Scariness Catchup (Weeks 13 and 14)

Well, my work and home schedule finally caught up with me and I ended up missing last weeks scariness ratings. That made this weeks much harder to do. Since I needed to do some extra work (and since I felt guilty for missing last week’s post) I decided to add in some extra bits. Enjoy!

Week 13

Team	Adj Scariness	Wk 13 ranking	Wk 12	Wk 11	Wk 10	Wk 9
Houston	3.46	1	1	4	4	6
DC United	3.04	2	3	2	1	3
Columbus	2.93	3	4	10	13	13
Chivas	2.29	4	9	1	2	4
Dallas	1.75	5	6	9	6	12
Salt Lake	1.62	6	5	11	8	9
Toronto	1.50	7	7	3	9	5
New England	1.42	8	2	8	7	7
New York	0.85	9	8	6	5	2
Kansas City	0.84	10	10	5	3	1
Los Angeles	0.64	11	11	7	12	10
Chicago	0.44	12	12	12	11	11
Colorado	- 0.02	13	13	13	10	7

Before I give you the week 14 ratings, I thought I’d look at a couple of the games, make some belated predictions, then walk through the results and how they affected things.

First up, DC United (3.04) playing at Kansas City (0.84). Since I’m giving a point of scariness for playing at home, this would give DC a 1.2 point edge in scariness so I’d guess that they should win. This is just what happened, DC pulled out a 1-0 result and took three points on the road. Now, let’s see what this did to each of their ratings:

• DC United won a game by one point, on the road against a KC team that had a 1 point per game (PPG) average. This raised their score from 3.04 to 3.25.
• Kansas City lost by one point to a team averaging 2 PPG. This dropped their score from 0.84 to 0.43 (a lot of this drop came from their last winning dropping out of the range I consider for the scariness ratings).

Let’s look at the Toronto (1.50) at Real Salt Lake (1.62) for a counter example. Since RSL was at home, they end up with a 1.12 point edge, which I’d also think was good enough for a win. In reality, they dropped the game 0-2. How much did this hit their ratings:

• Toronto won a road game by one points, and their score went up 0.65 points to 2.15.
• RSL’s loss at home dropped them to 0.96 points.

If you look at the full week 14 schedule, adjusted scariness ‘predictions’ would have been 8-3-1. That’s not a bad average, but I’ve got a lot of hindsight working in my favor too. Here’s the full scariness table after week 14.

Week 14 Scariness Ratings

Team	Adj Scariness	Wk 14	Wk 13	Wk 12	Wk 11	Wk 10	Wk 9
Houston	4.1	1	1	1	4	4	6
Columbus	2.9	2	3	4	10	13	13
Dallas	2.8	3	5	6	9	6	12
DC United	2.29	4	2	3	2	1	3
Toronto	1.94	5	7	7	3	9	5
Los Angeles	1.52	6	11	11	7	12	10
New England	1.45	7	8	2	8	7	7
Chivas	1.15	8	4	9	1	2	4
Kansas City	0.86	9	10	10	5	3	1
New York	0.79	10	9	8	6	5	2
Salt Lake	0.38	11	6	5	11	8	9
Colorado	0.27	12	13	13	13	10	7
Chicago	0.2	13	12	12	12	11	11

There are a couple of things here that are interesting (at least to me). Kansas City and New York are both hanging out in cellar dweller land, but neither team has done much of late, so that’s probably not unfair. Salt Lake is still scarier than either Colorado and Chicago—I wonder how long that will last? Finally, for the first week that I recall, there are no teams with negative scariness.

I also included a history of previous scariness rankings so that you could see how consistent a team was. I’m not sure what to draw from those numbers other than that Houston and DC United have both looked very scary for the last several weeks and that Colorado and Chicago don’t look to be frightening anyone anytime soon.

Finally, I thought I’d use the current rankings to pick each of the games for week 15. Anything within .25 points will be a draw, wider spreads will go to the higher team. I’m not going to bother trying to pick scores.

Week 15 Picks by Scariness

1. Houston (4.1) @ Chicago (0.2 + 1)—Houston wins
2. FC Dallas (2.8) @ DC United (2.29 + 1)—DC wins
3. New England (1.45) @ New York (.79 + 1)—New York wins
4. Salt Lake (.38) @ Kansas City (.86 +1)—KC wins
5. Columbus (2.9) @ Chivas USA (1.15 +1)—Columbus wins
6. Toronto (1.94) @ Houston (4.1 + 1)—Houston wins

I’m not sure that there are any shockers there, but I guess we’ll see.