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MLS Power Ranking Averages Week 17 - last week of World Cup.

Average power ranking culled from 6 sites, includes weekly high / low and overall season average. Few sites published due to World Cup coverage. Also an evaluation of 2 of the 16 sites used.

By Kreg Asay
Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

Average power ranking culled from 6 sites, includes weekly high / low and overall season average. Few sites published due to World Cup coverage. Also an evaluation of 2 of the 16 sites used.


MLS Power Ranking Averages - Week 17


"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)
  • Black & Red United (www.blackandredunited.com) - (No ranking Week 14-17)
  • Dallas News Soccer Blog (www.soccerblog.dallasnews.com) - (No ranking Week 14-17)
  • Deseret News (www.deseretnews.com) - (No ranking Week 13-17)
  • 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 9-17)
  • Oregon Live (www.oregonlive.com/timbers)
  • ProSoccerTalk (prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com) - (No ranking Week 13-17)
  • Reddit/MLS (www.reddit.com/r/MLS) - (No ranking Weeks 10-17)
  • Seattle Times Blog (blogs.seattletimes.com/soundersfc) - (No ranking Week 16-17 *writer resigned)
  • Soccer America (www.socceramerica.com)
  • Soccer by Ives (www.soccerbyives.net) - (No ranking Weeks 10-17)
  • Sports Illustrated (www.soccer.si.com) - (No ranking Week 14-17)
  • UTN Sports (www.utnsports.com/category/soccer) - (No ranking Weeks 6-17)

Once again due to the World Cup starting, a LOT of sites didn't publish Power Rankings for week 17.

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.
There were no Power Rankings for week 15 due to the World Cup break.

Week 17 Week 16 Week 14 Week 13 Team
 		W17 Avg W16 Avg W14 Avg W13 Avg Low
 		High
 		Var
1
 1
 1
 1
 Seattle 1.00
 1.00
 1.00
 1.00
 1
 1
 0
2
 4
 2
 2
 Vancouver 3.00 5.00 2.60 2.88 7
 2
 5
3
 5
 3
 6
 D.C. 3.50 6.25 4.80 5.75 5
 2
 3
4
 3
 7
 9
 Kansas City 5.00 4.75 6.40 8.38 15
 2
 13
5
 9
 5
 4
 Salt Lake 6.25 8.75 5.40 3.63 8
 3
 5
6
 2
 6
 7
 Toronto 6.50
 4.50
 5.80
 7.00
 14
 4
 10
7
 5
 8
 5
 Colorado 7.50 6.25 8.80 5.63 13
 3
 10
8
 10
 12
 14
 Dallas 8.75 10.50 11.40 13.75 13
 1
 12
9
 7
 4
 3
 New England 9.25
 7.25
 5.00
 3.50
 10
 7
 3
9
 8
 9
 8
 Los Angeles 9.25
 7.75
 9.40
 7.88
 12
 3
 9
11
 12
 11
 12
 Portland 10.75 11.75 11.00 12.50 14
 7
 7
12
 11
 10
 11
 New York 11.00
 11.25
 9.80 12.25 16
 5
 11
13
 13
 13
 13
 Columbus 12.25 12.75 12.60 12.63 14
 11
 3
14
 14
 15
 16
 Philadelphia 14.25 13.25 15.60 16.13 16
 8
 8
15
 18
 19
 19
 Chivas 14.50 17.25 18.60 18.88 17
 5
 12
16
 17
 17
 16
 Chicago 15.75 16.25 16.20 16.13 18
 9
 9
17
 16
 18
 18
 Montreal 17.75
 15.75
 17.40
 17.38
 19
 17
 2
18
 15
 13
 10
 San Jose 18.00 14.00 12.60 10.00 19
 13
 6
18
 19
 16
 15
 Houston 18.00
 18.75
 16.00
 14.13
 19
 15
 4


Biggest Changes
 		Point Gaps High / Low Variance
Rise
Salt Lake : +4
Chivas : +3


Fall
Toronto: -4
San Jose: -3

 Largest
Seattle - 2.00 - Vancouver
Columbus - 2.00 - Philadelphia
Chicago - 2.00 - Montreal

Smallest
New England - 0.00 - Los Angeles
San Jose - 0.00 - Houston
Salt Lake - 0.25 - Toronto
Portland - 0.25 - New York
Philadelphia - 0.25 - Chivas
Montreal - 0.25 - San Jose/Houston

 0 positions: Seattle
2 position: Montreal
3 positions: D.C., New England, Columbus
4 positions: Houston
5 positions: Vancouver, Salt Lake
6 positions: San Jose
7 positions: Portland
8 positions: Philadelphia
9 positions: Los Angeles, Chicago
10 positions: Toronto, Colorado
11 positions: New York
12 positions: Dallas, Chivas
13 positions: Kansas City


Season Average Power Ranking

W17
 W16
 Team
 		W17 Avg W16 Avg W14 Avg W13 Avg W12 Avg W11 Avg W10 Avg W9 Avg W8 Avg
1
 1
 Salt Lake
 3.09
 2.90
 2.29
 2.05
 1.92
 1.92
 1.97
 2.05
 2.05
2
 2
 Seattle 3.65
 3.82
 3.88
 4.10
 4.36 4.52 4.71 4.84 5.32
3
 3
 Kansas City 4.35
 4.31
 4.62
 4.48
 4.15
 4.03
 3.94
 4.13
 4.28
4
 4
 Vancouver 6.73
 6.97
 6.62
 6.92
 7.26 7.50 7.77 8.08 8.20
5
 5
 Toronto 7.38
 7.44
 7.59
 7.73
 7.79
 7.63
 7.51
 7.01
 6.43
6
 6
 Los Angeles 7.55
 7.45
 7.65
 7.52
 7.49
 7.58
 7.28
 7.20
 6.97
7
 7
 Dallas 7.99
 7.95
 7.38
 7.07
 6.52
 6.07
 5.69
 5.33
 5.25
8
 8
 Colorado 8.61
 8.68
 8.62
 8.61
 8.86
 8.99
 8.84
 8.81
 9.11
9
 9
 New England 9.23
 9.23
 9.37
 9.70
 10.22
 11.01
 11.92
 12.88
 13.76
10
 10
 Columbus 9.53
 9.36
 8.78
 8.49
 8.14
 7.87
 7.30
 6.70
 6.42
11
 11
 Houston 10.72
 10.27
 9.79
 9.31
 8.91
 8.59
 8.63
 8.24
 7.80
12
 12
 New York 10.91
 10.90
 11.54
 11.67
 11.62
 11.56
 11.64
 12.01
 12.67
13
 13
 D.C. 11.50
 12.00
 12.19
 12.76
 13.34
 13.83
 14.44
 15.19
 15.68
14
 14
 Portland 12.42
 12.52
 13.45
 13.64
 13.74
 13.65
 13.34
 13.09
 12.92
15
 15
 Philadelphia 12.84
 12.75
 12.90
 12.69
 12.41
 11.91
 11.42
 10.75
 10.14
16
 16 San Jose 14.33
 14.10
 14.23
 14.35
 14.72 14.92 14.98 15.24 15.24
17
 17
 Chicago 15.52
 15.51
 15.60
 15.55
 15.51
 15.51
 15.75
 15.78
 15.55
18
 18
 Chivas 15.54
 15.60
 15.29
 15.04
 14.72
 14.62
 14.58
 14.38
 13.86
19
 19
 Montreal
 17.56
 17.55
 17.87
 17.90
 17.95
 17.87
 17.81
 17.72
 17.82


Team High/Low
Best and worst placement for each team

Team
 		Weekly
High 		Weekly
Low
 		Season
High
 		Season
Low
Chicago Fire
 13
 18
 16
 18
Chivas USA
 12
 19
 13
 18
Colorado Rapids
 4
 14
 8
 13
Columbus Crew
 2
 14
 5
 11
D.C. United
 3
 19
 13
 19
FC Dallas
 1
 14
 3
 11
Houston Dynamo
 1
 19
 2
 11
LA Galaxy
 5
 11
 5
 9
Montreal Impact
 16
 19
 17
 19
New England Revolution
 1
 18
 9
 17
New York Red Bulls
 7
 17
 8
 14
Philadelphia Union
 3
 18
 8
 15
Portland Timbers
 3
 18
 4
 15
Real Salt Lake
 1
 9
 1
 1
San Jose Earthquakes
 10
 18
 14
 17
Seattle Sounders
 1
 9
 2
 6
Sporting Kansas City
 2
 9
 2
 3
Toronto FC
 2
 12
 4
 12
Vancouver Whitecaps
 2
 11
 4
 9
  • In the weekly averages 5 teams have been ranked 1st (Dallas, Houston, New England, Salt Lake, Seattle), and 3 teams have placed last (Chivas, D.C., Montreal).
  • In the season averages only 1 team has been ranked 1st (Salt Lake), and 2 teams last (D.C., Montreal).


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

  • Group 1 - the "Big" sites (ESPN, SI, MLS, PST) *ESPN & MLS done last week.
  • Group 2 - the "dead" sites (Northbank, Reddit, SBI, UTN)
  • Group 3 - Newspapers (Dallas, Deseret, Oregon, SA)
  • Group 4 - Fan blogs (Allvoices, B&R, Multiplex, Seattle)

To avoid making each article longer than necessary I'll split the groups of 4 into 2 separate pieces over the next 8 weeks (or less since some sites have stopped).  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.

ProSoccerTalk (prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com)

Site WEEK C-Fire CUSA C-Rpd Ccrw DCU FCD H-Dyn LAG M-Ipt NER NYRB Puni Ptim RSL SJEq Ssdr SKC TFC Vwcp
03/12/14 1 18 14 11 10 19 15 8 5 17 16 9 7 3 1 11 6 2 11 4
03/18/14 2 17 11 14 9 19 13 2 8 15 18 16 3 6 1 7 10 5 4 12
03/25/14 3 15 14 11 3 19 8 6 9 18 17 16 5 13 2 10 7 4 1 12
04/01/14 4 17 15 11 3 19 8 6 9 16 12 18 5 13 1 14 7 2 4 10
04/08/14 5 14 15 10 4 19 6 8 5 17 16 18 9 12 2 13 7 1 3 11
04/15/14 6 14 15 8 4 17 7 12 6 18 11 19 9 16 2 13 5 1 3 10
04/23/14 7 14 18 8 7 16 5 11 4 19 10 17 12 15 2 13 3 1 6 9
04/30/14 8 13 18 10 7 15 5 16 4 19 11 8 17 14 3 12 1 2 6 9
05/06/14 9 16 19 10 6 15 5 14 4 18 7 8 17 12 3 13 1 2 11 9
05/13/14 10 14 17 16 11 9 10 13 5 19 3 7 18 15 2 8 4 1 12 6
05/20/14 11 13 17 18 10 12 14 9 6 19 1 7 15 16 2 10 3 4 8 5
05/27/14 12 15 17 14 11 7 13 12 5 19 1 10 18 16 2 9 3 4 8 5
n/a 13


















n/a 14


















Average
14.39 15.31 11.46 7.15 15.00 8.92 9.31 5.54 17.08 9.85 11.85 10.92 11.77 2.00 10.62 4.62 2.39 6.15 8.23
All Site average
15.60
 15.29
 8.62
 8.78
 12.19
 7.38
 9.79
 7.65
 17.87
 9.37
 11.54
 12.90
 13.45
 2.29
 14.23
 3.88
 4.62
 7.59
 6.62
+ / -
-1.21
 +0.02
 +2.84
 -1.63
 +2.81
 +1.54
 -0.48
 -2.11
 -0.79
 +0.48
 +0.31
 -1.98
 -1.68
 -0.29
 -3.61
 +0.74
 -2.23
 -1.44
 +1.61
  • Consistency: Missed twice since start of season (likely due to increased World Cup coverage).
  • Bias: 4 teams with a variance above 2; highest was -3.61, closest to average was +0.02
  • Fairness: Excluding the first 5 weeks the largest jumps were New York (9 pos. Wk 8), D.C. (6 pos. Wk 10), New England (5 pos. Wk 6), Houston (5 pos. Wk 8), Toronto (5 pos. Wk 9), Dallas (5 pos. Wk 10), San Jose (5 pos. Wk 10).  As with the MLS ratings there were only 2 jumps higher than 5, the 9 position jump for New York is quite excessive coming after back to back wins over two struggling teams.

Sports Illustrated (www.si.com/soccer/planet-futbol)

Site WEEK C-Fire CUSA C-Rpd Ccrw DCU FCD H-Dyn LAG M-Ipt NER NYRB Puni Ptim RSL SJEq Ssdr SKC TFC Vwcp
03/11/14 1 17 16 11 13 19 10 6 7 18 9 5 8 3 1 14 4 2 15 12
03/17/14 2 17 12 10 13 19 9 1 8 18 15 6 2 5 3 16 7 4 11 14
03/24/14 3 16 13 9 10 18 8 1 7 19 15 12 3 11 4 17 6 2 5 14
03/31/14 4 17 13 10 1 19 4 5 8 18 14 12 6 15 3 16 9 2 7 11
04/07/14 5 16 14 9 4 18 2 6 10 19 13 12 7 15 1 17 8 5 3 11
04/14/14 6 15 12 7 2 17 4 10 9 19 11 14 8 16 1 18 6 3 5 13
04/21/14 7 16 14 8 4 15 3 10 7 19 11 13 9 17 1 18 5 2 6 12
04/28/14 8 16 15 9 5 12 4 14 7 18 10 8 13 19 1 17 2 3 6 11
05/05/14 9 19 16 7 10 13 6 12 9 17 5 4 14 15 2 18 1 3 11 8
05/12/14 10 18 14 9 13 10 8 12 7 19 4 6 17 15 1 16 3 2 11 5
05/19/14 11 17 13 10 14 12 6 11 7 19 3 8 15 16 1 18 2 5 9 4
05/26/14 12 18 13 7 12 11 9 14 5 19 1 10 17 15 2 16 3 6 8 4
06/02/14 13 19 18 5 13 9 12 15 8 18 3 10 16 11 4 14 1 7 6 2
n/a 14


















Average
16.64 14.43 8.57 9.36 15.00 6.86 8.93 7.43 18.29 8.57 8.86 10.36 12.57 1.93 16.29 4.57 3.36 8.36 9.71
All Site average
15.60
 15.29
 8.62
 8.78
 12.19
 7.38
 9.79
 7.65
 17.87
 9.37
 11.54
 12.90
 13.45
 2.29
 14.23
 3.88
 4.62
 7.59
 6.62
+ / -
+1.04
 -0.86
 -0.05
 +0.58
 +2.81
 -0.52
 -0.86
 -0.22
 +0.42
 -0.80
 -2.68
 -2.54
 -0.88
 -0.36
 +2.06
 +0.69
 -1.26
 +0.77
 +3.09
  • Consistency: Missed publishing once since start of season (likely due to increased World Cup coverage).
  • Bias: 5 teams with a variance above 2; highest was +3.09, closest to average was -0.05
  • Fairness: Excluding the first 5 weeks the largest jumps were New York (5 pos. Wk 8), Columbus (5 pos. Wk 9), New England (5 pos. Wk 9), Toronto (5 pos. Wk 9), Chivas (5 pos. Wk 13).  With only 5 teams making jumps of 5 positions S.I. is easily the most fair of this group.

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