2017 Projecting By The Numbers and Chasing A Narrative

[Ulrich]

So I'm looking at projections and something has occurred to me about the league as a whole. Maybe a fact-man wants to check this out, but I'm starting to think that the addition of more money to the player salary budget has allowed for the band we call parity to widen.

Essentially, I think we're going to (maybe we already do) have classes of teams, sort of like the PL, but less exaggerated. It seems like that the projected playoff line this year is even higher than last. And last year seemingly and year 1 it definitely was above mgarbowski 's projected numbers.

This year, you probably need 44-45 yet again to be in the playoffs. Probably 66-70 to win SS.

The point I'm trying to get at is the that bigger the size of the equal pieces everyone gets, the more discrepancy from smart clubs and poor clubs. What that means to me is that eventually, results will be less MLS-y in their randomness.

When everyone can only afford shit, everyone is shit. When everyone has enough money to buy at least 11 non-shit players, we are starting to see real separation amongst the clubs.

There's probably a lot to your theory, and I'll add that it separates which teams have cheaply invested in their FO/coaches and also which have tight-pocketed owners. Looking at the standings, the bottom dwellers have the following notable members: DC, Colorado, RSL, New England, and an expansion team (didn't include Montreal and Philly because both seem to want to do well but aren't good at it, plus with games in hand, they could be above this level). Those others just suck at the way they run their teams and try to fund them on a shoestring. Ben Olsen isn't a bad coach but he has nothing to work with. Jay Heaps, Petke, and the guy at Minn aren't good coaches. I'm fine with it because for the most part they should turn into easy pickings. I'm really fine with your theory because it'll reward the teams that scout well and have a good system to integrate them in to.

 

[Gotham Gator]

So I'm looking at projections and something has occurred to me about the league as a whole. Maybe a fact-man wants to check this out, but I'm starting to think that the addition of more money to the player salary budget has allowed for the band we call parity to widen.

Essentially, I think we're going to (maybe we already do) have classes of teams, sort of like the PL, but less exaggerated. It seems like that the projected playoff line this year is even higher than last. And last year seemingly and year 1 it definitely was above mgarbowski 's projected numbers.

This year, you probably need 44-45 yet again to be in the playoffs. Probably 66-70 to win SS.

The point I'm trying to get at is the that bigger the size of the equal pieces everyone gets, the more discrepancy from smart clubs and poor clubs. What that means to me is that eventually, results will be less MLS-y in their randomness.

When everyone can only afford shit, everyone is shit. When everyone has enough money to buy at least 11 non-shit players, we are starting to see real separation amongst the clubs.

So, it's not just that some teams are not spending their TAM; it's that once more money is available, things like player evaluation, roster planning, and just plain luck start to make a bigger difference? Sounds plausible to me.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

So, is there enough public information to chart salaries vs team performance? If we have the data it would be interesting to see a league table with an extra two columns, one for total salary cap hit and another for total actual salaries (i.e., full charges for the DPs, not just cap hit). Might also be interesting to see that on a per game basis (salary amount per game on the field vs. win/loss record).

Total salary isn't really my point, though. My point is how a club chooses to spend those dollars.

Let's be honest, would SKC be better as they are or if they ditched Zusi and Besler as DPs and played SAS and EPB and used the money to bring in real DPs that allowed them to play games where they occasionally looked dangerous? I would argue they are a team bound to go down the rankings the longer the season goes on, especially now that The Dick is injured.

I'm not talking about how much you spend, but how you spend what you have. We have a massive hole with Pirlo being a DP, but we overcame it thanks to absolute homeruns with allocation money. These are the sort of situations that we are seeeing more often and the teams able to spread the money in their subjective best way are the ones kicking ass.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

So, it's not just that some teams are not spending their TAM; it's that once more money is available, things like player evaluation, roster planning, and just plain luck start to make a bigger difference? Sounds plausible to me.

Exactly.

 

[Seth]

Total salary isn't really my point, though. My point is how a club chooses to spend those dollars.

Let's be honest, would SKC be better as they are or if they ditched Zusi and Besler as DPs and played SAS and EPB and used the money to bring in real DPs that allowed them to play games where they occasionally looked dangerous? I would argue they are a team bound to go down the rankings the longer the season goes on, especially now that The Dick is injured.

I'm not talking about how much you spend, but how you spend what you have. We have a massive hole with Pirlo being a DP, but we overcame it thanks to absolute homeruns with allocation money. These are the sort of situations that we are seeeing more often and the teams able to spread the money in their subjective best way are the ones kicking ass.

Totally agree but my proposal was to take accessible numbers and make a graph to see if there's anything interesting. The type of multivariate statistical analysis you're (sort of/not really) proposing is much more involved and would require a crack analysis staff and Watson or Big Blue to handle it all. Or just send it to 538 and let them do it, perhaps.

I'd love to go deep with non-opinion analysis but there's only so much actual hard information we can get out of MLS.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

Totally agree but my proposal was to take accessible numbers and make a graph to see if there's anything interesting. The type of multivariate statistical analysis you're (sort of/not really) proposing is much more involved and would require a crack analysis staff and Watson or Big Blue to handle it all. Or just send it to 538 and let them do it, perhaps.

I'd love to go deep with non-opinion analysis but there's only so much actual hard information we can get out of MLS.

Eh. Don't think statistics is the way to go here. You need a value metric that isn't based on stats (eta: should say statistical probabilities). Probably a function I'd have to have one of my smarter co-workers come up with.

ETA part deux: actually, more I think about it, find that function, then some application of what you're suggesting would likely land us with the right answer,e.g., mutivariate Monte Carlo simulation running iterations of logistic functions based on actual prior performance rather than simple (allegedly) predictive statistics.

(Just to make it clear, I realize the above is entirely bullshit. Wanted to clarify that, as I woke up in the middle of the night and it was bugging me that I didn't put a winky face. Now, maybe I can sleep.)

 

[mgarbowski]

I think Midas's theory makes sense.
Give 50 people a food budget of $5 a day and you get lots of rice and beans.
Give them $25 daily and some will eat steak as much as possible, some go to Olive Garden 3-4 days a week, others will buy daily fresh produce, fish and meat, others hit a different food truck every day, and yet others go vegan or gluten-free despite not having celiac disease. Money gives you options and leads to greater variety of how people use it, some of them brilliant and creative, and some stupid. Limit money and everybody gravitates to the most efficient use, however bland or unpleasant.
Where it gets more complicated is how the spending caps are implemented and what are the arcane rules.
The other 4 major team sports in America have different salary caps and some are more conducive to dynasties than others. But it seems to correlate more with the quirks and rules than just how high the cap is, and when rules change, sometimes so does the competitive turnover in a given sport.

 

[SoupInNYC]

There's probably a lot to your theory, and I'll add that it separates which teams have cheaply invested in their FO/coaches and also which have tight-pocketed owners. Looking at the standings, the bottom dwellers have the following notable members: DC, Colorado, RSL, New England, and an expansion team (didn't include Montreal and Philly because both seem to want to do well but aren't good at it, plus with games in hand, they could be above this level). Those others just suck at the way they run their teams and try to fund them on a shoestring. Ben Olsen isn't a bad coach but he has nothing to work with. Jay Heaps, Petke, and the guy at Minn aren't good coaches. I'm fine with it because for the most part they should turn into easy pickings. I'm really fine with your theory because it'll reward the teams that scout well and have a good system to integrate them in to.

I definitely wouldn't count Montreal out quite yet. They have quite a few draws already this year, compared to Columbus who has only drawn once.

Honestly, I think Montreal still takes a playoff spot. They're not as terrible as their current place in the table stands. They have Piatti recently brought on and are assimilating Dzemaili (whatever his name is) and sounds like they may bring in Sneijder. They have some other decent pieces on that squad as well.

Additionally, they have at least two games in hand on everyone except for Philly.

For fun, compare them to Columbus:
Columbus has 8 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw, and a GD of -1
Montreal has 4 wins, 5 losses, 6 draws and a GD of -2

I know there is something to closing out games and getting wins, but if Columbus converts wins and losses into draws and Montreal does the opposite, their point totals look much more similar.

I'm still sticking with my original Eastern playoff predictions: NYC, Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, NJRB, Montreal (not necessarily in that order, but I wasn't not going to put NYC at the front).

 

[Ulrich]

I definitely wouldn't count Montreal out quite yet. They have quite a few draws already this year, compared to Columbus who has only drawn once.

Honestly, I think Montreal still takes a playoff spot. They're not as terrible as their current place in the table stands. They have Piatti recently brought on and are assimilating Dzemaili (whatever his name is) and sounds like they may bring in Sneijder. They have some other decent pieces on that squad as well.

Additionally, they have at least two games in hand on everyone except for Philly.

For fun, compare them to Columbus:
Columbus has 8 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw, and a GD of -1
Montreal has 4 wins, 5 losses, 6 draws and a GD of -2

I know there is something to closing out games and getting wins, but if Columbus converts wins and losses into draws and Montreal does the opposite, their point totals look much more similar.

I'm still sticking with my original Eastern playoff predictions: NYC, Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, NJRB, Montreal (not necessarily in that order, but I wasn't not going to put NYC at the front).

NYRB is the cusp team and if they don't win either of the two remaining games versus NYCFC, I don't think they make it. Last year and the year before, they took 6&9 points to pad their counts. Without those, they're middle of the eastern pack - this year they're already middle and without them they'd be in the bottom tier. If Montreal steps up, then only one more team needs to to kick RB and Orlando out. Could be philly - they're dreadful but have a lot of pieces if they can figure it out.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

I definitely wouldn't count Montreal out quite yet. They have quite a few draws already this year, compared to Columbus who has only drawn once.

Honestly, I think Montreal still takes a playoff spot. They're not as terrible as their current place in the table stands. They have Piatti recently brought on and are assimilating Dzemaili (whatever his name is) and sounds like they may bring in Sneijder. They have some other decent pieces on that squad as well.

Additionally, they have at least two games in hand on everyone except for Philly.

For fun, compare them to Columbus:
Columbus has 8 wins, 9 losses, 1 draw, and a GD of -1
Montreal has 4 wins, 5 losses, 6 draws and a GD of -2

I know there is something to closing out games and getting wins, but if Columbus converts wins and losses into draws and Montreal does the opposite, their point totals look much more similar.

I'm still sticking with my original Eastern playoff predictions: NYC, Toronto, Chicago, Atlanta, NJRB, Montreal (not necessarily in that order, but I wasn't not going to put NYC at the front).

As of right now, sportsclubstats.com agrees with 4 of your picks. And looks like they think it's a bloodbath for the last slot, though.

You have 3 locks (Toronto -99.9, Chicago - 99.8, NYC - 97.7) and 1 near lock (Atl ~85). Then you have Columbus at 60%, with everyone else except DCU in a tight group at roughly 25 to 40% chance (least to most likely Philly, Mtl, RBNJ, NE, ORL)

I actually agree with you that Montreal looks like they have could potentially emerge. They are certainly one of the scarier matchups out of that last cluster I mentioned.

I think the only preseason prediction I made that I could say for sure looks spot on was that DCU wouldn't make the playoffs. I didn't see anything replicable in their run into the playoffs, and it appears I was right to veer from the expert analysts there.

Atlanta has done better than I predicted, and I still want to see how they handle all those matches in Atlanta heat with their style of play.

Let's hope Chicago goes deep in USOC. I think we can realistically pick them off in the standings in the next few weeks, and then, who knows. More than an 85% chance the SS ends up with the eastern winner at this point, so why not us?

 

[Marito]

Total salary isn't really my point, though. My point is how a club chooses to spend those dollars.

Let's be honest, would SKC be better as they are or if they ditched Zusi and Besler as DPs and played SAS and EPB and used the money to bring in real DPs that allowed them to play games where they occasionally looked dangerous? I would argue they are a team bound to go down the rankings the longer the season goes on, especially now that The Dick is injured.

I'm not talking about how much you spend, but how you spend what you have. We have a massive hole with Pirlo being a DP, but we overcame it thanks to absolute homeruns with allocation money. These are the sort of situations that we are seeeing more often and the teams able to spread the money in their subjective best way are the ones kicking ass.

With allocation money AND having CFG lend us Yangel, blessed be his name.

 

[Gotham Gator]

One thing I like about the current standings is that regardless where we finish in the East, we have a good chance of finishing ahead of the first place West team, and that would mean if we run the gauntlet in the conference playoffs, the MLS Cup will be played in Yankee Stadium.

 

[Midas Mulligan]

One thing I like about the current standings is that regardless where we finish in the East, we have a good chance of finishing ahead of the first place West team, and that would mean if we run the gauntlet in the conference playoffs, the MLS Cup will be played in Yankee Stadium.

To the annoyance of everyone except NYCFC fans, which makes me extremely giddy at the thought.

 

[mgarbowski]

As of right now, sportsclubstats.com agrees with 4 of your picks. And looks like they think it's a bloodbath for the last slot, though.

You have 3 locks (Toronto -99.9, Chicago - 99.8, NYC - 97.7) and 1 near lock (Atl ~85). Then you have Columbus at 60%, with everyone else except DCU in a tight group at roughly 25 to 40% chance (least to most likely Philly, Mtl, RBNJ, NE, ORL)

I had not checked that site in a while since they update so irreglarly I tend to forget about them. Interesting that they are so much more bullish on Atlanta than playoffstatus.com. That site has Atlanta at only 59% to make the playoffs, and behind Orlando. Generally playoffstatus trackes the standings closer (though they do rank ATL's chance higher than Columbus) and is less willing to put a high % number out until after it is pretty undeniable.

Turning back to NYC and SS, they're predicting a pretty high SS point total this year. The odds of winning SS don't go above 50% until you hit 65 points.

 

[canchon]

To the annoyance of everyone except NYCFC fans, which makes me extremely giddy at the thought.

I can't wait to hear all the whining from other teams fans if MLS Cup is in Yankee Stadium. As well as the articles about the field size and the endless complaining. Oooooohhhh.

 

[Seth]

I can't wait to hear all the whining from other teams fans if MLS Cup is in Yankee Stadium. As well as the articles about the field size and the endless complaining. Oooooohhhh.

I would welcome having the MLS Cup here at Yankee Stadium. I was just thinking earlier today when Gotham Gator brought up the possibility that aside from the various odd things about playing soccer in the stadium one of the best things about it is the camera angle. That third base line camera platform is in the absolutely perfect spot for soccer. It's right near the center line, it's just the right distance from the pitch, and it's at just the right height off the ground. The misconfiguration of a baseball stadium may not be the greatest for the fans but for the camera placement is (accidentally) just right.

Camera placement is a pet peeve of mine at some stadiums. Can't really name names off the top of my head but you can always tell a bad one. Too far away, way too high off the ground, or even maybe a bad director who doesn't know soccer and keeps the cameras zoomed too far out sometimes. That •really• bugs me.

 

[Gotham Gator]

I would welcome having the MLS Cup here at Yankee Stadium. I was just thinking earlier today when Gotham Gator brought up the possibility that aside from the various odd things about playing soccer in the stadium one of the best things about it is the camera angle. That third base line camera platform is in the absolutely perfect spot for soccer. It's right near the center line, it's just the right distance from the pitch, and it's at just the right height off the ground. The misconfiguration of a baseball stadium may not be the greatest for the fans but for the camera placement is (accidentally) just right.

Camera placement is a pet peeve of mine at some stadiums. Can't really name names off the top of my head but you can always tell a bad one. Too far away, way too high off the ground, or even maybe a bad director who doesn't know soccer and keeps the cameras zoomed too far out sometimes. That •really• bugs me.

Ha! I actually hate the camera angle in our stadium. Much too shallow for me. I don't know why they don't put something up in the otherwise empty 3rd deck. Different strokes, I guess.

 

[Gotham Gator]

I can't wait to hear all the whining from other teams fans if MLS Cup is in Yankee Stadium. As well as the articles about the field size and the endless complaining. Oooooohhhh.

Right. The endless complaining about the size and quality of the pitch, which is the kind of bullshit that people just assume is true because they hear it repeated everywhere and thus never take the time to think about it. Drives me nuts.

Yes, our pitch is small, but it's not so small it makes a huge difference - and it is definitely regulation. The quality of the grass is generally fine too. The temporary sod is not ideal, but they've gotten it a lot better, and you regularly see good play down that side.

Does it make a difference - yes, but only an odd play or two every other game.

 

[Gotham Gator]

I had not checked that site in a while since they update so irreglarly I tend to forget about them. Interesting that they are so much more bullish on Atlanta than playoffstatus.com. That site has Atlanta at only 59% to make the playoffs, and behind Orlando. Generally playoffstatus trackes the standings closer (though they do rank ATL's chance higher than Columbus) and is less willing to put a high % number out until after it is pretty undeniable.

Turning back to NYC and SS, they're predicting a pretty high SS point total this year. The odds of winning SS don't go above 50% until you hit 65 points.

And there is now the 538 pound gorilla weighing in on these things, although we've discussed their odd biases against our defense already.

Right now, they have the Big 3 in the East as Toronto (99% to make the playoffs), Chicago (97%) and NYC (92%). After that, it is Atlanta (63%), Columbus (54%), New Jersey (49%), New England (39%), Orlando (37%), Montreal (36%), Philly (23%) and DC (11%).

By the way, they currently rate our offense first in the league and our defense 10th, which is still too low, but at least an improvement.

 

[EganSoccerWords]

Total salary isn't really my point, though. My point is how a club chooses to spend those dollars.

Let's be honest, would SKC be better as they are or if they ditched Zusi and Besler as DPs and played SAS and EPB and used the money to bring in real DPs that allowed them to play games where they occasionally looked dangerous? I would argue they are a team bound to go down the rankings the longer the season goes on, especially now that The Dick is injured.

I'm not talking about how much you spend, but how you spend what you have. We have a massive hole with Pirlo being a DP, but we overcame it thanks to absolute homeruns with allocation money. These are the sort of situations that we are seeeing more often and the teams able to spread the money in their subjective best way are the ones kicking ass.

Just to add on, soccer is a sport that is a lot more dependent on roster balance than other sports. In basketball, you can design an entire team around one great player and have success.

Soccer is different. We have arguably the best striker that has ever played in MLS, but look at how many games the past three seasons we have failed to give him scoring opportunity because of shitty players surround him.

One of the reasons why I really liked the TAM initiative over adding another DP slot is because it forced teams to spread money around rather than concentrate money on a single player.