2019 - Team Ratings After Round 4
/I was wrong: we were destined for another change of lead in the MoS Team Rating Systems, with both moving GWS back into top spot after their win over the Cats this weekend. Our previous leaders, the Cats, were shunted back to 3rd on MoSHBODS and 4th on MoSSBODS.
The early parts of seasons can be brutal for team ratings as the Systems strive to ensure they’re not overly influenced by what they saw at the tail end of 2018 by upping their sensitivity to assessed under- and over-performance.
Gold Coast are an interesting case study at the moment, since they lie 16th on MoSSBODS and 17th on MoSHBODS despite sporting a 3 and 1 competition record and sitting inside the eight. Wins by just 3, 5 and 2 points in their last three games, and scoring only a handful more scoring shots than their opponents in the last two of them, haven’t moved the dial much on their rating.
The Cats’ fall aside, the other big decline on MoSSBODS this week was Adelaide, who fell 3 places to 13th. The big climber was St Kilda, who moved up 3 spots from 11th to 8th. MoSHBODS had the Lions and Crows falling 3 spots each, and the Dons and the Dees climbing by 3 spots.
The week’s moves have left the Systems now differing in their rankings of all but St Kilda by no more than 3 places. The Saints are 8th on MoSSBODS and 12th on MoSHBODS.
Only seven teams now have a positive Combined Rating on both Systems, while one (St Kilda) is positive on MoSSBODS but negative on MoSHBODS, and another (Melbourne) is positive on MoSHBODS but negative on MoSSBODS.
Turning next to the component ratings of the two MoS Systems we find that GWS remains ranked 1st on offence by both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS. On defence, Collingwood remains 1st on MoSSBODS, but GWS has assumed that position on MoSHBODS.
The gap between 1st and 8th on offence for MoSSBODS is now 2.5 scoring shots (up 0.8 scoring shots) and for MoSHBODS is 8.2 points (up by 3.7 points). On defence the gap is 2.4 scoring shots (up by 0.2 scoring shots) for MoSSBODS, and 9.8 points for MoSHBODS (down 0.5 points).
Looking across all 18 teams we find that:
on offence, Melbourne are ranked 9th by MoSSBODS and 5th by MoSHBODS, and Adelaide are ranked 6th by MoSSBODS and 9th by MoSHBODS. No other team is ranked more than 2 spots differently by the two Systems.
on defence, there’s been quite some alignment between the Systems this week, with the only teams now ranked more than 2 spots differently by the two Systems being Sydney, who are ranked 17th on MoSSBODS and 14th on MoSHBODS, and Adelaide, who are ranked 18th on MoSSBODS and 15th on MoSHBODS.
We can, as usual, place the teams’ current offensive and defensive ratings in an historical context by comparing them with those of teams from the past at the same point in their respective seasons (ie after fourrounds of the home-and-away season).
Teams shown as red points are teams that eventually finished premiers, and those shown in orange finished as runners up.
GWS is now the only team with a Combined Rating above the median for all previous Grand Finalists at this point in the season. Collingwood, Richmond, and Geelong have Combined Ratings just below that median. At the other end of the rating ladder, Fremantle, Gold Coast, Sydney and Carlton have Combined Ratings superior to only one eventual premier (Adelaide 1997) and one Runner Up (St Kilda 1997)
The following animation shows the path that each team has followed, at the end of each round, to get to its current rating.
We can see, in particular, how beneficial the weekend’s results were for GWS.
Next we turn to ChiPS and MARS who now disagree over their choices on the number 1 team, MARS still staying with the Cats, while ChiPS has switched to the Giants.
MARS, in fact, has made no changes in its top 7 teams, and moved no team at all by more than 2 spots. ChiPS, in contrast, has dropped the Lions by 4 spots, and elevated the Dees and the Dons by 3 spots each.
That’s left the two of them disagreeing about the ranking of only St Kilda by more than 2 places. ChiPS has St Kilda in 13th while MARS has them in 16th.
Looking across the rankings of all four Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find that:
St Kilda how has the widest range of rankings, from 8th on MoSSBODS to 16th on MARS
Sydney has the next-widest range of rankings, from 10th on ChiPS to 17th on MoSSBODS
Three other teams have ranges spanning 4 spots: Brisbane Lions (9th on MoSSBODS, 13th on MoSHBODS), Hawthorn (6th on ChiPS and MARS, 10th on MoSSBODS), and Melbourne (7th on ChiPS, 11th on MoSSBODS)
No other team is ranked more than four places differently across the four Systems. Carlton is the only team ranked identically by all four Systems.
We also see fairly large positive differences between ladder position and Rating System rankings (ie Rating System ranking less ladder position) for the Lions, Saints, Suns, and Dockers, and large negative differences for the Pies, Power, Dons, Tigers, and Dees.
