Thursday, July 7, 2011

MLS Week 16 SRS Rankings and Season Projection

Another drawn out weekend in the MLS (get it?) with 6 of 9 matches ending all tied up and two of those were 0-0.  The most entertaining match was Real Salt Lake's 3-3 draw at home against New England.  This was a matchup of the best defense (RSL) against the worst offense (NE) and it was played at Rio Tinto where RSL is nearly unbeatable.  Problem was that RSL dug themselves into a hole when Nat Borchers drew a red card in the 3rd minute.  The Revolution converted on the subsequent penalty kick and added another to go up 2-0 on 10-man RSL.

RSL fought back to tie it in the 2nd half but New England took the lead back in the 63rd minute and seemed poised to pull off a huge upset.  But a 2nd yellow on Ryan Cochrane evened up both sides at 10 men.  This opened up some space for RSL's offense which tied up the game on this goal.  Overall this match featured 6 goals, 2 penalty kicks, 6 yellow cards and 2 red cards.  Referee Yader Reyes generated a lot of controversy for his handling of the match.

Here are the SRS ratings through Week 16:

Team
MOV
SOS
SRS
Real Salt Lake0.563-0.0530.509
Los Angeles0.500-0.0210.479
FC Dallas0.500-0.0470.453
Seattle0.3500.0190.369
New York0.3330.0180.352
Philadelphia0.2940.0220.316
San Jose0.1880.0510.239
Columbus0.0590.0260.085
Houston-0.0560.032-0.024
Chivas USA-0.059-0.026-0.084
Kansas City-0.063-0.052-0.115
Chicago-0.1670.038-0.129
Colorado-0.111-0.028-0.139
D.C. United-0.3750.041-0.334
Vancouver-0.389-0.037-0.426
New England-0.4440.011-0.433
Portland-0.5630.022-0.541
Toronto FC-0.632-0.013-0.645

RSL continues to top the rankings.  They have played the easiest schedule in the league thus far.  The Western Conference now has the top 4 spots and 5 of the top 7.  Toronto remains at the bottom despite their victory over Vancouver.  The Whitecaps were not strong enough to really improve Toronto's rating.

After the jump I will have my updated season projection:
Eastern Conference
Pos
Team
P
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
Pts
1New York341318354401457
2Philadelphia341414642291356
3Kansas City34121574134751
4Columbus34138133836247
5Chicago3462174042-239
6Houston34617113840-235
7D.C. United34515145062-1230
8New England34315162945-1624
9Toronto FC34313182954-2522
Western Conference
Pos
Team
P
W
D
L
GF
GA
GD
Pts
1Real Salt Lake341714344251965
2Los Angeles341616241261564
3FC Dallas341414645331256
4Seattle341317441311056
5San Jose34101684942746
6Colorado34816103438-440
7Portland3497183762-2534
8Chivas USA34518114045-533
9Vancouver34416143546-1128

Philadelphia had the only significant change from last week with their projected points dropping from 62 to 56 and dropping from first in the Eastern Conference to second.  In fact I'm now projecting that they will lose in the conference finals to New York.  The Union's projection was hurt by their draw against D.C. United, a match they were expected to win.  That cost them two points and after reprojecting based on week 16 they are expected to lose an additional four points over the course of the season.  They

So my projected MLS Cup final is RSL vs New York, but I'm still projecting RSL as the MLS Cup champions.

No comments:

Post a Comment