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 18 Recap

An interesting weekend but unfortunately not due to the quality of play.  Vancouver found themselves in a dilemma.  They had scheduled a friendly with Manchester City on Monday and had laid a temporary grass pitch over their turf field for that match.  Their Saturday match with RSL would also be played on the grass pitch.  However, heavy rains in Vancouver created a waterlogged pitch with several areas of standing water so the Whitecaps had to postpone their match with RSL.  In other words, Vancouver rescheduled a league match so that their field would be ready for a friendly match two days later.

I understand that the MLS schedules these matches because the European teams are a great draw, but these matches don't count for anything.  For the Euro teams they are just pre-season tune-ups and they are not included in the MLS standings.  When the league disrupts their schedule to accommodate one of these friendlies they send the message that they're just fodder for the top international leagues.

Let's see how my predictions turned out:



Predicted Score				Actual Score				Points
Seattle	1	Colorado	1	Seattle	4	Colorado	3	-10
Columbus	2	San Jose	1	Columbus	0	San Jose	0	-10
Chicago	2	Portland	0	Chicago	0	Portland	1	-10
Houston	2	Kansas City	2	Houston	1	Kansas City	1	20
FC Dallas	2	D.C. United	1	FC Dallas	0	D.C. United	0	-10
Chivas USA	1	New York	1	Chivas USA	0	New York	0	20
New England	1	Philadelphia	1	New England	0	Philadelphia	3	-10
						Total		-10

Got 2 of 7 outcomes correct, but no scores.  YTD my accuracy is now 42.6% for outcomes and 10.1% for scores.

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 Lake	0.563	-0.053	0.509
Los Angeles	0.500	-0.021	0.479
FC Dallas	0.500	-0.047	0.453
Seattle	0.350	0.019	0.369
New York	0.333	0.018	0.352
Philadelphia	0.294	0.022	0.316
San Jose	0.188	0.051	0.239
Columbus	0.059	0.026	0.085
Houston	-0.056	0.032	-0.024
Chivas USA	-0.059	-0.026	-0.084
Kansas City	-0.063	-0.052	-0.115
Chicago	-0.167	0.038	-0.129
Colorado	-0.111	-0.028	-0.139
D.C. United	-0.375	0.041	-0.334
Vancouver	-0.389	-0.037	-0.426
New England	-0.444	0.011	-0.433
Portland	-0.563	0.022	-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:

MLS Weekend Predictions

As we enter summer the MLS will be going through a phase of transition.  With the upcoming CONCACAF Gold Cup, most teams will be losing some of their best players to their national teams.  We also have two teams, Chicago and Vancouver, with new coaches.  Makes my predictions tougher but here they are anyway:

Predicted Score
Los Angeles	3	D.C. United	1
Toronto FC	2	Kansas City	2
New York	2	Columbus	0
FC Dallas	1	New England	0
Chicago	1	Seattle	2
Colorado	1	Philadelphia	1
Real Salt Lake	1	Vancouver	0
San Jose	1	Houston	1
Chivas USA	2	Portland	1

MLS Weekend Wrapup and SRS Rankings

I took a break last week to honeymoon with my beautiful wife so I have no predictions to recap for the weekend.  Here are some highlights from last weekend's MLS matches:

• Philadelphia scored 6(!) goals at Toronto.  The Union have been one of the top defensive teams in the league this season.  As you can see from the table below, they have the second best Defensive SRS in the league against the toughest offenses in the league.  However, their offense was one of the worst.  Prior to this match the Union had scored 8 goals in 10 matches overall and only 1 goal in 4 road matches.  We will have to see if this is a fluke or a sign that their offense has woken up.  If it has then matching that up with their stout defense would make this team a serious MLS Cup contender

Total Defensive SRS
Team	GA	SOS	SRS
Real Salt Lake	0.444	1.283	0.838
Philadelphia	0.818	1.313	0.495
Los Angeles	0.800	1.270	0.470
Seattle	0.929	1.296	0.367
New York	0.917	1.276	0.359

• Seattle snapped RSL's 29-game home unbeaten streak with a 2-1 victory at Rio Tinto.  RSL has really struggled since their loss in the CONCACAF Champions League final and the loss of Javier Morales hasn't helped.  I still think they are the best team in the league right now mainly due to their excellent defense.  But their loss to Seattle was the first time they had given up multiple goals in the league this season.  Their defense may be cracking under the strain of an anemic offense.  We will have to see if coach Jason Kreis can pull them out of this funk.
• The season is about one-third complete and we have seen our first coaching casualties.  Vancouver and Chicago both fired their coaches this week.  Each team has only one win this season with slim and fading hopes of making the playoffs.

Latest SRS rankings after the jump: