MLS Power Ranking Averages - Wk 15

Philadelphia widens the gap in first place.

10 of 12 sites published this week. Philly kept their hold on first, and pulled further away from the pack.

Rankings DO NOT include the midweek games, only those from last week are considered.

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 for next season!

Sites Used

• Jeff Sagarin
• Five Thirty Eight (Proj. points)
• Who Scored
• ESPN
• Massey
• Soccer America
• MLS
• Sonny Moore Rankings
• Freeborg Power Index
• MLS Multiplex
• 3rd Degree (usually posts after I do)
• US Soccer Players - (monthly)

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.

• Highest Standard Deviation: Colorado Rapids at 5.22.
• Lowest Standard Deviation: FC Cincinnati at 0.67
• Biggest Rise: +2 Inter Miami, Minnesota United, Nashville SC, Portland Timbers, Vancouver Whitecaps
• Biggest Fall: -3 New England Revolution

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.