2021 - Team Ratings After Round 18
/More dropped Rating points for the Dogs again this week, but they remain the top-rated team on both Systems as the Dees failed to capitalise, and also dropped points. The Dogs’ lead has been cut to 0.9 Scoring Shots on MoSSBODS, however, and 4.0 points on MoSHBODS.
Further down the order there was again quite a bit of movement this week, with 14 teams changing places on MoSSBODS and nine doing the same on MoSHBODS. The big movers on MoSSBODS were Richmond and Carlton (both up 3), and Port Adelaide (up 2), as well as Fremantle (down 4) and Collingwood and Adelaide (down 3 each), On MoSHBODS they were Carlton (up 4), Richmond (up 3), Collingwood (down 3), and Fremantle and St Kilda (both down 2).
All those moves have done a lot to align the Systems’ rankings. Currently, they now have the same Top 11 and the same Bottom 4.
The correlation between MoSSBODS’ and MoSHBODS’ Combined Ratings stands at +0.9977, and the Rating gap between 1st and 8th has shrunk to 5.3 Scoring Shots on MoSSBODS and 18.9 Points on MoSHBODS. Eight teams are now rated as above-average on MoSSBODS and on MoSHBODS.
On the Component Ratings, on Offence MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS now have Top 3s of Dogs, Lions, and Cats (the latter replacing the Dees on both Systems), while on Defence their shared Top 3s are now Dees, Cats, and Dogs (with those last two swapping places on both Systems this week). Both Systems now have seven teams rated above-average on offence, and 13 rated above-average on defence.
On MoSSBODS, 6 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 4 are rated negatively on both (down 1), one is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (up 1), and 7 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1). The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.687, which is down a fraction on last week’s number.
In the animation below, we can see the path that each team has taken to arrive at its current Rating.
And, in the chart below, we can see how the current crop of teams compares with the Premiers and Runners Up across V/AFL history at the same point in their respective home-and-away seasons.
We see that the Western Bulldogs are now very much back with the pack and that Melbourne still have a relatively high defensive rating and low offensive rating for a team that ultimately plays in a Grand Final.
And, finally, as always, to MARS.
Here we find that, with both the Dogs and the Lions shedding Rating Points, and Geelong taking almost 5 of them away from Fremantle, the Cats now have a comfortable 7.1 Ratings Point lead at the top of the Leaderboard.
Altogether, exactly half the teams were re-ranked this week, though only Carlton (up 2), and St Kilda and Fremantle (both down 2), moved by more than a single spot.
With the Eagles accumulating Rating Points and climbing back over 1,000 this week, MARS now has eight teams rated as better-than-average, and has six more Rated 990 or above.
The Rating gap between first and last stands at almost 69 Rating Points and that between 1st and 8th at 31.5 Rating Points. 1st and 4th, however, are separated by less than 13 Rating Points, and 9th and 14th by just over 8 Rating Points.
The biggest gaps in the Ratings are between 5th and 6th (8.2 Rating Points), 7th and 8th, (8.0 Rating Points), 14th and 15th (7.5 Rating points) 1st and 2nd (7.1 Rating Points), and between 15th and 16th (7.0 Rating Points).
Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find the highest differences for Carlton where Rating System rankings are relatively higher than Ladder position, and for West Coast, where Rating System rankings are relatively lower than Ladder position.
MARS continues to provide the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it yet again having the outright most extreme ranking for all but two of the teams.
By comparison, MoSSBODS has the outright most extreme ranking for three teams, and MoSHBODS has it still for none at all.
MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS agree about the ranking of 15 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about the ranking of just one team, and MoSHBODS and MARS about the ranking of two teams.
It really has been a year when MARS’ approach to Rating teams has led to markedly different team rankings compared to the two MoS Systems. That said, the correlation between the raw MARS Ratings and the Combined MoSSBODS Ratings is +0.91, and between the raw MARS Ratings and the Combined MoSHBODS Ratings is +0.92.
Lastly, if we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that West Coast, again, have the widest range of rankings (seven spots), while 13 teams have rankings that differ by no more than two spots, including Hawthorn, for which all three Systems have the same ranking.
