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Power Ranking Averages - Week 16: Seattle still on top

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
Anne-Marie Sorvin-USA TODAY Sports



MLS Power Ranking Averages - Week 16


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


I apologize for the lateness of getting this week's averages sent, there was a recent death in my family.  That also prevented me from doing the evaluation articles I had wanted to do.  I'll start including some of the evaluations at the end of each weekly ratings.
Due to the World Cup starting, a LOT of sites didn't publish Power Rankings again this week.


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 16 Week 14 Week 13 Week 12 Team
 		W16 Avg W14 Avg W13 Avg W12 Avg Low
 		High
 		Var
1
 1
 1
 3
 Seattle 1.00
 1.00
 1.00
 2.56
 1
 1
 0
2
 6
 7
 9
 Toronto 4.50
 5.80
 7.00
 9.56
 8
 2
 6
3
 7
 9
 5
 Kansas City 4.75
 6.40
 8.38
 5.56
 13
 2
 11
4
 2
 2
 4
 Vancouver 5.00
 2.60
 2.88
 4.67
 10
 3
 7
5
 3
 6
 8
 D.C. 6.25
 4.80 5.75 8.00 11
 2
 9
5
 8
 5
 5
 Colorado 6.25
 8.80
 5.63
 7.44
 9
 2
 7
7
 4
 3
 1
 New England 7.25
 5.00
 3.50
 1.56
 9
 4
 5
8
 9
 8
 6
 Los Angeles 7.75
 9.40
 7.88
 6.44
 15
 3
 12
9
 5
 4
 2
 Salt Lake 8.75
 5.40
 3.63
 2.00
 18
 3
 15
10
 12
 14
 11
 Dallas 10.50
 11.40
 13.75
 11.44
 18
 3
 15
11
 10
 11
 12
 New York 11.25
 9.80 12.25 12.33 14
 6
 8
12
 11
 12
 15
 Portland 11.75
 11.00 12.50 14.67 15
 6
 9
13
 13
 13
 10
 Columbus 12.75
 12.60
 12.63
 11.11
 16
 12
 4
14
 15
 16
 18
 Philadelphia 13.25
 15.60
 16.13
 17.89
 15
 2
 13
15
 13
 10
 13 San Jose 14.00
 12.60
 10.00 12.44 17
 11
 6
16
 18
 18
 19
 Montreal 15.75
 17.40
 17.38
 18.78
 17
 7
 10
17
 17
 16
 16
 Chicago 16.25
 16.20
 16.13
 15.44
 19
 4
 15
18
 19
 19
 17
 Chivas 17.25
 18.60
 18.88
 15.78
 19
 15
 4
19
 16
 15
 13
 Houston 18.75
 16.00
 14.13
 12.44
 19
 17
 2


Biggest Changes
 		Point Gaps High / Low Variance
Rise
Toronto : +4
Kansas City : +4
Colorado: +3


Fall
Salt Lake: -4
New England : -3
Houston: -3
 Largest
Seattle - 3.50 - Toronto
Salt Lake - 1.75 - Dallas
San Jose- 1.75 - Montreal


Smallest
D.C. - 0.00 - Colorado
Toronto - 0.25 - Kansas City
Kansas City - 0.25 - Vancouver

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


Season Average Power Ranking

Pos
 Team
 		W16 Avg W14 Avg W13 Avg W12 Avg W11 Avg W10 Avg W9 Avg W8 Avg W7 Avg W6 Avg
1
 Salt Lake
 2.90
 2.29
 2.05
 1.92
 1.92
 1.97
 2.05
 2.05 2.03
 2.14
2
 Seattle 3.82
 3.88
 4.10
 4.36 4.52 4.71 4.84 5.32 5.95 6.39
3
 Kansas City 4.31
 4.62
 4.48
 4.15
 4.03
 3.94
 4.13
 4.28 4.28
 4.53
4
 Vancouver 6.97
 6.62
 6.92
 7.26 7.50 7.77 8.08 8.20 8.28 8.07
5
 Toronto 7.44
 7.59
 7.73
 7.79
 7.63
 7.51
 7.01
 6.43
 6.14
 5.88
6
 Los Angeles 7.45
 7.65
 7.52
 7.49
 7.58
 7.28
 7.20
 6.97
 6.94
 7.17
7
 Dallas 7.95
 7.38
 7.07
 6.52
 6.07
 5.69
 5.33
 5.25 5.29
 5.66
8
 Colorado 8.68
 8.62
 8.61
 8.86
 8.99
 8.84
 8.81
 9.11
 9.00
 9.50
9
 New England 9.23
 9.37
 9.70
 10.22
 11.01
 11.92
 12.88
 13.76
 14.30
 14.81
10
 Columbus 9.36
 8.78
 8.49
 8.14
 7.87
 7.30
 6.70
 6.42 6.54 6.55
11
 Houston 10.27
 9.79
 9.31
 8.91
 8.59
 8.63
 8.24
 7.80 6.82
 5.86
12
 New York 10.90
 11.54
 11.67
 11.62
 11.56
 11.64
 12.01
 12.67
 13.16
 13.24
13
 D.C. 12.00
 12.19
 12.76
 13.34
 13.83
 14.44
 15.19
 15.68
 16.63
 17.38
14
 Portland 12.52
 13.45
 13.64
 13.74
 13.65
 13.34
 13.09
 12.92
 12.19
 11.39
15
 Philadelphia 12.75
 12.90
 12.69
 12.41
 11.91
 11.42
 10.75
 10.14 9.53
 9.16
16 San Jose 14.10
 14.23
 14.35
 14.72 14.92 14.98 15.24 15.24 15.35 15.03
17
 Chicago 15.51
 15.60
 15.55
 15.51
 15.51
 15.75
 15.78
 15.55
 15.56
 15.63
18
 Chivas 15.60
 15.29
 15.04
 14.72
 14.62
 14.58
 14.38
 13.86 13.36
 13.10
19
 Montreal
 17.55
 17.87
 17.90
 17.95
 17.87
 17.81
 17.72
 17.82
 18.01
 17.85


Largest gaps:

  • 2.66 points between Kansas City and Vancouver
  • 1.95 points between Chivas and Montreal
  • 1.41 points between San Jose and Chicago

Smallest gaps:

  • 0.01 points between Toronto and L.A.
  • 0.13 points between New England and Columbus
  • 0.23 points between Portland and Philadelphia

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
 4
 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)
  • 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.

ESPN (espn.go.com/sports/soccer/mls)
Weeks in parenthesis are the site's numbering which is off from the actual due to starting their week 1 at pre-season.



Date 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 (2) 1 17 16 13 11 19 10 6 5 18 15 14 7 4 1 12 2 3 8 9
03/17/14 (3) 2 16 10 14 11 19 6 1 7 18 17 15 3 8 2 13 5 9 4 12
03/24/14 (4) 3 16 13 8 7 19 5 2 11 18 17 14 9 12 3 15 4 6 1 10
03/31/14 (5) 4 16 12 9 1 19 3 7 11 17 14 13 10 15 2 18 8 4 6 5
04/07/14 (6) 5 17 12 6 5 14 1 8 11 18 15 13 10 16 2 19 9 3 4 7
04/14/14 (7) 6 17 14 1 6 10 4 13 8 18 11 15 12 16 2 19 7 3 5 9
04/21/14 (8) 7 16 15 4 5 10 2 13 7 19 11 12 14 17 1 18 6 3 8 9
04/28/14 (9) 8 16 18 8 5 6 3 17 7 14 9 10 15 19 2 13 1 4 11 12
05/05/14 (10) 9 18 19 4 9 8 7 14 10 13 5 6 17 15 2 16 1 3 12 11
05/12/14 (11) 10 16 18 9 14 5 10 12 8 17 1 7 19 15 2 13 4 3 11 6
05/19/14 (12) 11 12 18 11 15 5 13 7 10 17 1 9 19 16 2 14 3 6 8 4
05/26/14 (13) 12 12 17 9 14 5 16 10 6 18 1 11 19 15 2 13 3 7 8 4
06/02/14 (14) 13 14 19 8 15 5 18 12 6 16 2 11 17 13 3 10 1 9 7 4
06/09/14 (15) 14 15 19 9 13 6 17 14 7 16 3 10 18 12 5 11 1 8 4 2
Site Average
15.67 15.93 8.33 9.80 10.93 8.53 9.73 7.80 17.00 8.60 10.93 13.20 13.00 2.47 14.33 4.00 4.80 7.00 7.93
W14 PR Ave
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
+ / -
+0.07
 +0.64
 -0.29
 +1.02
 -1.26
 +1.15
 -0.06
 +0.15
 -0.87
 -0.77
 -0.61
 +0.3
 -0.45
 +0.18
 +0.1
 +0.12
 +0.18
 -0.59
 +1.31
  • Consistency: Perfect.  No dates missed
  • Bias: 4 teams a variance over 1; highest was +1.31 and closest to average was -0.06
  • Fairness: There were a number of large jumps in the first few weeks, I exclude that due to both teams and raters getting settled.  The largest jumps after Wk5 were Colorado (5 pos. Wk6), Houston (5 pos. Wk 6), Montreal (5 pos. Wk 8), San Jose (5 pos. Wk 8), Seattle (5 pos. Wk 8), Colorado (5 pos. Wk 10), Columbus (5 pos. Wk 10), Vancouver (5 pos. Wk 10), Houston (5 pos. Wk 11).  That's nine 5 position jumps from week 6 to 11, there were also numerous 3 and 4 point jumps.  Some may certainly be explained, others may not without more examination.

Major League Soccer (mlssoccer.com/news/power-rankings)
Weeks in parenthesis are the site's numbering which is off from the actual starting W4 due to unknown reasons.

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 16 14 17 8 19 12 5 7 18 13 9 10 4 1 11 3 2 15 6
03/18/14 2 16 15 14 8 19 13 1 7 18 17 9 4 5 2 12 6 3 11 10
03/25/14 3 15 16 11 5 19 1 2 10 18 17 9 8 14 4 13 6 3 7 12
04/01/14 (5) 4 17 14 12 2 19 1 5 9 18 13 11 10 15 4 16 7 3 8 6
04/08/14 (6) 5 14 15 9 4 18 1 8 6 19 16 12 11 13 2 17 7 3 5 10
04/15/14 (7) 6 13 14 7 5 15 2 12 6 19 11 17 9 16 1 18 4 3 8 10
04/22/14 (8) 7 13 16 7 6 15 2 11 5 19 12 14 10 17 1 18 4 3 8 9
04/29/14 (9) 8 15 19 9 6 12 3 13 5 18 11 10 14 17 2 16 1 4 7 8
05/09/14 (10) 9 16 19 8 10 13 6 11 9 18 4 5 15 14 2 17 1 3 12 7
05/13/14 (11) 10 15 17 10 12 9 8 11 7 19 3 6 18 16 1 14 4 2 13 5
05/20/14 (12) 11 14 15 12 11 7 10 8 13 19 2 6 17 18 1 16 3 4 9 5
05/28/14 (13) 12 17 16 10 11 6 12 13 9 19 2 8 18 15 1 14 3 5 7 4
06/03/14 (14) 13 16 19 8 12 5 13 15 9 17 4 10 18 14 2 11 1 7 6 3
06/10/14 (15) 14 16 19 10 12 5 13 18 11 17 7 8 15 9 2 14 1 4 6 3
Average
15.07 16.40 10.67 8.27 13.20 7.47 9.40 7.73 18.33 9.27 9.27 12.53 12.60 2.00 14.40 3.80 3.33 9.07 7.20
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
+ / -
-0.53
 +1.11
 +2.05
 -0.51
 +1.01
 +0.09
 -0.39
 +0.08
 +0.46
 -0.1
 -2.27
 -0.37
 -0.85
 -0.29
 +0.17
 -0.08
 -1.29
 +1.48
 +0.58
  • Consistency: Perfect.  No dates missed
  • Bias: 2 teams with a variance above 2; the highest was -2.27, closest to average was +0.08.
  • Fairness: As with ESPN, there were several large jumps in the early weeks which I exclude for the same reasons above.  Jumps after week 5 include New England (7 pos. Wk 9), LA (6 pos. Wk 11), New York (5 pos. Wk 9), Toronto (5 pos. Wk 9).  While there were less large jumps in position than ESPN, two of them were higher.  New England's jump of 7 positions came after back to back wins, however other teams that shared that feat did receive the same treatment.  LA's tumble of 6 places came after just one loss, and even factoring in their previous 4 (W-D-L-D) it's rather drastic.

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