Power Ranking Averages - Wk 3

Now up to 9 sites publishing rankings, and one site updated late from last week so totals have been changed. Both Massey and Sonny Moore’s rankings were not updated to show Sunday’s games, and the Massey rankings for Austin FC are all N/A because that site has not added them to the list yet.

As always, if you know of a site I have not used please let me know in the comments and I’ll look into adding it to the list!

Sites Used

• Jeff Sagarin
• Five Thirty Eight (Proj. points)
• Who Scored
• ESPN
• Massey
• MLS
• Sonny Moore Rankings
• MLS Fantasy Boss
• 3rd Degree (posts on Fridays)
• Sports Club Stats (Seas. finish avg)
• Sports Rundown (posted preseason only)
• Reutir (posted preseason only)
• Freeborg Power Index (will start after wk 5-6)
• MLS Multiplex (posted preseason only)
• US Soccer Players (monthly)
• Soccer By Ives (posted preseason only)

You may notice the list includes several ‘analytic’ sites; they serve to function as a stable counterbalance or ‘control group’ to the rest which are based more on personal opinions, and those done by ‘group rankers’. There are also sites included that some will argue are ‘prediction rankings’ - but that also is a form of Power Ranking is (see the quote at the top) since it uses algorithms to calculate a team’s likely final position.

All the averages use the Olympic method (I.E. Truncated Mean value) of dropping the highest and lowest scores, and then averaging the rest to reduce bias.

The full spreadsheeet is here.

• Highest Standard Deviation: Philadelphia Union 8.39
• Lowest Standard Deviation: Seattle Sounders 0.33
• Biggest Rise: Austin FC up 14
• Biggest Fall: Toronto FC down 8

Site Bias

All sites are going to have bias, whether conscious (blogs) or due to analytic calculation (based on past performance). This section lets you see the extent that sites are biased for/against teams. Negative totals (-) are bias FOR, positive numbers (+) are bias AGAINST.