2020 - Team Ratings After Round 3
/Port Adelaide did just enough to retain its number 1 ranking on MoSSBODS this week, but not quite enough to do the same on MoSHBODS where Collingwood now hold down top spot.
The two Systems now have the same Top 6 teams with the Port Adelaide for Collingwood swap the only difference in their ordering.
No team moved by more than two places on MoSSBODS, but three teams did on MoSHBODS: St Kilda down 4 into 10th, Western Bulldogs up 4 into 8th, and GWS down 3 into 12th. That left the two Systems differing in their rankings of only St Kilda (7th on MoSSBODS and 10th on MoSHBODS) by more than a single spot.
Interestingly, both Systems now have only seven teams rated as better-than-average, and they only agree about six of them.
In terms of Rating compression, on MoSSBODS, 3rd and 14th are now separated by only 4.9 Scoring Shots, while on MoSHBODS 5th and 10th are separated by only 7.3 points.
On the Component Ratings, on offence we find the Brisbane Lions reclaiming top spot from Port Adelaide on MoSSBODS, and Geelong claiming it from Port Adelaide on MoSHBODS.
On defence, both MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS still have identical Top 3s of Collingwood, Richmond, and then Port Adelaide.
On offence, only Hawthorn and St Kilda are ranked more than two places differently by the two Systems, while on defence it’s only the case for North Melbourne. In general, it’s been a week where the two Systems have come into greater alignment in terms of their assessment of team strengths.
On MoSSBODS, 4 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 6 are rated negatively on both (no change), two are rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 2), and 6 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (down 1).
Only two teams are in different quadrants under the two Systems:
North Melbourne (positive offence and negative defence on MoSSBODS, positive and negative defence on MoSHBODS)
Sydney (negative offence and defence on MoSSBODS, negative offence and positive defence on MoSHBODS)
This week, with the relatively unusual situation for Essendon and, by virtue of the fixturing, Melbourne, we’ll not do our usual comparison of current team ratings with those of teams at the same point in seasons past. We’ll return to these once Essendon’s fate is clearer.
In the meantime, let’s see what MARS thinks of the current situation.
It, like MoSHBODS, also slipped Collingwood into top spot this week, but moved Port Adelaide into 2nd at the same time, dropping Geelong to 3rd after their loss against Carlton.
In total, all but four teams were re-ranked by MARS on the basis of the weekend’s results (or lack of them), but the heaviest downgradings for the week belonged to Richmond (down 3 into 4th), West Coast (down 3 into 9th), and Adelaide (down 5 into 17th), while the biggest climbs were awarded to Hawthorn (up 3 into 5th), Brisbane Lions (up 3 into 6th), and Melbourne (up 3 into 13th, despite not playing).
Ten teams remain rated as “above average”, while the gap between 1st and 10th shrank to under 17 Rating Points.
Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder (using competition points per game as the primary basis for that ordering), we find that Carlton (8 spots), St Kilda (7 spots), West Coast (6 spots), and GWS (5 spots) have the widest range of rankings, though 12 teams have rankings than differ by no more than 2 ladder spots. Richmond and Geelong are the only teams, however, about which the three Systems completely agree.
MARS continues to provide the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it having the outright most-extreme ranking for 10 of the teams. By comparison, MoSSBODS has it for only seven teams, and MoSHBODS for only five.
