The playoffs will kick off today and there will no shortage of ways various outlets will break it down. We’ll have our own in-depth look at each series, but there no shame in spreading the love.
Major League Soccer Playoffs: Many Different Angles On Odds, Fixes, Head-to-head
Admittedly, I’m biased (since I still post there frequently) but the reason I love the stuff at Sounder at Heart is their insistence on having fun while still trying to be even handed.
The latest example of this is their championship odds, which as mathematical approach as I’ve seen anyone do.
Without knowing all the inputs that go into their calculations, I can’t really vouch for the accuracy — and honestly, I’m not sure knowing anymore about those inputs would really be worth much — but their numbers certainly feel plausible, if admittedly surprising.
They peg the New York Red Bulls as the favorite, sporing a 18.1 percent chance of winning the championship. Hardly a lock, but the reasoning is one I can appreciate: Their path to the final is simply the least troublesome. Real Salt Lake — the SBN editor's nearly unanimous pick — comes in second at 16.2 percent. The Sounders, in case you're wondering, have the sixth best chance of winning at 9.2 percent. The San Jose Earthquakes are deemed the longshots at 7.6 percent.
Climbing the Ladder is another blog that prides itself on taking a different tact when examining MLS. They do lots of stuff that relates to the league’s history and tend to find interesting statistics.
Their latest post has to do with how playoff teams have fared against one another. The results, again, may surprising you. The Galaxy, for instance, have by far the best record, claiming 28 points and posting a +9 goal-difference in these 14 matches. RSL is a distant second at 21 points and +5.
Those are actually the only two teams with winning records or positive goal-differences as the Red Bulls were third at 18 points and -3. The next four teams are all at 17 points and between -2 and -4. FC Dallas, somewhat surprisingly, brings up the rear at 14 points, but just a -1 goal-difference.
The final article I thought was worth a look was something Soccer Fanhouse put together regarding the playoffs and deserves a look if for no other reason than it takes a decidedly different approach than just about anything else I’ve seen.
I wasn’t a huge fan of all their specifics, but I loved the general concept. Basically, they suggest scrapping the first round of the tournament and instead implementing a group-stage format. They would place two Western and two Eastern Conference teams in separate groups and have them play head-to-head once each. The top two teams from each group would advance to the semifinals where they’d play a version of a two-legged tie and then to a single-match MLS Cup final.
Their semifinal proposal is a little gimmicky for me — it basically allows for the lower-seeded team to advance if they win Game 1 outright — but the group stage idea is great. They suggest the conference winners being allowed to host all three of their matches, the No. 2 team hosting two of three and the bottom seeds hitting the road for all three.
I’d still like to see only the conference winners getting automatic berths into the playoffs and the other six teams being seeded 3-8 — they seem to suggest four teams from each conference which I think would be disastrous — but there’s really no good reason a group stage wouldn’t work without having to extend the season too much.
It’s all good food for thought. Now, let’s get ready for an actual meal.
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