Last year the team had a horrible start, and we spent a fair amount of time here arguing over how badly it affected our playoff chances. The disagreement covered both how many points we would need to make the playoffs and how much better would we play when our summer transfers arrived. I was pessimist on both accounts. I had hope, but not expectations, and the numbers put me there. That’s enough history but if you want a refresher this is the main thread.
This year we had a bad, but so far somewhat less horrible start, and I’m starting the analytical fun earlier than I did last year. We are now at the 1/4 mark and that’s enough to start playing around. The same 2 issues predominate: what will be the playoff line and how well will we play and/or need to play going forward. I don’t yet have a position on either. For the record, I currently hope we will make the playoffs and think it is a reasonable possibility. I’m not yet ready to say it is likely or not. If forced to bet I would probably say against, because I hate to bet against a streak. Bit since I’m not really forced I’ll stick with “I need more data.” But here is where I think things stand.
The Playoff Line
Last year the magic points line was 49. Toronto finished 6th with that many points, with a bit of a cushion as 7th place Orlando had 44 points. In 2014 there were both fewer teams and fewer playoff teams, but the 6th place team in the East had 42 points and 7th place had 41. Go back further and the number bounces around quite a bit with all the changes MLS has undergone. Last season I projected the playoff line to be around 42-44 for much of the season, which turned out to be low despite being higher than many more optimistic folks here expected. Here is why:
Montreal won 7 of it last 11 getting 23 of 33 points.
New England won 8 of its last 13 getting 26 of 39 points.
Toronto won 6 of its last 11 for 18 of 33 points. That sounds so-so but it is more than 0.3 PPG better than it did in the first 23 games.
DC United slipped at the end, but started well enough it had no effect on the playoff line. Red Bulls and the Crew were also strong all season.
The point is that a particularly strong or weak late run by 2 teams on the bubble can have big effect on the 6th place playoff line and there is no way to predict that. The PPG projection, which simply takes the current 6th place team and projects its current points after 34 games, was projecting Montreal to finish 6th with 43 points as late as September 17 last year. Montreal finished with 51.
Simply based on last year I myself will assume the playoff line will be from 47-51 until we get at least closer to the halfway point.
For what it’s worth, the current PPG projection puts the playoff line at 38 points. I will be shocked if it stays that low, but if that’s where you prefer to make your line right now I won’t argue. Not yet.
What We Need To Do
Here are various result scenarios for our last 25 games and the point totals. Everything is in W-L-T format followed by what that would be PPG and total points for the full season at the end:
14-6-5 1.88 57
13-6-6 1.80 55
12-9-4 1.60 50
11-8-6 1.56 49
11-6-8 1.64 51
10-8-7 1.48 47
9-9-7 1.36 44
9-11-5 1.28 42
8-11-6 1.20 40
You can play around by assuming fewer or more ties etc but you can see that we probably have to win at least 10 games plus a good number of ties to be in the playoff hunt. If we only tie 4 more times (and there is reason to think that might happen) we need 11-12 wins.
All Tied Up
Just adding up the current standings, the East has played to 30 ties so far. That does count any intraconference game twice, but use the same method for all of last year and the East played 66 ties. We are only about 25% into the season so we are way ahead of last year’s full season pace. Last year NYCFC had 7 ties all season, with only 4 after April. So expecting 7 for the rest of this season seems a lot. Also, when I looked at the end of season last year for the other East teams it seemed they had fewer ties as the year went on. I just eyeballed it so I could be wrong but that is how it looked. It might be that ties tend out come less frequently as the season progresses. It would take a lot more data digging to test that so it’s just a partly educated guess right now, but we have had a lot of ties so far and I would expect things to get more normal, both for us and the East as a whole. Fewer ties also means more points for winners which is one reason I also think the current PPG projection is low. We’ll have to wait and see.
I don't know if I'll update this weekly yet this early in the season. But feel free to discuss, argue, add other stats, charts, graphs, deathwatch counts, etc.
This year we had a bad, but so far somewhat less horrible start, and I’m starting the analytical fun earlier than I did last year. We are now at the 1/4 mark and that’s enough to start playing around. The same 2 issues predominate: what will be the playoff line and how well will we play and/or need to play going forward. I don’t yet have a position on either. For the record, I currently hope we will make the playoffs and think it is a reasonable possibility. I’m not yet ready to say it is likely or not. If forced to bet I would probably say against, because I hate to bet against a streak. Bit since I’m not really forced I’ll stick with “I need more data.” But here is where I think things stand.
The Playoff Line
Last year the magic points line was 49. Toronto finished 6th with that many points, with a bit of a cushion as 7th place Orlando had 44 points. In 2014 there were both fewer teams and fewer playoff teams, but the 6th place team in the East had 42 points and 7th place had 41. Go back further and the number bounces around quite a bit with all the changes MLS has undergone. Last season I projected the playoff line to be around 42-44 for much of the season, which turned out to be low despite being higher than many more optimistic folks here expected. Here is why:
Montreal won 7 of it last 11 getting 23 of 33 points.
New England won 8 of its last 13 getting 26 of 39 points.
Toronto won 6 of its last 11 for 18 of 33 points. That sounds so-so but it is more than 0.3 PPG better than it did in the first 23 games.
DC United slipped at the end, but started well enough it had no effect on the playoff line. Red Bulls and the Crew were also strong all season.
The point is that a particularly strong or weak late run by 2 teams on the bubble can have big effect on the 6th place playoff line and there is no way to predict that. The PPG projection, which simply takes the current 6th place team and projects its current points after 34 games, was projecting Montreal to finish 6th with 43 points as late as September 17 last year. Montreal finished with 51.
Simply based on last year I myself will assume the playoff line will be from 47-51 until we get at least closer to the halfway point.
For what it’s worth, the current PPG projection puts the playoff line at 38 points. I will be shocked if it stays that low, but if that’s where you prefer to make your line right now I won’t argue. Not yet.
What We Need To Do
Here are various result scenarios for our last 25 games and the point totals. Everything is in W-L-T format followed by what that would be PPG and total points for the full season at the end:
14-6-5 1.88 57
13-6-6 1.80 55
12-9-4 1.60 50
11-8-6 1.56 49
11-6-8 1.64 51
10-8-7 1.48 47
9-9-7 1.36 44
9-11-5 1.28 42
8-11-6 1.20 40
You can play around by assuming fewer or more ties etc but you can see that we probably have to win at least 10 games plus a good number of ties to be in the playoff hunt. If we only tie 4 more times (and there is reason to think that might happen) we need 11-12 wins.
All Tied Up
Just adding up the current standings, the East has played to 30 ties so far. That does count any intraconference game twice, but use the same method for all of last year and the East played 66 ties. We are only about 25% into the season so we are way ahead of last year’s full season pace. Last year NYCFC had 7 ties all season, with only 4 after April. So expecting 7 for the rest of this season seems a lot. Also, when I looked at the end of season last year for the other East teams it seemed they had fewer ties as the year went on. I just eyeballed it so I could be wrong but that is how it looked. It might be that ties tend out come less frequently as the season progresses. It would take a lot more data digging to test that so it’s just a partly educated guess right now, but we have had a lot of ties so far and I would expect things to get more normal, both for us and the East as a whole. Fewer ties also means more points for winners which is one reason I also think the current PPG projection is low. We’ll have to wait and see.
I don't know if I'll update this weekly yet this early in the season. But feel free to discuss, argue, add other stats, charts, graphs, deathwatch counts, etc.
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