Saturday, March 2, 2013

SKC-Union Player Ratings

So soon? So soon.

I'd say I'd add some major thoughts to this post, but I only really have three. The first is, for the first 20 minutes, SKC looked awful, unorganized, and uncommunicative. Coming out of preseason maybe I shouldn't be that worried, but Philadelphia should have had at least one or two more goals in the first thirty minutes, and that would have put the game out of reach. We came out looking like Toronto. We can't look like Toronto.

The second thought was that I was glad to see the response, especially the second half adjustments.

The third was, I thought Nagamura had a helluva game, even if it didn't show up in the stats.

That said, these are stats based player ratings, and given that, there's one clear Man of the Match. Here's how the numbers worked out. Same system as last year.


No surprise there. Man of the match to Zusi, who notched a goal and assist. Rosell also with a great game, and hard to say anything bad about LeToux. Philly fans will be thrilled to have him back.

So hats off to Mr. Zusi, who has probably sealed a spot on the USMNT roster if he can keep up putting up games like that.



7 comments:

  1. Do you have an old blog post where you describe how these numbers are calculated? If so, can you post a link to it?

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    1. You know, I don't know that I really do, but I probably should add a static page with all the formulas I use here (player ratings and power rankings).

      I use the MLS fantasy game scoring system to figure out stats points for each player. I like it because they try to quantify things like attacking bonuses, defending bonuses, key plays, and such, though there's still a lot of non-statistical play that goes unrewarded. But here's the MLS fantasy system -

      http://fantasy.mlssoccer.com/rules/

      So I tabulate each players score and number of minutes played and calculate their average point per minute value.

      Of course that'd be too easy, and would reward subs more than starters, which I don't think is right, so I calculate a modifier for playing time, which is the average playing time every player who played in that match played (for the SKC-PHI match it was 70.7 minutes). Then each player gets a weighting factor added to their point total. As an example, if you played 90 minutes, your weighting ranking would be 90/70.7 = 1.273.

      With the weighting, each player gets a weighted points per minute value.

      Then, to calculate actual ratings, I have my spreadsheet look at the average weighted point-per-minute value for each player, along with the standard deviation of weighted points per minute.

      The actual rating is calculate as 5 + (player weighted points per minute - average points per minute)/standard deviation of weighted points per minute. So if a player scored the average number of points per minute, it would be 5 + (X-X)/std = 5. If you scored 3 times the average standard deviation of points, you'd wind up at an 8, which would be stellar.

      Ratings usually fall between 4.0 and 8.0. To be below 4.0 you really need to screw up, and to be over 8.0 you need to be great.

      Does that make sense? I can post a Google doc version of my spreadsheet if seeing the actual formulas would help, I know typing it out may not make much sense.

      Basically, it uses the MLS fantasy system to assign points to each player, and then evaluates each players point total against playing time and the other players on the field to come up with a relative rating.



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    2. Jesus christ that was a lot of typing. I need another beer.

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    3. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AkYIpFPCvqJ9dENjOVNpTE85Nk5Kc2tWT09lb08xSmc&usp=sharing#gid=0

      The "Philadelphia Ratings" tab has the formulas and calcs.

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  2. Thanks! Makes complete sense. I really enjoy this blog.

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  3. Zusi was actually credited with two assists, since he passed the ball to Myers who passed the ball to Bieler who scored the third goal.

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    1. Yeah, I saw that. I had the same question for the Fantasy game people last year and they said they don't give out second assists since it could really bias attacking players point total. I try to stick as close to the fantasy stats as possible unless something is clearly wrong.

      I'm generally not a fan of the second assist anyway, though I think for the sheer quality of his ball, in this case it might be justified...

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