Power Ranking Averages - Wk 1
Sounders take the top spot for week 1.
There were 9 sites that published rankings, down 2 from the preseason total. I know of at least 2 that usually hold off on their rankings until around wks 3-6 to get data points for reference, so I expect the site totals to increase.
As always, if you know of a site I have not used please let me know in the comments and I’ll look into adding it to the list!
Sites Used
- Jeff Sagarin
- Five Thirty Eight (Proj. points)
- Who Scored
- ESPN
- Massey
- MLS
- Sonny Moore Rankings
- MLS Fantasy Boss
- Ghana Soccernet
Sports RundownReutirSoccer AmericaFreeborg Power IndexMLS Multiplex-
3rd Degree -
US Soccer Players(monthly) -
Soccer By Ives
You may notice the list includes several ‘analytic’ sites; they serve to function as a stable counterbalance or ‘control group’ to the rest which are based more on personal opinions, and those done by ‘group rankers’. There are also sites included that some will argue are ‘prediction rankings’ - but that also is a form of Power Ranking is (see the quote at the top) since it uses algorithms to calculate a team’s likely final position.
All the averages use the Olympic method (I.E. Truncated Mean value) of dropping the highest and lowest scores, and then averaging the rest to reduce bias.
The full spreadsheeet is here.
- Highest Standard Deviation: Minnesota United 8.97
- Lowest Standard Deviation: Seattle Sounders 0.71
- Biggest Rise: NA
- Biggest Fall: NA
Site Bias
All sites are going to have bias, whether conscious (blogs) or due to analytic calculation (based on past performance). This section lets you see the extent that sites are biased for/against teams. Negative totals (-) are bias FOR, positive numbers (+) are bias AGAINST.