MLS 2022 Playoff Projections - The West
/When the season started this year, there were a lot of questions floating around the Western conference. Will LAFC make it back into the playoffs. Will Nashville take the next step and be a shield contender? Can anyone stop Seattle?
In hindsight, these questions are quite silly, considering how these storylines played out, but that’s the type of thing only hindsight can bring. In reality, making predictions about MLS, especially before a game is even played, is very difficult. Heck, even with the right data, making predictions in MLS is hard.
There is also the matter of humans being bad at interpreting probability in general. Below are the playoff odds for the Western Conference going into decision day, and, as you can see, we have seen some major changes in probabilities.
People tend to think of probabilities as set in stone, which is why, if you are a Portland fan, you might be mystified that we’ve gone from telling you that there is an 85% chance you’ll be making the playoffs to just 51%. With such wild swings, how can anyone take any given week’s predictions at face value?
For starters, our predictions come from a model. When we say 85%, this is no more a proclamation of some exact universal probability than a rain prediction on the news. That is to say, it’s only a guess based on information that’s available. Furthermore, it’s a guess that’s always changing as new info comes in. Just as an hour-to-hour view of rain prediction can be very different in the morning than in the afternoon, so too will an ASA or 538 prediction change as it gets more info to guess with.
Throughout the season, the bulk of the change will come down to the aspects the model thinks are important to good soccer, however, as we get closer and closer to decision day, the probabilities will necessarily swing more on results, as there isn’t much time for the good teams getting unlucky results to “even out”.
Portland, for instance, did not drastically change as a team going from 85% to 51%. Instead, they lost a home game to a very good LAFC team, where the model had good reason to guess that Portland had decent odds to come away with at least a point in that game, given it was at home. RSL also did them no favors, pulling off a road tie against the Galaxy, boosting RSL’s odds by 20%.
Humans are especially bad at thinking about lots of probabilities at once, hence the popularity of parlay bets in the gambling world, which work for the house by getting people to think they’ll make lots more money by chaining together lots of “sure fire” bets, because people fixate on the individual odds of each event happening, while failing to factor in the odds of ALL of them happening.
Which brings us to the current playoff race in the West, which, by the grace of fortune and the gods of scheduling, is coming down to a pair of de facto play-in games, making model interpretation much easier, as there aren’t many scenarios to parse. In fact, if you compare the above chart to the odds below, you’ll see that the game predictions and playoff predictions are one in the same, because there is no such interaction of probabilities between games. In other words, all 4 remaining teams with the ability to clinch, have their destiny in their hands.
First up we have Minnesota (45 pts) hosting Vancouver (43 pts), with Vancouver needing a win to advance and Minnesota needing a win or tie. As we have discussed in the previous article, the model really does not like Vancouver, and is only giving them a 17% chance to win that game, with Minnesota having a combined 83% chance to advance by either tie or win.
The other playoff spot in the West will be decided simultaneously, when RSL (44 pts) hosts Portland (46 pts) in a game where RSL need a win to advance (49%) while Portland need only a tie. With MLS home advantage being what it is, it stands to reason that RSL would have pretty good odds to win (49%), however, between Portland’s 27% chance of an away win and a 24% chance of a tie, the combined odds of their advancing climbs to 51%, making the game a statistical coin flip with a playoff spot on the line.
For those wondering about the East, we’ll have a breakdown of those odds coming at you on Thursday or Friday, following the games on Wednesday night which will, no doubt, have a lot to say about what the Decision Day race in the East is going to look like.