Playoff Implications; A Statistical Look at the Proposed NASL Format Changes

As you most likely know by now, the NASL has announced a change in the season format for 2013. The league will split their season into two parts, an opening and closing season much like some leagues in Latin America. The champions of the two halves would play each other for the Soccer Bowl trophy. After reading Neil Morris and David Fellerath’s article at Indy Week.com’s Triangle Offense blog, which was referenced on the IMSoccer News NASL Podcast that discussed this very issue, I decided to take a closer look at the changes in this new two-part season. During the podcast, Brian Quarstad specifically asked how many games most teams would play after they were mathematically eliminated from the  playoffs or winning the championship, depending on the format. That question was the premise for my in-depth look and comparisons between formats.

In part one, we’ll look at both NASL 2.0 seasons thus far to see how things would have shaken out in the new format. Part two will focus on simulating next season to see how a ninth team would affect the outcomes. Finally, part three will look at some modifications to the format to try to balance the number of games with playoff implications vs. the need to reduce playoff games to cut costs.

To get started, let’s take a look back at the 2011 NASL season.

As you’ll recall, Carolina dominated the league most of the season before some midseason transfers including the announcement of Martin Rennie leaving for Vancouver seemed to derail the RailHawks. Montreal, in their final season before joining MLS, struggled mightily early on before being edged by Minnesota on the last day of the regular season. Minnesota went on to win the Soccer Bowl as the last team in. The Atlanta Silverbacks struggled all season.

In the first table, we summarize the final standings and add a few data points beyond what we’re used to seeing. The first column is the number of games played after a team was eliminated (EL) from playoff contention. This means that on game day, the team woke up already knowing there was no possibility for them to play in the post season. In 2011, Atlanta was the only team that experienced this. However, numerical elimination isn’t the only time fans can tell a team isn’t playing well and isn’t likely to make the playoffs so we added a few more columns. Two back (2B), three back (3B) and four back (4B) referring to the number of games a team would need to win to get even with the final playoff spot. So, if a team is two games back, that means they are at least six points behind the final playoff spot at kick off of the game. Three and Four back would respectively mean at least nine and twelve points behind the final playoff spot. So, if a team is twelve points out and eliminated from the playoffs, each of these four columns will have one added to them at the start of their next game.

2011
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts EL 2B 3B 4B
Carolina RailHawks       28 17  3  8  50  26  54  0  0  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    28 15  7  6  41  32  52  0  0  0  0
Tampa Bay Rowdies        28 11  8  9  41  36  41  0  0  0  0
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 28  9 11  8  35  36  38  0  0  0  0
FC Edmonton              28 10  6 12  35  40  36  0  0  0  0
Minnesota Stars FC       28  9  9 10  30  32  36  0  0  0  0
Montreal Impact          28  9  8 11  35  27  35  0 10  3  0
Atlanta Silverbacks      28  4  4 20  25  63  16  5 19 14 10

Clearly, Atlanta fans did not have much to cheer about with half of their games coming when they were at least nine points out of the playoffs and had to play five games after they were eliminated. Montreal was bad enough early on that they were at least six points out of the playoffs at the beginning of ten games, but still managed to not be eliminated until the end of the last game of the season. Meanwhile, Carolina and Puerto Rico were the class of the league throughout the season. Let’s see how things would be different if we just chopped the season in half for each team, without balancing the schedule.

2011 Apertura (as played)
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts EL 2B 3B 4B
Carolina RailHawks       14 12  1  1  33  11  37  0  0  0  0
FC Edmonton              14  7  3  4  18  15  24  2  8  7  3
Puerto Rico Islanders    14  6  4  4  22  22  22  4 10  8  7
Minnesota Stars FC       14  4  7  3  17  15  19  3 10  4  1
Tampa Bay Rowdies        14  4  5  5  17  21  17  4  9  8  6
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 14  3  8  3  19  19  17  5  8  8  7
Montreal Impact          14  2  4  8  11  15  10  5 12 11  9
Atlanta Silverbacks      14  1  2 11  12  31   5  6 12 11  9

So, hey, that apertura wasn’t too exciting. Carolina ran away with it from early days, with all other teams finding themselves at least 12 points heading into at least one game. Plus the final two rounds started with absolutely nothing to play for, except maybe the outside chance that Carolina would repeat and the team with the second most points would get into the final. The Clausura was slightly better with only one completely pointless round of games. So we went from the regular season as it happened with only one team, Atlanta, playing games without a shot at the playoffs to three full rounds where no one was playing for any reason other than the schedule said they had to. As for Atlanta, they ended up playing 11 games in the split season without hope for the playoffs as opposed to just five in the single season. Instead of just 10 games started 12 or more points out of the playoffs, the split season format had the Silverbacks starting 16 games 12 or more points out of the playoff spots. That is 2/3 of the season spent without much expectation of a playoff spot.

Now, what if we were to switch things around and balance the schedule the way discussed in the Triangle Offense blog.  Before listing the tables, I would like to mention that the 2-4 back numbers are skewed in these tables due to shifting dates from apertura to clausura. For instance, Atlanta looks like they went from less than six points back to more than 12 points back in one game. This is because Atlanta’s schedule was front loaded with repeat matchups leading them to have four “clausura” games before other teams had more than a game or two in that half of the season, and then didn’t play another “clausura” game until most teams had five or six “clausura” games while the Silverbacks were still busy filling out their “apertura” slate.

2011 Apertura (adjusted):
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts EL 2B 3B 4B
Carolina RailHawks       14  9  2  3  28  15  29  0  0  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    14  8  3  3  26  20  27  2  9  6  3
FC Edmonton              14  6  3  5  20  18  21  3  9  5  0
Minnesota Stars FC       14  5  6  3  18  14  21  4  8  3  1
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 14  3  7  4  20  23  16  5  8  8  7
Tampa Bay Rowdies        14  3  6  5  14  20  15  5  9  8  7
Montreal Impact          14  2  5  7  14  15  11  4 12 11  8
Atlanta Silverbacks      14  3  2  9  17  32  11  6 12 11 10

2011 Clausura (adjusted):
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts EL 2B 3B 4B
Tampa Bay Rowdies        14  8  2  4  27  16  26  0  1  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    14  7  4  3  15  12  25  0  5  0  0
Carolina RailHawks       14  8  1  5  22  11  25  0  0  0  0
Montreal Impact          14  7  3  4  21  12  24  3 12  6  2
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 14  6  4  4  15  13  22  0  6  2  0
FC Edmonton              14  4  3  7  15  22  15  4  6  5  3
Minnesota Stars FC       14  4  3  7  12  18  15  4  8  6  5
Atlanta Silverbacks      14  1  2 11   8  31   5  5 10 10 10

As we can see, the clausura was much more interesting after balancing things out although the apertura turned out roughly the same. This time around four teams were still in the running for the title heading into their last game and, in fact, Tampa Bay became the champs instead of Puerto Rico. Poor Atlanta had an even rougher schedule as their record ended up flipping with some of their wins moving to the apertura where Carolina was so dominant, which ended up having them spend even more time out of any real playoff contention. Either way you slice it, using a split season with only one team making the playoffs in each half means that the 2011 Stars don’t get a chance to win the title as they did in the current format.

Now, let’s take a quick look at the 2012 season. In this set of tables, we’ll include POS, or the total points possible for a team to accumulate given the games they have remaining.

2012 
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts POS EL 2B 3B 4B
San Antonio Scorpions    27 13  7  7  44  25  46  49   0  0  0  0
Tampa Bay Rowdies        27 12  8  7  37  30  44  47   0  0  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    27 11  7  9  31  29  40  43   0  0  0  0
Carolina RailHawks       27 10  9  8  43  45  39  42   0  0  0  0
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 27  9  8 10  38  44  35  38   0  0  0  0
Minnesota Stars FC       27  8 10  9  33  32  34  37   0  0  0  0
Atlanta Silverbacks      27  7  8 12  34  45  29  32   2 15  8  0
FC Edmonton              27  5  9 13  24  34  24  27   2 14  2  0

From looking at the current standings, we can see that there weren’t any outliers like Atlanta in 2011. Instead of five games played by one team out of playoff contention we have two teams that will have played a total of six games out of playoff contention. Again, only two teams, this time Atlanta and Edmonton, will have spent any time out of touch with the playoff spots. All in all, even the poor teams had reason to hope they could turn their fortunes around and get into the playoffs until the season was winding down.

2012 Apertura (as played):
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts POS EL 2B 3B 4B
San Antonio Scorpions    14  8  4  2  22  12  28  28   0  2  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    14  7  3  4  21  14  24  24   0  0  0  0
Minnesota Stars FC       14  6  5  3  22  18  23  23   1  1  0  0
Tampa Bay Rowdies        14  6  3  5  18  18  21  21   2  4  0  0
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 14  5  4  5  19  21  19  19   1  7  0  0
Carolina RailHawks       14  4  5  5  23  22  17  17   2 10  4  2
FC Edmonton              14  3  3  8  12  16  12  12   3 12 10  3
Atlanta Silverbacks      14  1  5  8  14  30   8   8   3 11  8  6

2012 Clausura (as played):
Team GP W T L GF GA Pts POS EL 2B 3B 4B
Tampa Bay Rowdies        13  6  5  2  19  12  23  26   0  0  0  0
Carolina RailHawks       13  6  4  3  20  23  22  25   0  1  0  0
Atlanta Silverbacks      13  6  3  4  20  15  21  24   0  2  0  0
San Antonio Scorpions    13  5  3  5  22  13  18  21   0  2  0  0
Puerto Rico Islanders    13  4  4  5  10  15  16  19   0  4  0  0
Fort Lauderdale Strikers 13  4  4  5  19  23  16  19   0  0  0  0
FC Edmonton              13  2  6  5  12  18  12  15   1  7  0  0
Minnesota Stars FC       13  2  5  6  11  14  11  14   2  9  7  0

Splitting this season without consideration for balance results in a much more interesting situation with San Antonio and Puerto Rico heading into their final games of the apertura vying for the first playoff spot, but everyone else was just biding their time. The as yet to be completed clausura shows that there are still four teams in contention, although Puerto Rico and Fort Lauderdale have yet to play a game where they will not be in contention. The Stars and Edmonton have already been eliminated for a few games.

The balanced schedule tells much the same story, with the exception that Atlanta is no longer in contention for the clausura title and, instead, lags well down at the foot of the table, though they could still finish as high as third.

Finally, let’s compare the number of games where at least one of the teams is no longer in contention for the playoffs, or is otherwise well out of contention if not officially eliminated. Of the 218 games played in 2011 and to this point in 2012, the following table shows the outcomes.

        With regards to elimination, the table above says that while the 
current format did not produce a single game where both teams started 
the game after having been eliminated from playoff contention, depending
 on how you split the results either 18 or 19 games would have been 
played with no bearing on the playoffs. Likewise, while 8 games in the 
current format featured one team eliminated from playoff contention, the
 split season would have either 27 or 24 games where one of the two 
teams was eliminated. That is a total of either 45 or 43 games where at 
least one of the teams has been eliminated from playoff contention.