EDITORIAL – October is upon us and that means most MLS teams are focused both on making the 2015 Audi MLS Cup Playoffs and consolidating their position in the standings as the regular season winds down. Despite there being just a few games left on the schedule, there are still plenty of clubs who can legitimately say they have a chance at both improving their seeding and even making a move at taking the Supporters’ Shield.
To put this in perspective, let’s take a look at the teams currently occupying the fifth spot in each conference: Toronto FC in the East and the Seattle Sounders in the West.
TFC has three games remaining in the season, yet are a mere five points behind the Eastern Conference leading New York Red Bulls and only two points out of second place. With two of their final three at home, including a crucial tilt one week from Saturday against Columbus Crew SC, a huge opportunity awaits. Not only can they potentially host a knockout round game (the third and fourth seed in each conference gets to do so), but they could also get a bye into the conference semifinals if they can finish in one of those coveted top two spots.
For the Sounders, they’re only four points out of first in the West. Granted, they only have two games left whereas clubs ahead of them in the standings have one (Vancouver Whitecaps, Sporting Kansas City) or even two more (FC Dallas) in hand. Those sides would need to stumble significantly for Seattle to vault upwards. Nevertheless, it’s not out of the realm of possibility for it to happen.
Similarly, it should be a dogfight for that sixth and final slot in each conference.
Montreal Impact currently occupies sixth in the East and is one of only three teams in the league with four games left. That said, three of four take place on the road and the Impact have struggled away from Stade Saputo as will be detailed below. Orlando City is nipping at their heels and enjoying a blazing run of form in recent weeks.
Out West, a whopping four teams are within three points of one another for that last playoff berth. San Jose Earthquakes and Portland Timbers are tied with 44 points and have the same number of wins but the Quakes have a superior goal differential and would go through if the playoffs started today. Real Salt Lake and Houston Dynamo aren’t too far behind with 41 points apiece and watch out for the former who has three games left including two at home.
It should be readily apparent that with less than a month left in the regular season, the playoff race remains wide open. Call it parity, call it mediocrity, but the fact remains that fans of 17 of the league’s 20 clubs still have some glimmer of hope that their team will see the postseason. You could make the argument that half are still alive to either win the Supporters’ Shield or at the very least host a playoff game or two.
Is there a way we can statistically analyze the perceived difficulty or ease of each club’s final few games? Are certain teams’ paths to a high seed or even a playoff berth altogether more favorable than others? Will such a situation lead to some surprises come the end of play on October 25th, the final day of the regular season?
The answers to those questions will be examined here by putting together a table that analyzes the toughest and easiest end of season schedules in the league. With most MLS team’s regular seasons around 90 percent complete, there’s certainly fairly robust sample size to draw conclusions from. We will only consider teams still alive for the postseason so the schedules of Chicago Fire, Colorado Rapids and Philadelphia Union aren’t eligible.
What methodology will we be using?
Firstly, three components will be utilized to assign a final number that demonstrates perceived difficulty of the remaining opponents on each team’s schedule. The higher the number, the harder it should be to get a result out of that opponent. Each component will be weighted differently in the formula used to determine that number, which begins with how many points the opponent currently has.
The first component is home/road form, which is the most heavily weighted in the final formula. Each team in the league will be assigned a coefficient related to how many points they’ve obtained either at or away from home. Road form will be assigned on an inverted scale so that the team with the worst road record will have a higher coefficient. This is important in the formula to determine relative ease of home games.
The following chart represents the home/road form coefficients assigned to each team.
Note: I’ve decided to employ the MLS tiebreaker system for teams knotted up on points, the first of which is number of wins, followed by goal differential. Those were the only two that applied here.
The second component is overall league form and is weighted slightly less than home/road form. This takes into account the fact that most teams have some semblance of a home-field advantage regardless of record. Once again, each team is assigned a coefficient whose value is inverted for road games. It should be easier to play the worst team in the league at home. You will see how this works when the eventual formula is revealed.
The following chart represents the overall form coefficients assigned to each team.
Finally, a team’s recent form is important and as such comprises the third component of this formula. It carries the lightest amount of weight though and so the coefficients assigned here will have the least effect on the final number. We’re taking into account each team’s previous five games for the purposes of this component.
The following chart represents the recent form coefficients assigned to each team.
Note: Once again, the MLS tiebreaker order is taken into account starting with wins, goal differential and total goals scored.
We can now plug these three components into the following two formulas depending on whether a game is taking place at home or on the road. We’ll call the solution “Game Difficulty Number (GDN).”
Home Games:
GDN = opponent’s current points – (.5)(road form coefficient) – (.5)(overall form home coefficient) – (.5)(current form home coefficient)
Road Games:
GDN = opponent’s current points + (.5)(home form coefficient) + (.5)(overall form road coefficient) + (.5)(current form road coefficient)
Since the higher the GDN, the more difficult we’re expecting the game to be, road games should command high totals whereas games at one’s own home stadium not so much. That said, each component will be subtracted from the opponent’s current point total for home games while added to that total for away matches. A multiplier of a half point will also be used to smooth out the data.
The result of all this number-crunching is detailed in the following chart. The lower the average GDN (which is how the chart is sorted), the easier that team’s end of season schedule is perceived to be according to all the calculations made.
Keep in mind that this is by no means the be-all, end-all in terms of determining success or failure of a given club as it relates to their ability to finish the season on a high (or low) note. It should give you a general idea as to whose schedule sets up most favorably as we head into the crucial home stretch of the season. The fact that there are so many teams bunched up in the standings at this point means that the room for error is minimal.
Are there any concrete conclusions we can draw from these findings as regards how the remainder of the season may pan out? Here are a few that I think are feasible.
- Despite the fact Orlando City SC has two less games in hand than Montreal, the relative ease of their schedule and the fact the Impact are forced to play three of their final four games on the road means that the Lions are better placed to finish sixth in the Eastern Conference than you may think.
- The New York Red Bulls are in as comfortable a driver’s seat as any of the league’s frontrunners to come away with the Supporters’ Shield. It’s highly likely that as long as RBNY keep winning in the playoffs, MLS Cup will run through Red Bull Arena.
- Columbus Crew SC will be hard-pressed to finish among the top two in the East but still has a shot at hosting a knockout round match, especially considering Toronto FC’s own challenging slate to close out the regular season.
- FC Dallas and its $3.28 million in total base salary (second lowest in MLS) has every opportunity to win the West ahead of the LA Galaxy who has three players on the roster making more than that on their own.
- The Portland Timbers will somehow find a way to finish sixth in the Western Conference ahead of San Jose, Real Salt Lake and Houston, perhaps saving head coach Caleb Porter’s job.
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