2016 - Team Ratings After Round 12

Just when we thought - maybe imagined - that team ratings and rankings might've settled down for a while, along comes Round 12 and the MoS Rating Systems collectively say "wait a minute ...".

MARS re-ranked 11 teams this week, five of them by more than a single place, Hawthorn jumping two spots to take 1st, Adelaide two spots to claim 2nd, and GWS two spots to claim 6th, while Sydney and the Roos fell three places each into 4th and 8th respectively. As it stands now on MARS, the 9th-placed team, Port Adelaide, is rated 1,014.3, which is extraordinarily high for a team ranked outside the top 8. Last year, for example, during the home and away season, the rating of the team in 8th never rose above 1.012.7, and even that didn't occur until Round 22.

ChiPS was similarly judgmental, re-ranking a dozen teams, though only four by multiple places. Fremantle did best amongst the climbers, jumping three places into 10th, GWS the other multi-spot ascender, rising two places into 1st. Collingwood fell furthest, dropping three places into 14th, the Roos falling too, a couple of spots into 7th.

That leaves MARS and ChiPS differing about the ranking of three teams by more than two spots:

  • Adelaide, ranked 2nd by MARS and 5th by ChiPS
  • GWS, ranked 6th by MARS and 1st by ChiPS
  • Hawthorn, ranked 1st by MARS and 6th by ChiPS

The correlation between raw MARS and ChiPS ratings now stands at +0.981.

MoSSBODS RATINGS

MoSSBODS re-ranked 11 teams on Combined Ratings this week, seven of them by multiple spots:

  • Adelaide, up three places into 2nd
  • Fremantle, up three places into 12th
  • Hawthorn, up two places into 5th
  • Melbourne, up two places into 11th
  • West Coast, down three places into 6th
  • Richmond, down three places into 14th
  • Western Bulldogs, down two places into 4th

That leaves MoSSBODS with a top 3 based on Combined Ratings of Geelong, Adelaide, GWS, overlapping with the top 3s of ChiPS and MARS by just a single team.

More broadly, MoSSBODS now disagrees with both ChiPS and MARS about the rankings of:

  • Geelong, ranked 1st by MoSSBODS, 5th by MARS and 6th by ChiPS
  • GWS, ranked 3rd by MoSSBODS, 6th by MARS and 1st by ChiPS
  • Western Bulldogs, ranked 4th by MoSSBODS, 7th by MARS and 8th by ChiPS
  • West Coast, ranked 6th by MoSSBODS, 3rd by MARS and 3rd by ChiPS
  • Sydney, ranked 7th by MoSSBODS, 4th by MARS and 2nd by ChiPS
  • Collingwood, ranked 10th by MoSSBODS, 13th by MARS and 14th by ChiPS
  • Richmond, ranked 14th by MoSSBODS, 11th by MARS and 11th by ChiPS

I can't recall a time during the season when the various Ratings Systems have been more divergent in their opinions. 

Anyway, time to put the current MoSSBODS ratings in an historical context, plotting each team's Offensive and Defensive Ratings against the backdrop of those of every team who's played a Round 12 in history.

Port Adelaide and, in particular, Collingwood, now seem to be falling behind the ratings needed to hold genuine hopes of competing in the Grand Final, while the eight teams above them all appear to be very genuine chances. Meantime, the Gold Coast and Essendon are swimming in waters very close to the extreme depths of what history has served up.

Their journey to this point, along with those of the 16 other teams, is mapped in the animation below, which also shows the 18 teams against the entirety of history for the first 12 rounds of every season.

Lastly, here are the 18 current teams' before and after ratings for Round 12.

This week, seven teams saw their Offensive and Defensive Ratings increase: Geelong, Adelaide, GWS, Hawthorn, Fremantle, St Kilda, and the Gold Coast. Their opponents, the Kangaroos, West Coast, Sydney, Essendon, the Brisbane Lions, Carlton and Richmond, saw their Offensive and Defensive Ratings fall.