(Editorial) Earlier his week, the great stats people over at American Soccer Analysis released their 2016 Playoff Odds based on 10,000 simulations of the remainder of the Major League Soccer season. This, understandably, resulted in many who follow them spending much of the day discussing their own team’s odds of making the playoffs, and running through the various scenarios required for their team to make the playoffs.
Looking at various teams and their playoff odds according to ASA’s model, I started thinking about what it means to make the playoffs in MLS. On the one hand, making the playoffs gives you a chance to compete for the MLS Cup, which is widely considered the most valuable trophy in MLS, and is certainly the one teams put the most emphasis on. MLS, just like other American sports, crowns its champion at the end of the playoffs, rather than naming the best team over the course of the season its champion like most of the rest of the world. If you get into the playoffs, you have a chance to compete for this title, making a playoff berth extremely important.
The 2015 Portland Timbers proved the value of simply getting into the playoffs. For the majority of the season, the Timbers were an average, mid-table MLS club, as evidenced by the fact that they finished with just two points more than Sporting Kansas City, the lowest seeded team in the Western Conference. It took winning four of their final five games for the Timbers to even be sure they were going to make the playoffs. Once there, well, you know what happened.
That the Timbers ended up as MLS Cup champions after really a mediocre season only reinforced the fact that to win MLS Cup you don’t need to be the best overall team in the league, you just need to get on a hot streak at the right time.
So, making the playoffs is valuable. It gives a team a chance to compete for MLS Cup and if they get hot at the right moment, be crowned champion of MLS.
But, the playoffs also do something else. The playoffs, by giving teams a chance to compete for MLS Cup, also gives teams a chance to be mediocre and still claim accomplishment. Think about the San Jose Earthquakes for a minute. The Earthquakes have not been good this season. They’re currently averaging only 1.23 points per game, and have scored just 26 goals all season. Yet, they find themselves only three points out of a playoff spot, and according to ASA’s model, have a 33.6% chance of making the playoffs. The Timbers, who currently occupy that final spot, are given a 41% chance.
If the Earthquakes manage to pick up a few more points than the Timbers over the next month, they’ll likely find themselves in the playoffs, which you can bet the team will market as a success. Maybe, for San Jose, it could be considered a success, as it would be progress over a 2015 season which saw them miss the playoffs, though even if they make it this year, they likely won’t reach their 47 point total from 2015, so whether crossing the red line with fewer points is progress is debatable.
Even if they make the playoffs, it’s at best a baby step, and for a team dependent on aging veterans, baby steps don’t really work. So, the Earthquakes could make the playoffs, call 2016 a success, a go on being a bottom-half of the table team in MLS. That doesn’t seem like success to me.
Yet that’s what the MLS playoffs allow teams to do. They allow mediocre teams to go on being mediocre and calling it success. Look at the New England Revolution in recent years. In 2015 they finished fifth, in the Eastern Conference, 10th in the Supporters Shield standings. In 2014 they finished second in the East, fourth overall, and made the MLS Cup final, a good season. In 2013 they were third in the East, but eighth overall out of 17 teams. In 2012 and 2011 they didn’t even come close to making the playoffs. So, since Jay Heaps took over as manager, they’ve really only had one season when they were an above average team. They’ll probably miss the playoffs this year, continuing the overall trend of being an average to below average team, but to hear people talk about the Revolution, it’s as if this is a normally good team fallen on hard times. That’s what the playoffs allows.
Sure, having 60% of the league make the playoffs makes for an entertaining end to the year, but at what cost? The league, if it wanted to, could reduce the number of teams making the playoffs, maintain the entertainment of an end of year playoffs, and force teams to actually strive to be above average in order to have a chance to compete for MLS Cup.
