At this point in the season, from a normalized fractional full point (FPP) (i.e. split 3 points between each team absed on weighted bets and then divide by 3), we get an expected seasonal performance that looks like this.
Seattle - 0.846
LA - 0.823
Kansas City - 0.799
Salt Lake City - 0.729
Portland - 0.690
Vancouver - 0.658
Dallas - 0.655
San Jose - 0.541
New York - 0.537
Tortonto - 0.466
Chicago - 0.444
Colorado - 0.428
Columbus - 0.428
Philadelphia - 0.388
Houston - 0.309
DC - 0.266
Chivas - 0.131
New England - 0.093
Montreal - 0.057
Going into the season I actually think that might have been a good prediction, with the obvious cavet of wtf are you people thinking with houston, last year's Cup runner up!?! I guess people are thinking they'd pull a 2011 SKC and start the season on the road horrifically, but still... Anyway, that's all fine and good, but let's push it one step further and see where teams are at now compared to where we thought they'd be. And, for fun, let's try to see how well we've predicted wins, draws, and losses, using a totally made up and arbitrary excel equation. Basically, I tried to look at the weighted bets and find out who was favored for each match, and then looked at the weighting and tried to find out if there was a consensus. If 75% of the bet weight was for a team, they'd be assigned a win. If the average bet on that team was <150, they'd be assigned a 1 goal win. 150 < bet < 250 was a 2 goal win. Am average bet of more than 250 was considered a 3 goal blow out.
For the record, this model has about a 50% chance of picking the result exactly after 4 weeks. It's got a 30% "push" rate (i.e. predicted a win and got a draw, or predicted a draw and got a win). But really, I think 50% success rate is the conservative way to gauge it. So, at this point, here's how the table would look if fan betting controlled the league.
| Team | Predicted Points |
Actual Points |
Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| LA | 9 | 3 | 6 |
| Toronto | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| Portland | 7 | 4 | 3 |
| Seattle | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Chicago | 6 | 4 | 2 |
| Philadelphia | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| New York | 7 | 6 | 1 |
| Dallas | 5 | 4 | 1 |
| Vancouver | 8 | 8 | 0 |
| Chivas | 2 | 3 | -1 |
| Montreal | 0 | 1 | -1 |
| Kansas City | 10 | 12 | -2 |
| DC | 2 | 4 | -2 |
| Salt Lake City | 7 | 9 | -2 |
| Colorado | 7 | 9 | -2 |
| Columbus | 4 | 6 | -2 |
| San Jose | 6 | 9 | -3 |
| Houston | 1 | 6 | -5 |
| New England | 0 | 6 | -6 |
Obviously a few things jump out. LA and Toronto seem to be really underperforming expectations. I'm not sure Toronto is that big of a surprise, actually, but obviously people in LA are getting worried. Houston's overperformance I think is more a factor of them starting so many games on the road, but kudos to New England and San Jose for both stepping up. I think they might turn out to be the two surprise teams of the year.
At any rate, you've herad it here first. LA is the most overrated team in the league. You can prove it with science.
Finally, while speaking of predictions, let's make some for Week 5, shall we? We're already 2 for 2 as far as midweek games go...
Salt Lake City beats Montreal by 3 goals
Dallas beats New England by 1 goal
Montreal beats Toronto by 1 goal
Columbus and New York draw
Kansas City and LA draw
San Jose beats Vancouver by 1 goal
DC and Seattle draw
Salt Lake City beats Colorado by 1 goal
Portland beats Chivas USA by 2 goals
Like I said, 2 for 2 on results for SLC v Montreal and Dallas v New England, and even got the New England GD correct. Let's hope SKC beats the junk out of LA though...
No comments:
Post a Comment