Predicting the Final Standings

by Ryan Gates on May 22, 2011 11:04 PM PDT

Is this team going to be seen in the play-offs? (Photo by Steve Dykes/Getty Images)

So today I totally geeked out. I was looking this awesome website that predicts the play-off chances for all of the MLS. I know I have shared it before but I was looking at it a little more in depth and it has the Portland Timbers chances at 76%. Compared to the other expansion team, Vancouver Whitecaps at 6.4%, I really think the Timbers are really exceeding some expectations.

What really got me to geek out was the fact that I started thinking about where Portland might fall in the standings. I knew there was only one way to predict that and it was by using points per game. Which then led me to think about the difference between Portland on the road and Portland at home. Is straight points per game a good metric or should I factor in road vs home points per game? I decided to totally geek out and calculate them all.

So find out what I found out after the jump.

So to get the calculations I am going to share with you I did some simple spreadsheet math. First I calculated the points per game based on total game played and points. I did this by dividing the points by the total games played. Then I took that number and multiplied by the remaining number of games each team had. Once I found out how many points, given their form over the first quarter of the season, they would earn and added it to the points they currently have.

Here is what I got(The order of the teams is the current standings order):

West:

Club	Points per game	Games left	Future Points	Total Points	Final spot
LA Galaxy	1.769230769	21	37	60	2
Seattle Sounders FC	1.416666667	22	31	48	6
FC Dallas	1.7	24	41	58	3
Portland Timbers	1.7	24	41	58	3
Real Salt Lake	2.285714286	27	62	78	1
Colorado Rapids	1.454545455	23	33	49	5
Chivas USA	1.2	24	29	41	7
San Jose Earthquakes	1.2	24	29	41	7
Vancouver Whitecaps	0.727272727	23	17	25	9

East

Team	Points per game	Games left	Future Points	Total Points	Final spot
Philadelphia Union	1.7	24	41	58	1
New York Red Bulls	1.6	24	38	54	2
Houston Dynamo	1.272727273	23	29	43	4
Columbus Crew	1.3	24	31	44	3
New England Revolution	1.181818182	23	27	40	6
D.C. United	1.2	24	29	41	5
Toronto FC	1	22	22	34	7
Chicago Fire	0.8	24	19	27	8
Sporting Kansas City	0.5	26	13	17	9

As you can see the East will shake out about the same but the West will look differently than the current standings. Especially if Real Salt Lake can keep up the 2.2 ppg they are currently getting, I really doubt they can I think they will fall back to earth with a 1.6 or 1.7 ppg. If these standings are what the final standing would look like the Play-off teams would be LA Galaxy, RSL, Seattle Sounders, Colorado Rapids, Portland Timbers, FC Dallas, New York Redbulls, Philadelphia Union, Columbus Crew and Houston Dynamo.

If you take a look at the East leading Union you can see even they rarely win on the road, with a 1-3-0 record. So the question is what if we separate the home and away games and calculate them separately for points per game. I used the same calculations as I used for overall points per game only for home and away games.

West

Club	Home PPG	Away PPG	Home Left	Away Left	Points	Total Points	Final Standing
LA Galaxy	2.2	1.5	12	9	40	63	2
Seattle Sounders FC	1.833333	1.2	11	12	35	52	5
FC Dallas	2.166667	1	11	13	37	54	4
Portland Timbers	3	0.4	12	12	41	58	3
Real Salt Lake	2.5	2	13	14	61	77	1
Colorado Rapids	1.6	1.333333	12	11	34	50	6
Chivas USA	1	1.6	13	12	32	44	7
San Jose Earthquakes	1.333333	1	11	13	28	40	8
Vancouver Whitecaps	1.166667	0.2	11	12	15	23	9

East (I know Sporting Kansas City is the one outlier, so what I did was took a league average of 1.87 ppg and subtracted .5 from it just cause that sounded good. I can't quite figure a way out to give the a number for home ppg)

Team	Home PPG	Away PPG	Home Left	Away Left	Points	Total	Final standings
Philadelphia Union	2.333333	0.75	11	13	35	52	2
New York Red Bulls	2.5	1.2	13	12	47	63	1
Houston Dynamo	1.666667	0.8	11	12	28	42	4
Columbus Crew	2.2	0.4	12	12	31	44	3
New England Revolution	1.833333	0.4	11	12	25	38	5
D.C. United	1.5	0.75	11	13	26	38	5
Toronto FC	1.428571	0.4	10	12	19	31	7
Chicago Fire	1.25	0.5	13	11	22	30	8
Sporting Kansas City	1.57(arbitrary)	0.5	17	9	28	32	9

As you can see it does change the amount of points each team receives. Here they are side by side:

West

Club	Total Points(overall ppg)	Total Points(Home and Away)
LA Galaxy	60	63
Seattle Sounders FC	48	52
FC Dallas	58	54
Portland Timbers	58	58
Real Salt Lake	78	77
Colorado Rapids	49	50
Chivas USA	41	44
San Jose Earthquakes	41	40
Vancouver Whitecaps	25	23

East

Team	Total Points(overall ppg)	Total Points (Home and Away)
Philadelphia Union	58	52
New York Red Bulls	54	63
Houston Dynamo	43	42
Columbus Crew	44	44
New England Revolution	40	38
D.C. United	41	38
Toronto FC	34	31
Chicago Fire	27	30
Sporting Kansas City	17	32

Surprisingly the Timbers total points don't change at all, of course the home and away has the away ppg at 3 which means Portland only picked up 7 points on the road. Also the only difference between the play-off bound teams is that Chivas USA swaps with the Dynamo.

Either way I think the only Cascadia team not in the play-offs is the our friends to the far north. Seattle and Portland look destined to be right next to each other in the standings.

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Comments

If we make the playoffs in our first mls season that would be awesome. A win or two in the mls cup would be insane!

by botanyjames on May 23, 2011 6:58 AM PDT via mobile reply actions

Fascinating.

I mean it’s just predictions, but still an interesting look at the final 2/3rds of the season. If we come ahead of Seattle in points I think I’d be just the happiest person ever.

RCTID - Stumptown Footy
Moderator of /r/MLS

by Geoff Gibson on May 23, 2011 9:33 AM PDT reply actions

Any web site regularly have PPM in their MLS standings?

So, has anyone found a website that shows points per match in the standings on a regular basis (i.e. other than Ryan generating these manually each time here)? It’s no more of an advanced stat than the winning percentage that lots of web sites show for almost every other sport. Seems odd that I haven’t found one yet for that does this for MLS.

by LasloHlyfeld on May 23, 2011 9:33 AM PDT reply actions

Hmmm

I don’t know of one that just shows it automatically but there are quite a few that calculate it manually like I did.

Contributing editor to Stumptown Footy the Portland Timbers SBN blog.

by Ryan Gates on May 23, 2011 9:55 AM PDT up reply actions

Setting the table

http://www.settingthetable.info/home/

Jag kom, jag såg, erövrade jag.

by Kejsare on May 23, 2011 10:13 AM PDT up reply actions

There has to be a way to correct this for strength of schedule.

For instance, Flounders fans point out that two of their team’s three losses came to Los Angeles and New York, which are regarded to be the best teams in the league this year.

Incidentally, the Sounders have apparently highlighted their matches with us (or ESPN took the liberty of doing so). I’ve never seen this before on the Worldwide Leader’s website.

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/team/fixtures/_/league/usa.1/id/9726/seattle-sounders-fc?cc=5901

I write for Stumptown Footy, SB Nation's Portland Timbers blog.

by thehemogoblin on May 23, 2011 9:58 AM PDT reply actions

Hmmm

Good question. I bet we could set up a formula if we had all of the results in an excel format. Let me think about that.

Contributing editor to Stumptown Footy the Portland Timbers SBN blog.

by Ryan Gates on May 23, 2011 10:05 AM PDT up reply actions

Long live JavaScript

If you can embed JavaScript in your pages, you can calculate this automatically. :D Let me know if you want me to code something up for you.

by seangates on May 23, 2011 10:49 AM PDT up reply actions

The Timbers' next few games are probably the toughest stretch they've had yet

Chivas won’t be too bad, but then it’s DC, Colorado, and NYRB. Hopefully they’ll play Colorado tougher than they did Opening Day, but after the next few weeks Sounders fans won’t be able to whine about strength of schedule any more. And hopefully we’ll have something to gloat about.

by pdb on May 23, 2011 10:48 AM PDT up reply actions

I'm not worried...

DC United won’t be too much of a challenge (at least on paper), although I am very excited to see Charlie Davies play (hopefully!)

Chivas USA away from home is going to be an interesting test. Hopefully it’s the game that the guys use to break their away game funk.

Colorado are always intimidating, but they’re not riding quite as high as they were last March.

New York will be a challenge. This is the only game I’m worried about.

RCTID - Stumptown Footy
Moderator of /r/MLS

by Geoff Gibson on May 23, 2011 11:08 AM PDT up reply actions

I need to go rewatch the Timbers/Colorado game now that we're deeper into the season

to see if 3-1 was because Colorado were that good or because Portland were that bad. When I watched it at the time, all I could see was how bad Portland were playing, and I didn’t really pay attention to Colorado at all. I’m still a little nervous about that game, but not as much as against NYRB.

It will be awesome to see Thierry Henry play in person again, I haven’t seen him in person in 10 years, but otherwise that game kinda scares me.

by pdb on May 23, 2011 11:12 AM PDT up reply actions

CD9 might be out until June.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/united/dc-united-vs-ajax-dutch-clubs-late-strike-sinks-united-in-friendly-at-rfk-stadium/2011/05/22/AFUPlM9G_story.html

Davies, who seems unlikely to return until the Galaxy match June 3, joined the Screaming Eagles and Barra Brava supporters groups in the second half for song and drum sessions.

Jag kom, jag såg, erövrade jag.

by Kejsare on May 23, 2011 9:44 PM PDT up reply actions