MLS week 17 Recap

I did extremely well with my predictions this weekend:

Predicted Score				Actual Score				Points
Kansas City	1	Chivas USA	1	Kansas City	1	Chivas USA	1	30
New York	2	D.C. United	1	New York	0	D.C. United	1	-10
Houston	2	Toronto FC	1	Houston	2	Toronto FC	0	10
Real Salt Lake	2	FC Dallas	1	Real Salt Lake	2	FC Dallas	0	10
Colorado	1	Vancouver	0	Colorado	2	Vancouver	1	15
Los Angeles	2	Chicago	1	Los Angeles	2	Chicago	1	30
San Jose	1	Philadelphia	1	San Jose	0	Philadelphia	0	20
Portland	1	Seattle	1	Portland	2	Seattle	3	-10

That's 6 out of 8 matches where my model predicted the correct outcome.  Also predicted the correct final score in 2 matches.  For the month of July, my accuracy rate has been 60% on outcomes and 15% on scores.  Season-to-date those rates are 43% and 11% respectively.

Updated SRS ratings after the jump:

Marginal Goal Analysis - New York Red Bulls

Following up on my analysis of Real Salt Lake, I decided to do a similar analysis for New York.  MLS released their Castrol Index today and Thierry Henry continues to hold the top spot.  I want to measure marginal goals for Henry and his teammates to see if I can get a similar result.  Here is the table for the Red Bulls.  This data includes last night's 5-0 stomping of Toronto FC:

Player	Minutes	GS	GA	GS90	GA90	GD90	MGS90	MGA90	MGD90
Roy Miller	1709	34	23	1.791	1.211	0.579	0.006	0.001	0.006
Joel Lindpere	1705	33	23	1.742	1.214	0.528	-0.042	0.004	-0.046
Jan Gunnar Solli	1629	33	22	1.823	1.215	0.608	0.039	0.005	0.034
Teemu Tainio	1545	32	22	1.864	1.282	0.583	0.080	0.071	0.009
Thierry Henry	1247	25	14	1.804	1.010	0.794	0.020	-0.200	0.220
Tim Ream	1170	25	13	1.923	1.000	0.923	0.139	-0.211	0.349
Dwayne De Rosario	1113	23	19	1.860	1.536	0.323	0.076	0.326	-0.250
Dane Richards	1092	23	14	1.896	1.154	0.742	0.111	-0.057	0.168
Mehdi Ballouchy	999	19	16	1.712	1.441	0.270	-0.072	0.231	-0.303
Luke Rodgers	949	19	12	1.802	1.138	0.664	0.018	-0.072	0.090
Carlos Mendes	880	19	15	1.943	1.534	0.409	0.159	0.324	-0.165
Rafael Marquez	810	15	8	1.667	0.889	0.778	-0.118	-0.322	0.204

17100

339

230

1.784

1.211

0.574

0.000

0.000

0.000

I've limited the list to show those players that have played roughly half of the total minutes over RBNY's 19 MLS matches.  New York's MVP according to my analysis is defender Tim Ream.  His MGD90 rating of 0.349 goals is equivalent to 11.9 goals in a 34-match season.  Ream has played in 13 matches and his team has allowed exactly one goal per match with him in the lineup.  In the 6 matches he has missed (due to playing for the US Men's team) RBNY allowed 1.67 goals per match.  Ream is also contributing to New York's league-leading offense with the second-best MGS90 score.

Thierry Henry scores pretty highly with and MGD90 of 0.220.  Although he leads the league in goals scored, his marginal contribution is pretty small on offense with an MGS90 of only 0.020.  New York is the highest scoring team in the league and Henry is reaping the benefits of that.  I suspect that if Henry played for another team he wouldn't be leading the league in goals.  Not saying he is bad or overrated, just pointing out that his value should not be measured just by his goals.  His MGA90 of -0.200 is just behind Ream's so this indicates that his presence on the field helps prevent opponents from scoring.

One thing I would like to point out is that this table shows why RBNY traded Dwayne De Rosario.  Considered a surprising move at the time, but DeRo's MGD90 was at -0.250 and he had the worst MGA90 at 0.326.  Compare his stats to Dane Richards.  They're both primarily midfielders who played about the same minutes.  When De Rosario was on the pitch the team gave up five more goals than when Richards was on the pitch.  So this was a good move by the Red Bulls.