Dolphin Ratings - Major League Soccer

Explanation: Each team is listed with its record, overall score differential, and its ratings. Brief explanations of the ratings follow.

Schedule The number in this column is the effective opponent strength of a team. In other words, they would be expected to have the same record had they played all games against an opponent of this predictive rating at a neutral site. Because this calculation depends on the strength of the team in question, it is not possible to rank schedules using these values.
Expected Losses For college teams, this number is the number of losses an average ranked (top 15 hockey; otherwise top 25) team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. For pro teams, this is the number of losses an average team would be expected to have against the team's schedule. Unlike the schedule ranking, this value can be used to rank schedules.
Standard Ranks teams in an order such that a team is "probably better" than all teams ranked lower than it. This calculation uses margin of victory only for computing a team's opponents strengths; the team's rating itself is computed using only wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule
Median Likelihood Determines the likely ratings for each team, based on its wins, losses, and ties relative to its schedule. This generally produces the same or similar ratings as the standard ranking.
Predictive Both schedule strength and rating vs. schedule strength are determined considering both the wins and losses and the score differentials. This rating contains none of the biases in the standard rating, but does weight recent games slightly more than past games since those are a better indication of the team's current strength. This rating is the best of the first three for seeing how good teams are, and thus is the best for predicting future results.
Improved RPI Rating The improved RPI formula is similar to the standard RPI, except that the schedule strength is carried out to infinite depth instead of ending with opponents' opponents, thus allows for a better comparison of isolated groups of teams than is given by the standard RPI calculation. It is similar to the simple rating, except that all games are given equal weight.
Scoring. This value indicates how many points a team would be expected to score if it played an identical team.
Offense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team scores. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to score the league average number of points. This does not necessarily rate a team's offensive abilities, as a fast pace in basketball or big-play defense in football can make a team score more points.
Defense. This combines the predictive and scoring ratings to measure how many points a team allows. The number is the predictive rating of an opponent against whom the team would be expected to allow the league average number of points. The same caveat in the predictive-offense rating applies here.

In order to increase early-season stability, the three main rankings, the improved RPI, and the college pseudopoll include priors based on the previous season final predictive ratings and occasionally incorporating preseason predictions of various major publications. The other rankings for college sports do not include priors, and thus can be wildly unstable early in the year. A team whose rankings are affected by this prior is noted with a P following its rankings.

Full Ranking

                                              STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM            W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
FC DALLAS      10  2  3 28 14 -0.017  6.727    1  0.306    1  0.321    1  0.280    1 0.5614    7  0.254    1  0.284    3  0.276
SAN JOSE       18  5 11 55 35 -0.059 14.943    2  0.234    3  0.214    2  0.270    2 0.5397    8  0.202    3  0.232    1  0.308
NEW ENGLAND    19  9  8 59 40  0.023 16.770    3  0.186    2  0.226    3  0.197    3 0.5244   10  0.123    7  0.099    2  0.295
CHICAGO        16 14  5 53 51  0.052 17.100    4  0.065    5  0.051    8  0.036    4 0.5116    1  0.466    4  0.219   11 -0.146
LOS ANGELES    16 13  7 51 47 -0.042 16.462    5  0.056    7  0.044    7  0.054    5 0.5106    6  0.278    8  0.076    5  0.031
DC UNITED       5  5  4 21 19  0.084  7.143    6  0.037    4  0.060    6  0.085    7 0.5079    4  0.366    6  0.181    7 -0.011
KANSAS CITY    11  9 12 52 44  0.029 15.275    7  0.014    6  0.044    5  0.092    8 0.5030    2  0.461    2  0.271   10 -0.086
NY/NJ           5  4  5 22 17  0.020  6.741    8  0.008    8  0.030    4  0.106    6 0.5081    3  0.373    5  0.208    6  0.004
COLORADO       14 14  7 43 41 -0.017 16.286    9 -0.100    9 -0.025    9 -0.029    9 0.4872    9  0.155    9 -0.103    4  0.045
COLUMBUS       11 16  5 34 45  0.007 15.380   10 -0.139   10 -0.120   10 -0.139   10 0.4773   11  0.083   10 -0.267    8 -0.011
TEAM            W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
REAL SALT LAKE  3  9  3 10 25 -0.026  7.547   11 -0.230   11 -0.215   11 -0.363   11 0.4590   12 -0.186   12 -0.674    9 -0.051
CHIVAS USA      4 22  6 31 67 -0.006 15.888   12 -0.435   12 -0.437   12 -0.534   12 0.4326    5  0.330   11 -0.469   12 -0.599
UNRANKED       15 25 14 73 87 -0.029 25.804      -1.000      -1.000      -0.181      0.4735       0.483       0.017      -0.378

WESTERN CONFERENCE
                                              STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM            W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
FC DALLAS      10  2  3 28 14 -0.017  6.727    1  0.306    1  0.321    1  0.280    1 0.5614    7  0.254    1  0.284    3  0.276
SAN JOSE       18  5 11 55 35 -0.059 14.943    2  0.234    3  0.214    2  0.270    2 0.5397    8  0.202    3  0.232    1  0.308
LOS ANGELES    16 13  7 51 47 -0.042 16.462    5  0.056    7  0.044    7  0.054    5 0.5106    6  0.278    8  0.076    5  0.031
COLORADO       14 14  7 43 41 -0.017 16.286    9 -0.100    9 -0.025    9 -0.029    9 0.4872    9  0.155    9 -0.103    4  0.045
REAL SALT LAKE  3  9  3 10 25 -0.026  7.547   11 -0.230   11 -0.215   11 -0.363   11 0.4590   12 -0.186   12 -0.674    9 -0.051
CHIVAS USA      4 22  6 31 67 -0.006 15.888   12 -0.435   12 -0.437   12 -0.534   12 0.4326    5  0.330   11 -0.469   12 -0.599

EASTERN CONFERENCE
                                              STANDARD   MED LIKELY  PREDICTIVE  IMPRVD RPI    SCORING     OFFENSE     DEFENSE 
TEAM            W  L  T PF PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
NEW ENGLAND    19  9  8 59 40  0.023 16.770    3  0.186    2  0.226    3  0.197    3 0.5244   10  0.123    7  0.099    2  0.295
CHICAGO        16 14  5 53 51  0.052 17.100    4  0.065    5  0.051    8  0.036    4 0.5116    1  0.466    4  0.219   11 -0.146
DC UNITED       5  5  4 21 19  0.084  7.143    6  0.037    4  0.060    6  0.085    7 0.5079    4  0.366    6  0.181    7 -0.011
KANSAS CITY    11  9 12 52 44  0.029 15.275    7  0.014    6  0.044    5  0.092    8 0.5030    2  0.461    2  0.271   10 -0.086
NY/NJ           5  4  5 22 17  0.020  6.741    8  0.008    8  0.030    4  0.106    6 0.5081    3  0.373    5  0.208    6  0.004
COLUMBUS       11 16  5 34 45  0.007 15.380   10 -0.139   10 -0.120   10 -0.139   10 0.4773   11  0.083   10 -0.267    8 -0.011

DIVISION            W  L  T   PCT  RNK RATING
EASTERN CONFERENCE 67 57 39 0.531    1  0.097
WESTERN CONFERENCE 65 65 37 0.500    2 -0.079

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.254 points in main ratings (0.205 for semineutral)
     0.030 points in improved RPI (0.020 for semineutral)
Average of 1.00 points per score

Predict score:








Team Strength vs. Time Plot:






posted: Sun Oct 12 21:40:09 2025
games through: Sun Nov 13 2005

Back to Dolphin rankings main page.