2019 MLS Prediction Recap

Turns out my 2019 predictions were very good. In fact, 2nd best in comparison to six pundits over at MLS HQ and two others outside MLS.

Last year around this time I started diving into Eastern Conference MLS teams. The dive was pretty deep. If you are on the desktop version of this site, you will find them in the January 2019 dropdown on the right. The posts are titled "Preseason Look..."

What I ended up using was a combination of WhoScored, (the always excellent) Football Manager player ratings, and EA's FIFA 19 player ratings. From there, I dug into what Transfer Market had to say about individual player values (although, I did not take that into consideration with my final rank last year. Just used as a sanity check).

Below are how the predictions panned out. On the left is final Conf position - to the right of the list of teams are were everyone thought teams would finish.

	Team	Baer	Carr	Davies	Doyle	Warshaw	Wiebe	LJ
1	NYCFC	7	6	7	8	8	5	2
2	Atlanta United	1	2	1	2	1	1	3
3	Philadelphia Union	4	3	3	5	4	7	9
4	Toronto FC	6	8	5	9	6	9	1
5	D.C. United	5	4	4	3	2	3	4
6	New York Red Bulls	3	1	2	1	3	2	5
7	New England Revolution	11	11	6	10	12	10	8
8	Chicago Fire	8	10	11	6	5	8	11
9	Montreal Impact	10	9	10	4	9	4	6
10	Columbus Crew SC	2	5	8	7	7	6	7
11	Orlando City SC	9	12	9	12	11	11	12
12	FC Cincinnati	12	7	12	11	10	12	10

Rank: Average position places off:

Avg Off	Name
1.8	Davies
2.1	Crowd
2.2	LJ
2.3	Baer
2.5	Warshaw
2.7	Carr
2.7	Wiebe
3.0	Doyle

Rank: Median position places off:

Median Off	Name
1.0	Davies
1.5	LJ
1.5	Baer
1.8	Crowd
2.5	Warshaw
2.5	Doyle
3.0	Carr
3.5	Wiebe

Rank: Within one spot on the table:

Within 1	Name
7	Davies
6	LJ
5	Baer
5	Carr
5	Crowd
4	Warshaw
4	Wiebe
3	Doyle

Rank: Way off - teams >5 spots off:

Way Off	Name
1	Davies
1	LJ
1	Crowd
2	Warshaw
2	Wiebe
4	Baer
4	Carr
4	Doyle

I'm pretty happy with where I finished, which was basically second to Charlie Davies (congrats buddy). I'm particularly happy with only having one team way off on my table. It was Philly. Their team was being built differently, so it was hard to get my hands around them.

The other one I wish I had back was Columbus. I knew that Zach Steffen was leaving in the summer, I should have factored that in somehow.

Lastly, I finished fiddling with my team rankings around the end of January. I should have probably waited till late Feb. 

Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments, let me know at --

lwjohnson654@yahoo.com