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MLS Power Ranking Averages Week 22 - Portland makes a big move

Wk 22 Power Ranking Avg's from 9 sites. Includes High / Low and overall season totals. Also evaluation of 2 sites used.

By Kreg Asay
Jaime Valdez-USA TODAY Sports


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 Team
 		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
 Largest
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 Team
 		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

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
 9
 19
FC Dallas
 1
 14
 3
 11
Houston Dynamo
 1
 19
 2
 14
LA Galaxy
 1
 11
 4
 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
 2
San Jose Earthquakes
 10
 18
 14
 17
Seattle Sounders
 1
 9
 1
 6
Sporting Kansas City
 1
 9
 2
 3
Toronto FC
 2
 12
 4
 12
Vancouver Whitecaps
 2
 11
 4
 9
  • 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.

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