5 year performance of MLS teams

Here is a table I made to rank the overall team performance of all MLS teams over the last five years. After some deliberation, I included Portland, Vancouver and Montreal. Even though they have not played all five years, at least all of them played more than 100 matches. Due to the inclusion of the three, I used points per game to evaluate the teams' performance.

Team	Points 2010+11+12+13+14	Points per game
LA Galaxy [1]	59 + 67 + 54 + 53 + 61 = 294	1.77
Seattle [2]	48 + 63 + 56 + 52 + 64 = 283	1.70
Real Salt Lake [3]	56 + 53 + 57 + 56 + 56 = 278	1.67
New York [4]	51 + 46 + 57 + 59 + 50 = 263	1.58
Sporting Kansas City [5]	39 + 51 + 63 + 58 + 49 =260	1.57
Columbus [6]	50 + 47 + 52 + 41 + 52 = 242	1.46
Dallas [7]	50 + 52 + 39 + 44 + 54 = 239	1.44
San Jose Earthquakes [8]	46 + 38 + 66 + 51 + 30 = 231	1.39
Houston [9]	33 + 49 + 53 + 51 + 39 = 225	1.36
Portland [10]	X + 42 + 34 + 57 + 49 = 182	1.34
Chicago [11]	36+ 43 + 57 + 49 + 36 = 221	1.33
Colorado [12]	46 + 49 + 37 + 51 + 32 = 215	1.29
Vancouver [13]	X + 28 + 43 + 48 + 50 =  169	1.24
Philadelphia [14]	31 + 48 + 36 + 46 + 42 = 203	1.22
New England [15]	32 + 28 + 35 + 51 + 55 = 201	1.21
DC United [16]	22 + 38 + 59 + 16 + 59 = 194	1.17
Montreal [17]	X + X + 42 + 49 + 28 = 119	1.17
Toronto [18]	35 + 33 + 23 + 29 + 54 = 174	1.05
Chivas [19]	28 + 36 + 30 + 26 + 33 = 153	.92

A few observations:

• MLS is known for its parity and it shows. The top team has got about 1.7 times more points per game than the worst time. For the Premier League, it is about triple - the champion gets about 90 points where as the bottom team gets around 30
• The top two teams are no surprise - they each have 3 DPs, including superstars like Keane, Dempsey, Donovan etc... However, Toronto landed at the bottom of the table. Lesson: It is not the money that counts but the smart money.
• A relatively low budget team RSL has done surprisingly well to take the third spot. More over, they have shown remarkably well in terms of consistency: in their best year, they got 57 points, but their worst year they got 53 points, less than 10% down. Additionally, they got 56 points in each of the other three years.
• DC United and San Jose Earthquakes on the other hand are most inconsistent teams. Both had very good year as well as very bad years. In their bad years, they got less than half of their good year points totals.
• Most teams alternate between good and bad years
• However, there are two teams that show year-over-year improvement for last 4 years: New England and Vancouver.

Superdraft rankings of MLS teams, 2015 edition

As draft day 2015 nears, I thought I should update my last year's post on MLS teams' performance in the Superdraft. This time, while ranking the teams, I've taken into consideration of the number of first round picks the teams used to give teams with a low number of draft picks an even playing field. Otherwise, my basic methodology remains the same - to count the number of draft picks who've played 1000+ minutes in their first two seasons. There are six 2014 rookies who has played more than 1000 minutes in their first season itself, they have been included. The rational for the 1000 minute rule can be found at my earlier post here. Players will count for whatever team drafted them, regardless of trades, as this is about recruitment not development.

I included Portland, Vancouver and Montreal but did not rank them since there is not enough data for them, though Vancouver has done better than the other new entrants.

Like last time, New England and DC have remained as the top two teams in recruiting via Superdraft, while Philadelphia and Chicago has fallen behind - Philadelphia hasn't recruited a single player in the last two years, who met my 1000 minute criteria. Galaxy has done surprisingly well considering that they got low draft picks, except for 2009. Colorado have had the most improvement over the last two years, drafting Deshorn Brown, Dillon Powers, and Jared Watts. Also, Seattle and Columbus remain at the bottom of the draft recruitment rankings.

Team	Number of draft picks who played 1000+ minutes in first two seasons	Number of first round picks used  (2009-2013)	Three players who clocked most minutes (first two year's minutes)
Chicago  [B]	4	3	Austin Berry (5580) Jalil Anibaba (5441) Sean Johnson (3690)
Chivas	6	6	Ben Zemanski (3599) Zarek Valentin (3275) Michael Lahoud (2556)
Colorado [C]	4	4	Dillon Powers (2457) Deshorn Brown (2169) Tony Cascio (2222)
Columbus [D]	4	6	Rich Balchan (1705) Dilly Duka (1624) Justin Meram (1475)
DC United [A]	8	5	Perry Kitchen (5890) Nick DeLeon (4087) Chris Korb (3341)
Dallas  [B]	6	6	Matt Hedges (4815) Zach Loyd (4496) George John (3300)
Houston [B]	5	4	Will Bruin (4731) Warren Creavalle (2504) Kofi Sarkodie (1804)
LA Galaxy [A]	8	5	Omar Gonzalez (5192) A.J. DeLaGarza (3061) Michael Stephens (3005)
Montreal	1	3	Eric Miller (1646) Blake Smith (319)
New England [A+]	10	6	Andrew Farrell (5653) A.J. Soares (5075) Kelyn Rowe (4630)
New York [B]	5	4	Tim Ream (5670) Tony Tchani (1722) Ryan Meara (1620)
Philadelphia [B+]	7	5	Raymon Gaddis (4278) Michael Farfan (4262) Zac MacMath (3555)
Portland	2	3	Darlington Nagbe (4428) Andrew Jean-Baptiste (2568)
Real Salt Lake [C]	4	4	Chris Schuler (1728) Collen Warner (1566) Sebastian Velasquez (1537)
San Jose Earthquakes [C]	4	4	Steven Beitashour (2295) Brad Ring (2035) Ike Opara (1399)
Seattle  [D]	3	4	Steve Zakuani (4278) Alex Caskey (1093) Eriq Zavaleta (1354)
Sporting Kansas City [C]	4	5	CJ Sapong (4306) Teal Bunbury (3431) Matt Besler (3252)
Toronto [B]	8	7	Luis Silva (4043) Joao Plata (2391) Aaron Maund (1217)
Vancouver	4	5	Jeb Brovsky (3742) Erik Hurtado (2294) Darren Mattocks (2211)

Expert Analysis or Snake Oil?

Every week, MLSSoccer.com releases their power rankings, its supposed experts' views on how various team are supposed to play the next few rounds. However, most of the time there isn't really any real analysis and lots of biased malarkey.

For instance, when San Jose was on a hot streak towards the end of last season, they  were still stuck around 12th on the list and covered it up with trash like, "Pretty depressing results for the Quakes this past weekend. Obvious must-win against Colorado on Wednesday night," and, "If either Colorado or LA lose this weekend, San Jose will be one point out of the playoffs and even on games played. With games against Colorado and LA coming up. Parity rules."

In contrast, PremierLeague.com provides the scores of last six games instead of trying to rank its teams. So, I decided to compare the power rankings with form (PPG from their last five games) and see which one comes closer to the next five games PPG. I decided to take one week from the beginning and end of the year to see if it makes any difference.

The average difference is the average of all MLS teams' differences between expected results(PPG of Power rankings rank) and the actual result(next five games PPG). For example, if FC Dallas is first in the power rankings but only ranks 13th in PPG from their next five games, their difference would be twelve. The averages are totaled up for all MLS teams and averaged to figure out the average difference.

Week	Power Rankings average difference	Last 5 PPG average difference
13	6.05	5.2
31	5	4.5

Although slightly, the PPG still outpreforms power rankings. Probably if the strength of schedule is also factored in, the results will become even more precise, possibly an interesting topic to explore in the future.

If interested, here is a link to the raw data
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YGe93Dr2P9Jy2WVHyC3Y6ztEZbPA-I7nxM4541kk6fg/edit#gid=0

MLS Head Coaching Bias Part 2: Playing Experience

At the end of my post on MLS coaches lacking experience, I mentioned that I also was going to follow up with a look at if MLS teams also prefer head coaches with playing experience. Here is a table comparing the top two leagues in the world, La Liga and the EPL with MLS

League	Percent of head coaches w/ playing experience	Fraction
MLS	95%	18/19
EPL	100%	20/20
La Liga	85%	17/20

Interestingly, all leagues overlook managers with no playing experience. The only manager who has no managing or playing experience, Fran Escribia of Elche, led them to the first division after a 25 year absence. The only MLS head coach with no professional playing experience is Sigi Schmid - who has the most wins in the history of MLS. MLS and teams all around the world should stop having this prejudice while looking for a new head coach and reap the rewards.

MLS Head Coaching Bias Part 1: Coaching Experience

Recently, I noticed a trend of MLS coaches being hired for their first professional head coaching gig. although guys like Caleb Porter offer a new perspective on building a team, I thought it may not be the best idea. So, I took a look and compared the percentage of first-time MLS Head Coaches and the percentages of the top two leagues in the world. I didn't include college and youth national team coaching as 'experience'(sorry Caleb Porter and John Hackworth), but decided to put Francisco Javier Rodríguez Vilchez of Almeria in the head coaching experience group due to the fact that he coached Almeria's B team, which plays in the Spanish third division

League	Percent of first time head coaches	Fraction
MLS	68%	13/19
EPL	15%	3/20
La Liga	10%	2/20

Even more frightening, there is only one MLS head coach to have started outside MLS. Even though coaches like Aron Winter and Ruud Gullit have failed in MLS, experienced managers tend to preform better due to the 10,000 hour rule mentioned in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers. Teams should also stop hiring just managers with playing experience. When Carlo Ancelotti was asked about the subject of playing experience, he commented, "I don't see the connection. My dentist is the best in the world, but he's never had a particularly bad toothache." I'll take look at that in a future post.