Comments on: MLS Power Rankings: Week 12

By: Cai

Cai — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 17:17:25 +0000

Mostly agreed, except for the Fire.
Even before they looked awful last night, I’d have had them about 3rd at best. Now maybe fifth. They are obviously scuffling, which is why I wasn’t too excited about our win over them Sun. We needed it like air, and I’ll take it.
But this isn’t the Fire of earlier this season.

By: cowtown

cowtown — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:49:17 +0000

HA! I love Buzz’s posts. They should be shown to all Middle Schoolers as lessons on relying too much on a computer spell checker. Of course, the number of edits I make on BigSoccer posts could be used as a similar lesson on the value of a typing class.

By: barefoot

barefoot — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:22:42 +0000

Damn, maybe Buzz should allow editing of comments for spelling. My above post is embarassing.

But then, he doesn’t bother with his own spelling, so, why should I expect him to care.

By: barefoot

barefoot — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 16:20:59 +0000

Don’t overthink. Don’t second guess.

Why should DC be ranked higher than 10, or 12/14 last week? They only have 16 points – and their most recent win was against NY.

By overthinking this you run into the problem of wanting to put a team higher or lower based on their potential rather than on how well they are actually playing.

Discussions of weighting for recent games should take place only after you have truly decided what these rankings are. The power rankings could be a measure of how good each team has been this season — althoug, I would make the case that Buzz’ unified table accomplishes this latter pretty darn well.

In my mind, a good power ranking approximates the current play of the teams. A measure, if you will, of how much the thought of them coming to town scares me this weekend. If this is your goal, then you may want to ONLY count recent games, and develop a coefficient for key injuries and callups.

In any case, don’t worry too much about the citique based on quibbles over individual teams.