Dolphin Ratings - Major League Soccer

Explanation: Each team is listed with its record, overall score differential, and its ratings. Brief explanations of the ratings follow.

Schedule The number in this column is the effective opponent strength of a team. In other words, they would be expected to have the same record had they played all games against an opponent of this predictive rating at a neutral site. Because this calculation depends on the strength of the team in question, it is not possible to rank schedules using these values.
Expected Losses For college teams, this number is the number of losses an average ranked (top 15 hockey; otherwise top 25) team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. For pro teams, this is the number of losses an average team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. Unlike the schedule ranking, this value can be used to rank schedules.
Standard Ranks teams in an order such that a team is "probably better" than all teams ranked lower than it. This calculation uses margin of victory only for computing a team's opponents strengths; the team's rating itself is computed using only wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule
Median Likelihood Determines the likely ratings for each team, based on its wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule. This generally produces the same or similar ratings as the standard ranking.
Predictive Both schedule strength and rating vs. schedule strength are determined considering both the wins and losses and the score differentials. This rating contains none of the biases in the standard rating, but does weight recent games slightly more than past games since those are a better indication of the team's current strength. This rating is the best of the first three for seeing how good teams are, and thus is the best for predicting future results.
Improved RPI Rating The improved RPI formula is similar to the standard RPI, except that the schedule strength is carried out to infinite depth instead of ending with opponents' opponents, thus allows for a better comparison of isolated groups of teams than is given by the standard RPI calculation. It is similar to the simple rating, except that all games are given equal weight.
Predictive-Scoring. This value indicates how many points a team would be expected to score if it played an identical team.
Predictive-Offense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team scores. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to score the league average number of points. This does not necessarily rate a team's offensive abilities, as a fast pace in basketball or big-play defense in football can make a team score more points.
Predictive-Defense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team allows. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to allow the league average number of points. The same caveat in the predictive-offense rating applies here.
Home Scoring. This is an adjustment to the scoring ranking applied at home. Values are nonzero only for baseball, where park effects can be significant.

In order to increase early-season stability, the three main rankings, the improved RPI, and the college pseudopoll include priors based on the previous season final predictive ratings and occasionally incorporating preseason predictions of various major publications. The other rankings for college sports do not include priors, and thus can be wildly unstable early in the year. A team whose rankings are affected by this prior is noted with a P following its rankings.

Full Ranking

                                                 STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI
TEAM               W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  P-SCR  P-OFF  P-DEF  H-SCR
LOS ANGELES       14  6 14 42 34 -0.008 16.308    1  0.411    1  0.075    1  0.073    1 0.5259  0.021 -0.055  0.202  0.000
HOUSTON           14  9 10 40 31  0.030 16.356    2  0.356    2  0.044    2  0.061    2 0.5197 -0.099 -0.150  0.272  0.000
COLUMBUS          13  9 10 43 35  0.008 15.597    3  0.352    3  0.040    4  0.053    3 0.5148  0.152  0.021  0.085  0.000
SEATTLE           12  8 12 38 30  0.005 15.575    4  0.341    4  0.033    5  0.047    4 0.5146 -0.114 -0.175  0.268  0.000
CHICAGO           12  8 13 42 36 -0.006 15.948    5  0.336    5  0.031    6  0.039    5 0.5136  0.119 -0.017  0.095  0.000
REAL SALT LAKE    13 12  9 48 38  0.045 17.074    6  0.319    6  0.017    3  0.056    6 0.5071  0.200  0.062  0.051  0.000
DC UNITED          9  8 13 43 44 -0.008 14.611    7  0.303    7  0.008   10 -0.006    8 0.5031  0.513  0.263 -0.275  0.000
CHIVAS USA        13 12  7 36 34  0.021 15.838    8  0.302    8  0.005    7  0.030    7 0.5058 -0.066 -0.159  0.219  0.000
NEW ENGLAND       12 11  9 35 40 -0.021 15.505    9  0.291    9 -0.001   11 -0.035    9 0.5017  0.064 -0.133  0.063  0.000
COLORADO          10 10 10 42 38  0.003 14.641   10  0.290   10 -0.007    8  0.024   10 0.4993  0.283  0.095 -0.048  0.000
TEAM               W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  P-SCR  P-OFF  P-DEF  H-SCR
TORONTO FC        10 11  9 37 46 -0.021 14.674   11  0.275   11 -0.014   12 -0.068   11 0.4942  0.392  0.094 -0.231  0.000
FC DALLAS         11 13  6 50 47  0.004 14.729   12  0.262   12 -0.028    9  0.000   12 0.4921  0.734  0.480 -0.479  0.000
KANSAS CITY        8 13  9 33 42 -0.013 14.751   13  0.221   13 -0.052   13 -0.071   13 0.4800  0.209 -0.058 -0.083  0.000
SAN JOSE           7 14  9 36 50 -0.002 15.002   14  0.189   14 -0.068   14 -0.107   14 0.4733  0.486  0.138 -0.352  0.000
RED BULL NEW YORK  5 19  6 27 47 -0.026 14.900   15  0.000   15 -0.150   15 -0.175   15 0.4446  0.112 -0.237 -0.113  0.000

WESTERN CONFERENCE
                                                 STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI
TEAM               W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  P-SCR  P-OFF  P-DEF  H-SCR
LOS ANGELES       14  6 14 42 34 -0.008 16.308    1  0.411    1  0.075    1  0.073    1 0.5259  0.021 -0.055  0.202  0.000
HOUSTON           14  9 10 40 31  0.030 16.356    2  0.356    2  0.044    2  0.061    2 0.5197 -0.099 -0.150  0.272  0.000
SEATTLE           12  8 12 38 30  0.005 15.575    4  0.341    4  0.033    5  0.047    4 0.5146 -0.114 -0.175  0.268  0.000
REAL SALT LAKE    13 12  9 48 38  0.045 17.074    6  0.319    6  0.017    3  0.056    6 0.5071  0.200  0.062  0.051  0.000
CHIVAS USA        13 12  7 36 34  0.021 15.838    8  0.302    8  0.005    7  0.030    7 0.5058 -0.066 -0.159  0.219  0.000
COLORADO          10 10 10 42 38  0.003 14.641   10  0.290   10 -0.007    8  0.024   10 0.4993  0.283  0.095 -0.048  0.000
FC DALLAS         11 13  6 50 47  0.004 14.729   12  0.262   12 -0.028    9  0.000   12 0.4921  0.734  0.480 -0.479  0.000
SAN JOSE           7 14  9 36 50 -0.002 15.002   14  0.189   14 -0.068   14 -0.107   14 0.4733  0.486  0.138 -0.352  0.000

EASTERN CONFERENCE
                                                 STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI
TEAM               W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  P-SCR  P-OFF  P-DEF  H-SCR
COLUMBUS          13  9 10 43 35  0.008 15.597    3  0.352    3  0.040    4  0.053    3 0.5148  0.152  0.021  0.085  0.000
CHICAGO           12  8 13 42 36 -0.006 15.948    5  0.336    5  0.031    6  0.039    5 0.5136  0.119 -0.017  0.095  0.000
DC UNITED          9  8 13 43 44 -0.008 14.611    7  0.303    7  0.008   10 -0.006    8 0.5031  0.513  0.263 -0.275  0.000
NEW ENGLAND       12 11  9 35 40 -0.021 15.505    9  0.291    9 -0.001   11 -0.035    9 0.5017  0.064 -0.133  0.063  0.000
TORONTO FC        10 11  9 37 46 -0.021 14.674   11  0.275   11 -0.014   12 -0.068   11 0.4942  0.392  0.094 -0.231  0.000
KANSAS CITY        8 13  9 33 42 -0.013 14.751   13  0.221   13 -0.052   13 -0.071   13 0.4800  0.209 -0.058 -0.083  0.000
RED BULL NEW YORK  5 19  6 27 47 -0.026 14.900   15  0.000   15 -0.150   15 -0.175   15 0.4446  0.112 -0.237 -0.113  0.000

DIVISION            W  L  T   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 94 84 77 0.520    1  0.076
EASTERN CONFERENCE 69 79 69 0.477    2 -0.099

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.326 points in main ratings (0.205 for semineutral)
     0.032 points in improved RPI (0.020 for semineutral)
Average of 1.00 points per score

Predict score:








Team Strength vs. Time Plot:






posted: Tue Nov 24 17:58:52 2009
games through: Sun Nov 22 2009

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.