MLS Season Projection Week 20

After a weekend full of upsets we have quite a shake-up in the season projection.  Here are the projected standings based on results through week 20:



East
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Philadelphia	34	13	16	5	42	29	13	55
2	Columbus	34	12	14	8	37	29	8	50
3	New York	34	11	16	7	54	42	12	49
4	D.C. United	34	10	16	8	46	49	-3	46
5	Kansas City	34	8	19	7	45	41	4	43
6	Houston	34	9	13	12	39	40	-1	40
7	Chicago	34	3	20	11	35	44	-9	29
8	New England	34	4	15	15	30	45	-15	27
9	Toronto FC	34	3	13	18	30	60	-30	22
West
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Los Angeles	34	18	14	2	47	25	22	68
2	Real Salt Lake	34	16	14	4	45	25	20	62
3	FC Dallas	34	16	12	6	43	30	13	60
4	Seattle	34	14	15	5	47	37	10	57
5	Colorado	34	10	17	7	46	42	4	47
6	Chivas USA	34	9	16	9	42	38	4	43
7	San Jose	34	6	15	13	38	47	-9	33
8	Portland	34	9	6	19	39	58	-19	33
9	Vancouver	34	3	13	18	32	52	-20	22

Los Angeles moves ahead of RSL for the Western Conference title and best record in the league.  In the East, Columbus is now projected to finish 2nd with D.C. United moving up to 4th and Kansas City dropping out of the top three into 5th.  I'm now projecting United to make the playoffs as a wild card along with KC.  The MLS Cup final will be Los Angeles vs Philadelphia.  Since it will be played at the Home Depot Center, it will effectively be a home game for the Galaxy so I project them to win the Cup.

Marginal Goal Analysis - Philadelphia Union

Since I'm projecting them as an MLS Cup finalist, I thought it was time to do a marginal goal analysis for the Union.  Here are the results for their MLS matches through 7/17:

 

Player	Minutes	GS	GA	GS90	GA90	GD90	MGS90	MGA90	MGD90
Keon Daniel	756	13	5	1.548	0.595	0.952	0.286	-0.249	0.535
Danny Califf	1620	24	15	1.333	0.833	0.500	0.072	-0.011	0.083
Carlos Ruiz	1144	14	8	1.101	0.629	0.472	-0.160	-0.215	0.055
Carlos Valdes	1620	24	16	1.333	0.889	0.444	0.072	0.044	0.027
Sheanon Williams	1693	24	16	1.276	0.851	0.425	0.014	0.006	0.008
Sebastien Le Toux	1710	24	16	1.263	0.842	0.421	0.002	-0.002	0.004
Brian Carroll	1401	21	15	1.349	0.964	0.385	0.088	0.119	-0.032
Danny Mwanga	968	16	12	1.488	1.116	0.372	0.226	0.271	-0.045
Kyle Nakazawa	988	14	11	1.275	1.002	0.273	0.014	0.157	-0.144
Justin Mapp	1047	16	13	1.375	1.117	0.258	0.114	0.273	-0.159
Jordan Harvey	1241	13	13	0.943	0.943	0.000	-0.319	0.098	-0.417
	17051	239	160	1.262	0.845	0.417	0.000	0.000	0.000

I'm only listing regular or semi-regular players.  The totals at the bottom are for the entire team.

This shows that midfielder Keon Daniel is their most effective player, by far.  His marginal goal differential is almost half a goal better than his closest teammate.  Daniel's stats are somewhat inflated by his low playing time, but when he is on the pitch, Philadelphia is most effective at both scoring and preventing goals.  I suspect that if he gets more playing time the team's performance will improve.

This table also shows why Philadelphia was right to trade Jordan Harvey.  When Harvey was on the pitch, the team was least effective at scoring goals and was not very effective at preventing them.  Harvey's stats include the Union's 6-goal outburst against Toronto where he played the entire match.  Take that away and his stats are even worse.  Harvey was traded to Vancouver for allocation money.

MLS Week 19 SRS Ratings and Season Projection

Real Salt Lake's big win over San Jose had a big impact on the SRS table and the season projection.  Here are the SRS ratings:



Team	MOV	SOS	SRS	Change
Real Salt Lake	0.833	-0.015	0.818	0.208
Los Angeles	0.545	-0.023	0.522	0.033
Philadelphia	0.421	-0.006	0.415	-0.005
Seattle	0.409	-0.031	0.378	-0.010
FC Dallas	0.364	-0.035	0.329	0.005
New York	0.304	-0.021	0.284	-0.177
Chivas USA	0.190	-0.001	0.190	0.131
Columbus	0.095	-0.011	0.084	-0.024
Colorado	0.043	-0.002	0.041	0.144
Kansas City	0.050	-0.097	-0.047	0.069
San Jose	-0.143	0.080	-0.063	-0.202
Houston	-0.095	-0.006	-0.102	-0.141
Chicago	-0.250	0.033	-0.217	0.014
D.C. United	-0.316	0.042	-0.274	-0.094
New England	-0.476	0.036	-0.440	0.107
Portland	-0.526	0.077	-0.450	0.012
Vancouver	-0.429	-0.035	-0.463	0.042
Toronto FC	-0.957	0.017	-0.940	-0.045

The SRS ratings are heavily influenced by margin of victory so RSL's 4-goal margin caused the biggest swings for them and San Jose.  Let's see how it influenced the season projections:



East
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Philadelphia	34	15	14	5	43	28	15	59
2	New York	34	11	16	7	54	42	12	49
3	Kansas City	34	11	16	7	46	40	6	49
4	Columbus	34	12	11	11	34	32	2	47
5	D.C. United	34	7	17	10	44	53	-9	38
6	Houston	34	7	15	12	36	41	-5	36
7	Chicago	34	3	22	9	35	44	-9	31
8	New England	34	4	13	17	30	46	-16	25
9	Toronto FC	34	3	12	19	28	61	-33	21
West
Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
1	Real Salt Lake	34	17	14	3	47	22	25	65
2	Los Angeles	34	16	16	2	43	26	17	64
3	FC Dallas	34	15	13	6	43	32	11	58
4	Seattle	34	14	16	4	47	34	13	58
5	Colorado	34	9	17	8	44	43	1	44
6	Chivas USA	34	9	17	8	45	39	6	44
7	Portland	34	11	5	18	40	59	-19	38
8	San Jose	34	6	16	12	41	44	-3	34
9	Vancouver	34	3	16	15	34	48	-14	25

So I'm now projecting RSL to finish ahead of Los Angeles in the West.  The Western Conference final will be between those two teams.  With the better record RSL gets the home field advantage.  This is key because these two teams have the highest home SRS Ratings (RSL @ 1.266, LA @ 0.839) so whichever team can secure home field will be in the driver's seat for reaching the MLS Cup.  I'm still projecting Philadelphia to secure the Eastern Conference berth in the Cup final.  My new prediction for MLS Cup champion is RSL.