2021 : Simulating the Final Ladder After Round 12
/In the latest Standard Method simulations, we are now down to 10 teams that have a better than 1-in-5 shot at playing Finals, and eight that have a 3-in-5 or better shot. There are also five teams that have a better than 4-in-9 shot at the Top 4.
Under the Heretical Methodology, there are also 10 teams that have a better than 1-in-5 shot at playing Finals, but just seven that have a 3-in-5 or better shot. There are also five teams that have a better than 4-in-9 shot at the Top 4.
(For details about the methodologies I’ve used, see this earlier blog. Note that I have assumed no change in fixturing for the remainder of the season except for switching the future Swans v Saints game to be a home game for the Saints)
LADDER FINISHES
Team Expected Wins under the Standard Methodology grew by about 0.7 wins this week for Melbourne, and fell by the same amount for Carlton.
The only double-digit moves in terms of Finals chances were West Coast’s increase by 16% points to 60%, Richmond’s increase by 13% points to 77%, and Essendon’s decrease by 13% points to 24%. The Brisbane Lions also saw their Top 4 chances decline by 12% points to 61%.
Also, according to both the Standard and the Heretical Methodology, the Dees and Dogs are roughly 45% chances, for the Minor Premiership, although the Standard Methodology has the Dees closer to 50%, and the Heretical Methodology has the Dogs closer to 50% for reasons not immediately obvious to me, and only partly explicable by sampling variation.
STANDARD METHODOLOGY
HERETICAL METHODOLOGY
The range of Expected Wins using the Standard Methodology across the 18 teams moved to about 13.1 wins this week, while using the Heretical Methodology it came in at 14.8 wins.
The animation below shows how each team’s ladder probabilities have varied across the season so far.
Of the five teams that started with a 0-2 record (Brisbane Lions, Carlton, GWS, Essendon, and North Melbourne), the Standard Methodology now estimates that there’s about a 99.3% chance at least one of them will end up playing Finals.
Across the 50,000 simulations there are 31,556 different sets of teams playing Finals, treating different orderings of the same eight teams as a different set. No ordering appears in more than 41 replicates (that being the current Top 8 in the same order). If we ignore ordering, there are 615 different sets of eight Finalists.
Amongst the teams currently in the Top 8, the estimated probability that any 4 through 8 of them play Finals is:
All 8: 24%
Only 7: 58%
Only 6: 18%
Only 5: 1%
Only 4: 0.01%
Put another way, there’s about a 76% estimated chance that the teams playing Finals won’t be the current Top 8 teams.
TEAM AND POSITION CONCENTRATION
The HHI figures for the most recent Standard Methodology simulation replicates appear below.
(For information about the HHI, also see that previous blog linked to earlier).
We see reductions of over one full spot in final ladder position uncertainty this week for Richmond, Carlton and Essendon.
We also see a significant increase of just under a full spot for Collingwood.
GWS, Fremantle, Carlton, and Essendon are the teams with greatest uncertainty about the positions in which they’ll finish on the ladder, each of them effectively competing now for about 9.5 to 10 ladder spots. North Melbourne, Hawthorn, Melbourne, and Western Bulldogs have least uncertainty, and are effectively competing for only about 1.5 to 3 spots.
Collingwood and Brisbane Lions are next most-certain, both effectively competing for about 6 to 6.5 ladder positions.
We see reductions in the uncertainty associated with all ladder positions except 3rd and 16th, with the largest declines of over a full team for 7th and 15th.
Positions 6th through 13th remain the ones that are associated with most uncertainty, and the top and tail positions - 1st through 3rd (and possibly 4th), and 16th through 18th - with least uncertainty.
There are now, effectively, only about 2.5 teams vying for the Minor Premiership, and just 1.5 battling for the Spoon.
IMPORTANCE OF PERCENTAGE
The Standard Methodology simulations now suggest that it’s considerably less likely this week than it was last week that 8th place will be determined by percentage.
There is now an estimated 44% chance that 8th and 9th will finish equal on competition points (which is down about 3% points), a 16% chance that 8th and 10th will, and a 5% chance that 8th and 11th will.
There’s also still about a 39% chance that the double-chance in the Finals will be determined by percentage.
WINS TO MAKE The 8 AND THE 4
Based on the Standard Methodology, the estimates of team chances of playing Finals should they finish on only 11 wins still mostly lie in the 15% to 25% range, although they are a little higher for the Lions and the Pies, and a little lower for Fremantle, Adelaide, and St Kilda. Team chances still also mostly lie in the 75% to 90% range should a team record 12 wins, although they are somewhat lower for Fremantle, St Kilda and Adelaide. St Kilda remain not much better than a 50:50 proposition to play finals even if they win 7 of their remaining 10 games.
Looking next at making the Top 4, we see that teams’ chances range from about 30% to 60% with 14 wins, and 80% to 95% with 15 wins, with the Lions and Dogs faring best, and Sydney, West Coast, Richmond and GWS faring worst.
HOW MANY WINS TO FINISH WHERE
Now a look at what the Standard Methodology shows for the joint distribution of number of wins and final ladder position for each team.
WINS FOR A PARTICULAR LADDER POSITION
And, finally, an update on the distribution of wins associated with each ladder position.
It’s still the case that 12 wins rather than 11 is more likely to be associated with the team finishing 8th, and that 14 wins rather than 13 or 15 wins will be associated with 4th spot on the final home-and-away ladder, but 15 wins remains almost as likely as 14 wins for the team finishing 4th (because, as we can see from the earlier chart, talking about the chances of a team finishing 4th on 14 wins is highly dependent on which team you’re talking about).
GAME IMPORTANCE
Finally, let’s take a look at how the Standard Methodology estimates the importance of each of the remaining 93 games (see this blog for details about how these are calculated).
Here is the list of the 25 most important games in terms of their estimated influence on the composition of the finalists.
West Coast is still involved in 9 of the Top 25, GWS in 8, Essendon in 6, and Richmond in 5. Only two teams, still North Melbourne and Hawthorn, are currently not involved in any of the estimated Top 25.
If we look instead at the importance of games for Top 4 finishes, we have the following:
This shows Port Adelaide involved in 10 of the 25 most important games, Geelong in 9, and Brisbane Lions in 8. No other team is involved in more than 2 of the Top 25.
