6.43

8.20

+/-



-1.41

+0.74

-0.71

+3.85

-5.08

+4.55

+4.13

+1.30

-3.02

-5.23

-1.14

+2.46

-4.25

+2.55

-3.04

+0.41

+2.85

+3.30

-1.73



Consistency: No dates missed.

Bias: 12 teams with a variance over 2; highest was -5.23 and closest to average was +0.41.



Fairness: I exclude weeks 1-5 due to both teams and raters getting settled. Every team has jumps of 5 or more, with most having multiple large jumps! The largest jump: L.A. moving up 14 positions in week 12! Teams with the most 5+ jumps (after wk 5): COL - 6, CLB - 4, D.C. - 4, N.Y. - 4

Teams with the least 5+ jumps (after wk 5): CHV - 2, PHI - 2, RSL - 2, SKC - 2, VAN - 2





I more or less expect the fan blogs to be skewed toward the 'home team', and for the most part MLS Multiplex lives up to that. Rating averages for more than half of the teams are well off the average for all sites; but the biggest concern is fairness of ratings with every team experiencing jumps of 5 or more positions, and most teams having 3 or more! The 'home team' gets the benefit of the greatest improvement as well.

Allvoices Blog (allvoices.com/users/zacwassink )

The author covers many teams from several sports including NYRB.

Pub. Date WK CHI CUSA COL CLB DCU FCD HOU LAG Mon NER NYRB PHI POR RSL SJE SEA SKC TFC VAN 03/11/14 1 14 5 11 4 19 6 2 15 16 18 17 8 9 3 12 7 13 10 1 03/17/14 2 13 8 10 5 17 7 1 16 18 19 15 3 11 4 12 9 14 6 2 03/24/14 3 12 11 6 4 18 3 1 14 19 17 13 9 15 7 16 5 10 2 8 03/31/14 4 13 10 11 2 19 1 6 16 15 12 14 9 17 3 18 8 5 7 4 04/08/14 5 14 12 6 4 13 1 10 11 17 15 16 9 18 3 19 7 5 2 8 04/15/14 6 15 14 2 1 9 4 13 8 19 10 17 12 16 5 18 3 7 6 11 04/22/14 7 16 15 5 6 9 1 13 7 19 10 12 14 17 3 18 2 4 8 11 04/28/14 8 18 17 8 4 7 2 13 5 15 9 11 16 19 3 14 1 6 10 12 05/05/14 9 19 18 6 8 9 7 10 12 17 4 5 16 14 2 15 1 3 13 11 05/14/14 10 16 15 8 12 6 9 7 14 19 3 10 18 17 1 13 4 2 11 5 05/20/14 11 13 15 9 11 7 10 4 16 19 1 12 17 18 2 14 3 5 8 6 05/27/14 12 16 17 3 8 7 13 12 9 19 1 15 18 14 2 11 4 6 10 5 06/03/14 13 18 19 2 11 4 13 12 9 16 6 14 15 17 5 8 1 10 7 3 06/09/14 14 18 19 7 12 4 10 15 9 17 8 11 16 13 5 14 1 3 2 6 Average



15.36 13.93 6.71 6.57 10.57 6.21 8.50 11.50 17.50 9.50 13.00 12.86 15.36 3.43 14.43 4.00 6.64 7.29 6.64 All Site Average



15.54

13.86

9.11

6.42

15.68

5.25

7.80

6.97

17.82

13.76

12.67

10.14

12.92

2.05

15.24

5.32

4.28

6.43

8.20

+/-



-0.18

+0.07

-2.40

+0.15

-5.11

+0.96

+0.70

+4.53

-0.32

-4.26

+0.33

+2.72

+2.44

+1.38

-0.81

-1.32

+2.36

+0.86

-1.56



Consistency: No dates missed.

Bias: 7 teams with a variance above 2; the highest was -5.11, closest to average was +0.07.



Fairness: I exclude weeks 1-5 due to both teams and raters getting settled. Jumps of 5+ are: COL (5 pos. Wk14), CLB (5 pos. Wk 7), FCD (5 pos. Wk 9), HOU (8 pos. Wk 12), LAG (7 pos. Wk 9, 7 pos. Wk 12), NER (5 pos. Wk 6, 5 pos. Wk 9, 5 pos. Wk 13), NYRB (5 pos. Wk 7, 6 pos. Wk 9, 5 pos. Wk 10), POR (5 pos. Wk 9), SJE (6 pos. Wk 14), SKC (7 pos. Wk 14), TFC (5 pos. Wk 14), VAN (6 pos. Wk 10).

Allvoices does better than MLS Multiplex in bias, but with 12 teams making jumps of 5+ positions does struggle with the Fairness aspect.