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
COLUMBUS    19  7  7 55 38 -0.008 16.228    1  0.035    1  0.053    1  0.052    1 0.5419  0.370  0.132 -0.027  0.000
HOUSTON     12  6 16 41 33  0.009 17.123    2  0.019    2  0.027    3  0.024    2 0.5205 -0.179 -0.302  0.351  0.000
CHICAGO     14 11  8 48 35  0.009 16.530    3  0.015    3  0.013    2  0.037    3 0.5123  0.140 -0.068  0.142  0.000
NEW YORK    12 11 10 47 49  0.020 16.864    4  0.012    4  0.003    5  0.007    4 0.5059  0.452  0.158 -0.144  0.000
KANSAS CITY 11 11 10 38 42  0.020 16.455    5  0.011    5  0.003    9 -0.009    5 0.5032  0.112 -0.135  0.117  0.000
NEW ENGLAND 12 12  8 40 46  0.015 16.436    7  0.009    7 -0.003   10 -0.017    6 0.5015  0.274 -0.017 -0.017  0.000
SALT LAKE   11 10 12 40 39 -0.015 16.478    6  0.010    6 -0.000    7 -0.005    7 0.5011  0.007 -0.207  0.198  0.000
CHIVAS USA  12 12  8 42 43 -0.011 16.026    8  0.008    8 -0.007    6 -0.005    8 0.4990  0.264 -0.013  0.003  0.000
DALLAS       8 10 12 46 41 -0.003 14.990    9  0.006    9 -0.015    4  0.014    9 0.4913  0.427  0.144 -0.115  0.000
COLORADO    11 14  5 44 45 -0.003 15.127   10  0.005   10 -0.019    8 -0.006   10 0.4875  0.452  0.145 -0.158  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   9 13  8 34 43 -0.003 15.275   13  0.001   12 -0.025   12 -0.032   11 0.4850  0.149 -0.130  0.065  0.000
D.C.        11 15  6 43 51 -0.019 16.122   11  0.003   11 -0.023   14 -0.040   12 0.4843  0.445  0.104 -0.185  0.000
SAN JOSE     8 13  9 32 38 -0.009 15.187   12  0.002   13 -0.025   11 -0.028   13 0.4799 -0.024 -0.252  0.196  0.000
LOS ANGELES  8 13  9 55 62 -0.010 15.222   14  0.000   14 -0.027   13 -0.038   14 0.4787  1.018  0.682 -0.757  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
HOUSTON     12  6 16 41 33  0.009 17.123    2  0.019    2  0.027    3  0.024    2 0.5205 -0.179 -0.302  0.351  0.000
SALT LAKE   11 10 12 40 39 -0.015 16.478    6  0.010    6 -0.000    7 -0.005    7 0.5011  0.007 -0.207  0.198  0.000
CHIVAS USA  12 12  8 42 43 -0.011 16.026    8  0.008    8 -0.007    6 -0.005    8 0.4990  0.264 -0.013  0.003  0.000
DALLAS       8 10 12 46 41 -0.003 14.990    9  0.006    9 -0.015    4  0.014    9 0.4913  0.427  0.144 -0.115  0.000
COLORADO    11 14  5 44 45 -0.003 15.127   10  0.005   10 -0.019    8 -0.006   10 0.4875  0.452  0.145 -0.158  0.000
SAN JOSE     8 13  9 32 38 -0.009 15.187   12  0.002   13 -0.025   11 -0.028   13 0.4799 -0.024 -0.252  0.196  0.000
LOS ANGELES  8 13  9 55 62 -0.010 15.222   14  0.000   14 -0.027   13 -0.038   14 0.4787  1.018  0.682 -0.757  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    19  7  7 55 38 -0.008 16.228    1  0.035    1  0.053    1  0.052    1 0.5419  0.370  0.132 -0.027  0.000
CHICAGO     14 11  8 48 35  0.009 16.530    3  0.015    3  0.013    2  0.037    3 0.5123  0.140 -0.068  0.142  0.000
NEW YORK    12 11 10 47 49  0.020 16.864    4  0.012    4  0.003    5  0.007    4 0.5059  0.452  0.158 -0.144  0.000
KANSAS CITY 11 11 10 38 42  0.020 16.455    5  0.011    5  0.003    9 -0.009    5 0.5032  0.112 -0.135  0.117  0.000
NEW ENGLAND 12 12  8 40 46  0.015 16.436    7  0.009    7 -0.003   10 -0.017    6 0.5015  0.274 -0.017 -0.017  0.000
TORONTO FC   9 13  8 34 43 -0.003 15.275   13  0.001   12 -0.025   12 -0.032   11 0.4850  0.149 -0.130  0.065  0.000
D.C.        11 15  6 43 51 -0.019 16.122   11  0.003   11 -0.023   14 -0.040   12 0.4843  0.445  0.104 -0.185  0.000

DIVISION            W  L  T   PCT  RNK RATING
EASTERN CONFERENCE 88 80 57 0.518    1  0.012
WESTERN CONFERENCE 70 78 71 0.482    2 -0.020

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.335 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: Sun Nov 16 14:26:56 2008
games through: Sat Nov 15 2008

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