Power Ranking Averages - Week 18: Chivas on the rise

MLS Power Ranking Averages - Week 18

"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 14-18)
• Dallas News Soccer Blog (www.soccerblog.dallasnews.com) - (No ranking Week 14-18)
• Deseret News (www.deseretnews.com) - (No ranking Week 13-18)
• ESPN (espn.go.com/sports/soccer/mls)
• Fansided-MLS Multiplex (fansided.com/category/soccer/mls/mls-multiplex)
• Major League Soccer (www.mlssoccer.com)0.
• Northbank-RSL (www.northbankrsl.com) - (No ranking Weeks 9-18)
• Oregon Live (www.oregonlive.com/timbers)
  
• ProSoccerTalk (prosoccertalk.nbcsports.com) - (No ranking Week 13-18)
• Reddit/MLS (www.reddit.com/r/MLS) - (No ranking Weeks 10-18)
• Seattle Times Blog (blogs.seattletimes.com/soundersfc) - (No ranking Week 16-18 *writer resigned)
• Soccer America (www.socceramerica.com)
• Soccer by Ives (www.soccerbyives.net) - (No ranking Weeks 10-18)
• Sports Illustrated (www.soccer.si.com) - (No ranking Week 14-18)
• UTN Sports (www.utnsports.com/category/soccer) - (No ranking Weeks 6-18)

Many sites have not yet resumed publishing Power Rankings following the World Cup break.

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.

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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 18	Week 17	Week 16	Week 14	Team	W18 Avg	W17 Avg	W16 Avg	W14 Avg	Low	High	Var
1	1	1	1	Seattle	1.00	1.00	1.00	1.00	1	1	0
2	3	5	3	D.C.	2.50	3.50	6.25	4.80	4	2	2
3	4	3	7	Kansas City	4.50	5.00	4.75	6.40	11	2	9
4	6	2	6	Toronto	4.75	6.50	4.50	5.80	8	4	4
5	9	8	9	Los Angeles	6.50	9.25	7.75	9.40	8	3	5
6	7	5	8	Colorado	7.00	7.50	6.25	8.80	12	3	9
7	2	4	2	Vancouver	7.25	3.00	5.00	2.60	10	4	6
8	5	9	5	Salt Lake	8.00	6.25	8.75	5.40	13	5	8
9	8	10	12	Dallas	8.25	8.75	10.50	11.40	12	2	10
10	12	11	10	New York	9.25	11.00	11.25	9.80	10	3	7
11	15	18	19	Chivas	11.00	14.50	17.25	18.60	13	4	9
12	9	7	4	New England	13.00	9.25	7.25	5.00	15	10	5
13	11	12	11	Portland	13.50	10.75	11.75	11.00	16	11	5
14	16	17	17	Chicago	13.75	15.75	16.25	16.20	16	5	11
15	14	14	15	Philadelphia	14.25	14.25	13.25	15.60	17	7	10
16	13	13	13	Columbus	15.00	12.25	12.75	12.60	16	12	4
17	17	16	18	Montreal	17.75	17.75	15.75	17.40	19	17	2
18	18	15	13	San Jose	18.00	18.00	14.00	12.60	19	15	4
19	18	19	16	Houston	18.25	18.00	18.75	16.00	19	17	2

Biggest Changes	Point Gaps	High / Low Variance
Rise Los Angeles : +4 Chivas: +4 Fall Vancouver: -5 Salt Lake: -3 New England: -3 Columbus: -3	Largest Columbus - 2.75 - Montreal D.C. - 2.00 - Kansas City Chivas - 2.00 - New England Smallest Kansas City - 0.25 - Toronto Colorado - 0.25 - Vancouver Salt Lake - 0.25 - Dallas Portland - 0.25 - Chicago Montreal - 0.25 - San Jose San Jose - 0.25 - Houston	0 positions: Seattle 2 position: D.C., Montreal, Houston 4 positions: Toronto, Columbus, San Jose 5 positions: Los Angeles, New England, Portland 6 positions: Vancouver 7 positions: New York 8 positions: Salt Lake 9 positions: Kansas City, Colorado, Chivas 10 positions: Dallas, Philadelphia 11 positions: Chicago

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Season Average Power Ranking

W18	W17	W16	Team	W18 Avg	W17 Avg	W16 Avg	W14 Avg	W13 Avg	W12 Avg	W11 Avg	W10 Avg	W9 Avg
1	1	1	Salt Lake	3.37	3.09	2.90	2.29	2.05	1.92	1.92	1.97	2.05
2	2	2	Seattle	3.50	3.65	3.82	3.88	4.10	4.36	4.52	4.71	4.84
3	3	3	Kansas City	4.36	4.35	4.31	4.62	4.48	4.15	4.03	3.94	4.13
4	4	4	Vancouver	6.76	6.73	6.97	6.62	6.92	7.26	7.50	7.77	8.08
5	5	5	Toronto	7.23	7.38	7.44	7.59	7.73	7.79	7.63	7.51	7.01
6	6	6	Los Angeles	7.50	7.55	7.45	7.65	7.52	7.49	7.58	7.28	7.20
7	7	7	Dallas	8.01	7.99	7.95	7.38	7.07	6.52	6.07	5.69	5.33
8	8	8	Colorado	8.52	8.61	8.68	8.62	8.61	8.86	8.99	8.84	8.81
8	10	10	Columbus	8.52	9.53	9.36	8.78	8.49	8.14	7.87	7.30	6.70
10	9	9	New England	9.44	9.23	9.23	9.37	9.70	10.22	11.01	11.92	12.88
11	12	12	New York	10.82	10.91	10.90	11.54	11.67	11.62	11.56	11.64	12.01
12	13	13	D.C.	11.00	11.50	12.00	12.19	12.76	13.34	13.83	14.44	15.19
13	11	11	Houston	11.14	10.72	10.27	9.79	9.31	8.91	8.59	8.63	8.24
14	14	14	Portland	12.48	12.42	12.52	13.45	13.64	13.74	13.65	13.34	13.09
15	15	15	Philadelphia	12.92	12.84	12.75	12.90	12.69	12.41	11.91	11.42	10.75
16	16	16	San Jose	14.54	14.33	14.10	14.23	14.35	14.72	14.92	14.98	15.24
17	18	18	Chivas	15.30	15.54	15.60	15.29	15.04	14.72	14.62	14.58	14.38
18	17	17	Chicago	15.43	15.52	15.51	15.60	15.55	15.51	15.51	15.75	15.78
19	19	19	Montreal	17.57	17.56	17.55	17.87	17.90	17.95	17.87	17.81	17.72

Team High/Low
Best and worst placement for each team

Team	Weekly Best	Weekly Worst	Season Best	Season Worst
Chicago Fire	13	18	16	18
Chivas USA	11	19	13	18
Colorado Rapids	4	14	8	13
Columbus Crew	2	16	5	11
D.C. United	2	19	12	19
FC Dallas	1	14	3	11
Houston Dynamo	1	19	2	13
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).
• 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.
  

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Site Evaluations

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

• Group 1 - the "Big" sites (ESPN, SI, MLS, PST) *(see weeks 16 & 17)
  
• Group 2 - the "dead" sites (Northbank, Reddit, SBI, UTN) *(this week)
  
• 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.

Soccer By Ives (soccerbyives.net/sbi-mls-power-rankings)
SBI stopped publishing with week 10.  Last year they published a handful of Power Rankings after mid-season.
All site average below is based on Wk 10 rather than Wk 14, otherwise variance is skewed.

Pub. Date	WK	CHI	CHV	COL	CLB	DCU	FCD	HOU	LAG	MON	NER	NYRB	PHI	POR	RSL	SJE	SEA	SKC	TFC	VAN
03/12/14	1	19	16	14	13	18	12	6	5	17	11	9	8	3	1	15	2	4	10	7
03/19/14	2	17	13	14	12	19	10	2	4	18	16	11	5	8	1	15	6	7	3	9
03/26/14	3	16	15	10	7	19	9	2	4	18	17	13	8	12	3	14	5	6	1	11
04/04/14	4	17	14	11	2	19	3	9	5	18	15	13	10	12	1	16	6	7	4	8
04/11/14	5	14	15	8	5	16	1	11	4	19	17	13	10	12	2	18	6	7	3	9
04/17/14	6	17	14	5	7	10	2	15	3	19	11	12	13	16	1	18	4	8	6	9
04/23/14	7	16	15	6	8	10	2	14	5	19	11	12	13	17	1	18	3	4	7	9
04/30/14	8	18	19	11	5	8	3	13	4	15	9	12	16	17	2	14	1	6	10	7
05/07/14	9	18	19	8	7	11	6	13	9	16	5	10	17	14	2	15	1	3	12	4
05/15/14	10	16	18	10	9	6	8	14	7	19	2	11	17	13	1	15	3	5	12	4
n/a	11
n/a	12
n/a	13
n/a	14
Average		16.91	16.09	9.82	8.09	13.91	6.18	9.91	4.82	17.55	11.18	10.91	11.36	11.45	1.82	15.55	3.91	5.27	6.82	8.45
All Site average		15.75	14.57	8.82	7.31	14.34	5.69	8.60	7.30	17.81	11.91	11.69	11.43	13.33	1.97	14.98	4.71	3.94	7.51	7.77
+/-		+1.16	+1.52	+1.00	+0.78	-0.43	+0.49	+1.31	-2.48	-0.26	-0.73	-0.78	-0.07	-1.88	-0.15	+0.57	-0.80	+1.33	-0.69	+0.68

• Consistency: 4 dates missed
  
• Bias: 1 team with a variance over 2; highest was -2.48 and closest to average was -0.07
  
• Fairness: I exclude weeks 1-5 due to both teams and raters getting settled.  The largest jumps after Wk5 were D.C (6 pos. Wk6), New England (6 pos. Wk 6), (Colorado (5 pos. Wk8), L.A. (5 pos. Wk 9).  That's only four jumps of 5 or more from week 6 to 10.  Some may certainly be explained, others may not without more examination.  SBI was performing far better than all of the 'big' sites before stopping.

Northbank-RSL (northbankrsl.com)
Northbank-RSL stopped publishing with week 8.  This is the first year I've tracked them.
All site average below is based on Wk 8 rather than Wk 14, otherwise variance is skewed.

Pub. Date	WK	CHI	CHV	COL	CLB	DCU	FCD	HOU	LAG	MON	NER	NYRB	PHI	POR	RSL	SJE	SEA	SKC	TFC	VAN
03/13/14	1	18	12	15	6	19	11	4	5	14	16	10	9	8	2	17	7	3	13	1
03/18/14	2	16	4	13	3	19	10	1	5	17	18	12	7	11	2	14	15	6	8	9
03/26/14	3	16	10	12	2	19	7	1	6	18	17	13	9	14	5	15	11	3	4	8
04/01/14	4	18	9	14	1	19	6	5	7	15	12	11	10	16	3	17	13	2	8	4
04/09/14	5	17	12	9	6	18	2	8	5	19	15	11	10	14	1	16	13	3	4	7
04/17/14	6	18	12	4	7	17	5	13	3	19	10	14	9	15	1	16	8	2	6	11
04/23/14	7	18	14	6	8	15	5	13	3	19	9	11	12	17	1	16	4	2	7	10
05/01/14	8	19	17	12	9	10	11	15	3	18	6	5	14	16	2	13	1	4	7	8
n/a	9
n/a	10
n/a	11
n/a	12
n/a	13
n/a	14
Average		17.5	11.25	10.63	5.25	17.00	7.13	7.50	4.63	17.38	12.88	10.88	10.00	13.88	2.13	15.50	9.00	3.13	7.13	7.25
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
+/-		+1.96	-2.61	+1.52	-1.17	+1.32	+1.88	-0.30	-2.34	-0.44	-0.88	-1.79	-0.14	+0.96	+0.08	+0.26	+3.68	-1.15	+0.70	-0.95

• Consistency: 6 dates missed
• Bias: 3 teams with a variance above 2; the highest was +3.68, closest to average was +0.08.
  
• Fairness: Excluding weeks 1-5 due to both teams and raters getting settled.  Jumps after week 5 include Colorado (5 pos. Wk 6, 6 pos. Wk 8), D.C. (5 pos. Wk 8), Dallas (5 pos. Wk 8), Houston (5 pos. Wk 6), New England (5 pos. Wk6), New York (6 pos. Wk8), Seattle (5 pos. Wk6).  With the exclusion of Wks 1-5 that gives 8 jumps of 5 or more in only 4 weeks, with most coming in either Wk 6 or Wk8.  This trend would indicate that the author was performing worse than others.

Reddit - MLS (reddit.com/r/MLS)
The Reddit ratings were done by vote of subscribers to that subgroup and results averaged.  The author stopped publishing after week 9.  This is the first year I've tracked them.
All site average below is based on Wk 9 rather than Wk 14, otherwise variance is skewed.

Pub. Date	WK	CHI	CHV	COL	CLB	DCU	FCD	HOU	LAG	MON	NER	NYRB	PHI	POR	RSL	SJE	SEA	SKC	TFC	VAN
03/15/14	1	16	15	14	7	19	10	3	8	18	17	11	9	5	1	13	2	6	12	4
03/20/14	2	16	11	15	9	19	12	1	10	17	18	14	4	8	2	13	6	5	3	7
03/27/14	3	16	13	10	4	19	3	1	11	18	17	15	9	12	5	14	5	7	2	8
04/04/14	4	16	11	12	1	19	1	5	10	18	14	13	9	15	4	17	8	3	7	5
04/10/14	5	15	13	8	5	16	1	10	7	19	17	14	11	12	2	18	5	4	3	9
04/17/14	6	14	15	4	7	12	1	11	6	19	12	18	9	16	2	16	3	4	8	10
04/22/14	7	15	16	7	6	14	2	11	5	19	13	12	10	18	1	17	3	4	8	9
05/01/14	8	16	17	11	6	7	3	13	5	17	12	8	15	19	2	14	1	4	10	9
05/08/14	9	16	19	7	9	11	4	12	10	18	5	6	17	15	2	14	1	3	13	8
n/a	10
n/a	11
n/a	12
n/a	13
n/a	14
Average	Ave	15	14.9	10.3	6.6	15.3	5.3	7.5	7.6	18.1	13.4	11.4	10.4	12.2	2.6	14.8	4	4.1	7.3	8.2
All Site Average		15.78	14.38	8.81	6.70	15.19	5.33	8.24	7.20	17.72	12.88	12.01	10.75	13.09	2.05	15.24	4.84	4.13	7.01	8.08
+/-		+0.78	+0.52	+1.49	-0.1	+0.11	-0.03	-0.74	+0.4	+0.38	+0.52	-0.61	-0.35	-0.89	+0.55	-0.44	+0.84	-0.03	+0.29	+0.12

• Consistency: 5 dates missed
  
• Bias: No teams with a variance above 2; highest was -1.49, closest to average was -0.03.  Due to the voting / average system used this site showed the least bias.
  
• Fairness: The highest jumps after week 5 were D.C. (7 pos. Wk8), L.A. (5 pos. Wk9), N.E. (5 pos. Wk9), N.Y. (6 pos. Wk7), Philadelphia (5 pos. Wk8), Toronto (5 pos. Wk6).  That makes 6 jumps of 5 or more between weeks 6-9; which is higher than some others, but better than others.
  

UTN Sports (utnsports.com/category/soccer)

UTN stopped publishing with week 4.  Weeks in parenthesis indicate off-set numbering due to starting in preseason.  This is the first year I've tracked them.
All site average below is based on Wk 4 rather than Wk 14, otherwise variance is skewed.

Pub. Date	WK	CHI	CHV	COL	CLB	DCU	FCD	HOU	LAG	MON	NER	NYRB	PHI	POR	RSL	SJE	SEA	SKC	TFC	VAN
03/10/14	2 (1)	13	10	9	16	15	17	7	4	19	11	6	18	2	5	14	1	3	8	12
03/17/14	3 (2)	13	10	9	16	15	14	1	4	19	18	8	11	3	7	12	6	5	2	17
03/25/14	4 (3)	12	14	4	10	18	5	6	8	19	16	11	13	9	7	17	3	2	1	15
04/02/14	5 (4)	13	15	10	4	17	1	11	8	18	6	12	14	16	3	19	9	2	7	5
n/a	6 (5)
n/a	7 (6)
n/a	8 (7)
n/a	9 (8)
n/a	10 (9)
n/a	11 (10)
n/a	12 (11)
n/a	13 (12)
n/a	14 (13)
Average		12.8	12.2	8.4	12.6	15.2	11.2	6.6	5.2	18	12	8	14.8	7	5.8	15.2	4.6	2.6	4.8	13
All Site Average		15.86	12.70	11.18	7.12	18.83	7.27	3.57	7.99	17.49	15.40	12.36	8.63	9.74	2.37	13.89	6.40	4.88	6.29	7.37
+/-		-3.06	-0.50	-2.78	+5.48	-3.63	+3.93	+3.03	-2.79	+0.51	-3.40	-4.36	+6.17	-2.74	+3.43	+1.31	-1.80	-2.28	-1.49	+5.63

• Consistency: 9 dates missed
  
• Bias: Only 5 teams with variances BELOW 2; highest was +6.17, closest to average was -0.50.
  
• Fairness: With only 4 weeks published and all within the first weeks when teams and raters aren't settled in yet, it's difficult to judge how fair this site would have been had it continued.