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
HOUSTON     18  9  7  51  26 -0.003 16.647    1  0.176    1  0.164    1  0.267    1 0.5307   11 -0.171    7 -0.069    2  0.604
CHIVAS USA  15  8  9  46  29  0.007 15.764    2  0.148    2  0.138    2  0.241    3 0.5238   12 -0.230   10 -0.132    1  0.614
D.C.        16  8  8  58  37 -0.033 15.302    3  0.145    3  0.135    3  0.214    2 0.5277    7  0.266    3  0.193    4  0.235
NEW ENGLAND 16  9  9  54  45 -0.019 16.614    4  0.132    4  0.130    5  0.126    4 0.5224    5  0.282    4  0.117    5  0.134
KANSAS CITY 13 12  8 118  47  0.030 16.630    5  0.045    6  0.031    4  0.211    5 0.5058    1  1.477    1  1.483   12 -1.060
DALLAS      14 13  5  39  48  0.029 16.598    6  0.038    5  0.039    9 -0.081    6 0.5052    4  0.303    8 -0.072   10 -0.090
NEW YORK    12 12  8  47  46  0.001 16.069    7 -0.000    7 -0.011    6  0.018    7 0.5007    6  0.270    5 -0.000    6  0.036
CHICAGO     10 12 11  34 111  0.021 17.299    8 -0.034    8 -0.024   12 -0.257    8 0.4954    2  1.139    2  0.588   13 -1.101
COLUMBUS     9 11 10  39  44 -0.010 15.071    9 -0.045    9 -0.052    7 -0.064    9 0.4918    8  0.219    9 -0.123    7 -0.005
LOS ANGELES  9 14  7  38  48  0.005 15.386   10 -0.087   10 -0.093   10 -0.137   11 0.4807    3  0.405    6 -0.042   11 -0.233
TEAM         W  L  T  PF  PA  SCHED  ELOSS  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING  RNK RATING
COLORADO     9 13  8  29  34 -0.015 15.026   11 -0.090   11 -0.103    8 -0.075   10 0.4827   13 -0.249   12 -0.459    3  0.310
SALT LAKE    6 15  9  31  45 -0.007 15.316   12 -0.197   12 -0.208   11 -0.201   12 0.4643    9  0.145   11 -0.317    9 -0.086
TORONTO FC   6 17  7  25  49 -0.006 15.558   13 -0.231   13 -0.238   13 -0.352   13 0.4577   10 -0.161   13 -0.682    8 -0.022

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
HOUSTON     18  9  7  51  26 -0.003 16.647    1  0.176    1  0.164    1  0.267    1 0.5307   11 -0.171    7 -0.069    2  0.604
CHIVAS USA  15  8  9  46  29  0.007 15.764    2  0.148    2  0.138    2  0.241    3 0.5238   12 -0.230   10 -0.132    1  0.614
DALLAS      14 13  5  39  48  0.029 16.598    6  0.038    5  0.039    9 -0.081    6 0.5052    4  0.303    8 -0.072   10 -0.090
LOS ANGELES  9 14  7  38  48  0.005 15.386   10 -0.087   10 -0.093   10 -0.137   11 0.4807    3  0.405    6 -0.042   11 -0.233
COLORADO     9 13  8  29  34 -0.015 15.026   11 -0.090   11 -0.103    8 -0.075   10 0.4827   13 -0.249   12 -0.459    3  0.310
SALT LAKE    6 15  9  31  45 -0.007 15.316   12 -0.197   12 -0.208   11 -0.201   12 0.4643    9  0.145   11 -0.317    9 -0.086

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
D.C.        16  8  8  58  37 -0.033 15.302    3  0.145    3  0.135    3  0.214    2 0.5277    7  0.266    3  0.193    4  0.235
NEW ENGLAND 16  9  9  54  45 -0.019 16.614    4  0.132    4  0.130    5  0.126    4 0.5224    5  0.282    4  0.117    5  0.134
KANSAS CITY 13 12  8 118  47  0.030 16.630    5  0.045    6  0.031    4  0.211    5 0.5058    1  1.477    1  1.483   12 -1.060
NEW YORK    12 12  8  47  46  0.001 16.069    7 -0.000    7 -0.011    6  0.018    7 0.5007    6  0.270    5 -0.000    6  0.036
CHICAGO     10 12 11  34 111  0.021 17.299    8 -0.034    8 -0.024   12 -0.257    8 0.4954    2  1.139    2  0.588   13 -1.101
COLUMBUS     9 11 10  39  44 -0.010 15.071    9 -0.045    9 -0.052    7 -0.064    9 0.4918    8  0.219    9 -0.123    7 -0.005
TORONTO FC   6 17  7  25  49 -0.006 15.558   13 -0.231   13 -0.238   13 -0.352   13 0.4577   10 -0.161   13 -0.682    8 -0.022

DIVISION            W  L  T   PCT  RNK RATING
WESTERN CONFERENCE 71 72 45 0.497    1  0.003
EASTERN CONFERENCE 82 81 61 0.502    2 -0.018

Home field advantage amounts to:
     0.240 points in main ratings (0.205 for semineutral)
     0.027 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 21:41:04 2025
games through: Sun Nov 18 2007

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