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Burning Down The House – NYCFC Weekly Update September 30, 2019 MLS Week 30

September 30, 2019 by Mark Leave a Comment

It was once upon a place
Sometime I listen to myself
Gonna come in first place

All the Magic Numbers read “0.” None of these charts are needed to analyze anything now: Partly because many playoff positions are locked (including NYCFC’s), partly because as of midweek, for the first time since Opening Day, every team has played the same amount of games, and partly because the remaining possibilities are better analyzed by looking at a basic League Table and the matchups on Decision Day. But they help complete a story:

Finally, a reminder from Joe Cocker that even when you lose 2-0 and want to avoid a tense Decision Day, you can get by with a little help.

 

 

 

 

Filed Under: 2019 Interconference Play

Bring It On Home To Me – NYCFC Weekly Update September 23, 2019 MLS Week 29

September 23, 2019 by Mark Leave a Comment

Short and simple this week. The magic number for Atlanta is 6 and Philadelphia is 4. Beat Atlanta on Wednesday and they are done, while the number for Philadelphia is no worse than 1. A draw with Atlanta is not necessarily catastrophic, but the path to first place would be very muddied at best. Let’s not discuss a loss. On the upside, NYCFC can clinch first place on Wednesday.  On the same night that Atlanta and NYCFC go at it, The Union play San Jose on short rest after a cross country flight.  It’s a shame that the Quakes will be without their top scorer (Wondolowski) and assist generator (Espinoza).

All the possibilities.

NYCFC has clinched finishing ahead of everyone in the West except LAFC (their Magic Number for NYCFC is 3) and Minnesota, for whom NYCFC’s magic number is 1. NYCFC finished the season 7-2-3 against the West for exactly 2.00 PPG.

NYCFC has achieved it’s best point total in its 5 year history at 58, and has clinched having the fewest losses in team history. No matter what the team will have no more than 8 losses. The previous low was 9 in 2017.

Since and including June 29, when NYCFC hosted Philadelphia, the Pigeons are 6-2-0 when the other team scores first (2.25 PPG) , and just 5-2-2 when NYCFC scores first (1.89 PPG). Go figure.

Filed Under: 2019 Weekly Updates

Coffee’s For Closers – NYCFC Weekly Update MLS Week 28 September 16, 2019

September 16, 2019 by Mark Leave a Comment

On August 19, I wrote, “NYCFC probably needs 15+ points (OK maybe 13 or 14 if other things go well but that’s pushing it)  from these 6 games to have a shot at finishing first as it heads into the final 4 games, which include hosting Atlanta, and Away to Dallas, New England and Philadelphia.” NYCFC earned 16, and is now in a very strong position.  NYC also won the previous game in Cincinnati, for 19 points out of 21 in a seven game stretch of easy matchups. That’s good work, but there is still work to be done.
It is a reasonable goal to clinch the East before Decision Day and in doing so make the game Away to Philadelphia meaningless to NYCFC and its place in the standings.   The keystone is the game against Atlanta the middle of next week.  Beat Atlanta at home, and the remaining Magic Number is 1 for Atlanta.  Add any additional result: an Atlanta draw or loss or NYCFC win or draw and NYCFC finishes ahead of the Five Stripes. It is possible such a result could happen even before the Atlanta game.  Atlanta is away to Cincinnati Wednesday, host San Jose next weekend, NYC midweek next week, then at Montreal the following weekend, before hosting New England on Decision Day. Chances are Atlanta drops one more point, or NYC picks up one more somewhere.
The hypothetically assumed win over Atlanta would also lower the Magic Number against the Union to 5.  Before Decision Day, the Union is away to Red Bulls, San Jose and Columbus. They could very well drop 5 points in those games (going 1-1-1 would do it), which would not even require any other results from NYCFC besides Atlanta, though at this point almost no result can be a surprise.  Who could foresee Atlanta winning in Portland but falling to Columbus at home?  IF NYC can win 1 other game, either at Dallas or New England, then it would just require 1 Philly draw to clinch.
Failing to beat Atlanta requires a lot of other things to go right.
Besides Atlanta and Philadelphia, NYC plays away to Dallas next weekend and to the Revs in between AT: and PHI.  Dallas has lost only 1 home game all year and has 5 home draws. The Revs have 5 home losses, but 4 predate Arena taking over and the other was against LAFC. NYCFC can win either but these are tough road games.
Atlanta only has 29 GP so here is the Points at 29 chart:
NYC has set a new highest Goal Differential (19). The previous high of 18 was  after 23 games in 2018 (and last week).  2019 has also matched the highest Point Total set in 2017, with 4 games remaining.
Every remaining possibility:
Magic Numbers:
PHI 8, ATL 7.
West: RSL, POR, and SEA 5, MIN 4, LAG 1
LAFC: 20 (their number for NYC is 6).
Finally, when both Maxi and Héber both play, NYC has only 1 loss. When neither plays (which is fortunately much rarer, NYCFC has 1 win.

Filed Under: 2019 Weekly Updates

It’s A Long Way To The Top – NYCFC Weekly Update MLS Week 27 September 9, 2019

September 9, 2019 by Mark Leave a Comment

On Monday April 15, after playing 6 games, NYCFC had 5 points and no wins. Five Thirty Eight gave them a 4% chance of coming in first, and a 54% chance of making the playoffs. The team got better quickly, and for the past few weeks the biggest obstacle to them sitting in first has been a low number of games played.  Comparing all East teams based on points through the same number of games played, as we have been doing here for several weeks, NYCFC has had more points at each point for 9 out of 13 games since Game 16, including the last 5 in a row. But it was just this week when NYCFC ever held or shared first place in the East, in Week 27 and after 28 games played.

Now NYCFC has clinched a playoff spot, and 538 says they have a 66% chance of finishing first. With 6 games remaining nothing is guaranteed, and the game against Atlanta could decide the issue, but this has been quite a turn around already.

 

In 5 of NYCFC’s last 10 wins (PHI, COL, CIN, RB, and NE), the opponent scored first. In another (Houston), NYCFC trailed 2-1.  I’m not sure this is a positive overall. It did not happen once in the first 5 wins, largely because of a lot more clean sheets, though of course it is good to know the team can come back from negative game states. On the flip side, NYCFC led in 2 of its 5 losses (RB and RSL).

The rolling 5-game PPG has hit the maximum of 3 for the first time.

The 10-game rolling PPG has hit 2.4 for just the second time. The first was 16 games into this season.

We’re hitting the trail end of the season when the PPG standings mean less, but here it is.

At the same time, this table is everything now:

The magic number for New England and DC is 2. For Red Bulls and Toronto it is 4. All could happen this coming week with 2 win and/or those teams dropping  points, and would guarantee finishing no lower then third.  Philadelphia and Atlanta are both at 14 so still a ways off.  Looking West, NYC has clinched over Colorado, Houston and Vancouver, and at worst a draw on points with SKC.  The remaining numbers are Dallas 6, Galaxy 8, RSL, Portland and Seattle 9, San Jose 10 and Minnesota 11.

Filed Under: NYCFC Misc

Boys Keep Swinging — NYCFC Weekly Update MLS Week 26 September 2, 2019

September 2, 2019 by Mark 1 Comment

Four straight wins matches the best such streaks of NYCFC’s history. Still, to put themselves in the best, most defensible position to win the top spot in the East, they might need to extend it to 7, because the next three home games against New England, toronto and San Jose, are the easiest on NYCFC’s remaining schedule.  NYCFC probably will need in the area of 12 more points to finish first in the East.  It will not help that NYC will play all or some of those games without all or some of Johnson, Matarrita, Chanot, Callens, Sands,, and TBD:  Héber (status uncertain) and Shradi (return date completely unguessable).

With less than a quarter of the season remaining, NYC have the league’s second best PPG, second fewest losses*, second best Goal Differential, second most Away points, second best Away PPG, are 1 of only 2 teams with a winning Away record and positive Away Goal Differential (LAFC is the other of course). Largely due to having fewer games played, they are third in Total Points (Philadelphia is second with 1 more point and 2 more Games Played), and fourth in Total Wins (Philly and Atlanta both have 1 more win with 2 and 1 additional games played).

  • Some may wonder if the games in hand diminish this stat, but NYCFC has 3 fewer losses than the two closest in this category, with only 1 or 2 extra games to play. Even if NYCFC lose every extra game, they still lead this stat, pening the remaining games in common.

I do not know what the argument is that NYCFC is not clearly the second best team to date in MLS. Schedule congestion for Atlanta? It’s a fair point to note, with their recent Leagues Cup and MLS cup runs, plus the CCL early on. Some note that NYC has lost 3 of the most recent 4 games against teams above the playoff line: RB (both a win and loss), RSL, and Atlanta.  You can create excuses for all those games based on missing players and ref calls, but I prefer to note that NYC also has won against DC (A), the Galaxy (A), Philadelphia and Seattle, plus the previously noted RB game. NYC’s record against teams currently above the playoff line is 5-4-3, with 7 of the 12 games on the road, including 2 of the wins.

It’s hard to measure that against how other teams have played against playoff teams.  It is a small game sample, subject to change as teams move above and below the line, and most importantly, ignores Home and Away.  I think Home and Away is more important in MLS than playoff status. All of NYCFC’s remaining games are against teams currently above the playoff line, and 4 are Home and 3 Away.  If you gave me the opportunity to switch that to having only 3 of the Games against playoff teams, but all 7 Away, I would not take the offer.  I think you measure tough games in MLS at least as much by Away performance as by the opponent’s overall record.  With those disclaimers, I checked the records of Atlanta, Philadelphia, Seattle and Minnesota against current playoff teams. Of those, I would only say Philadelphia has a better record, subject to all the factors just listed. And the Union lag NYCFC in all other major stats.  besides the ones listed above, they had 5 fewer points at 27 games than NYC does now.

I dropped more low end results from the following table. I could conceivably add some to the top, but that seems hubristic, and simply unlikely, though not impossible.

2019 NYCFC is finally ahead of 2018 after 27 games, with 50 points to 48.  There is a tie with 2017, which team only managed 1 win and 4 ties in the final 7 games.  We’ll see if 2019 can survive the presumed absence of Heber and avoid a similar finish.

Finally, second place with games in hand looks good here.

 

Filed Under: 2019 Weekly Updates

Thoughts On The Race For First In MLS Eastern Conference 2019

September 1, 2019 by Mark 1 Comment

If Philadelphia wins the Division with their remaining schedule I will be both impressed and shocked. They have only 5 games left, compared to 6 for Atlanta and 7 for NYCFC. Philadelphia has only 2 home games left against the 2 best road teams in the league (LAFC and NYC), and visit solid home teams RB and SJ, plus Columbus. They could very well manage a couple of wins, but there are no near-certain wins in that set of games. Maybe they shock and beat LAFC, but more likely let’s say maybe a draw there, a win in Columbus and draws in the other 2 road games. That’s 6 (57 total) points going into Decision Day, 60 max at season end, and frankly all that is somewhat optimistic.

Meanwhile Atlanta has 4 extremely likely wins. Atlanta, a great home team, gets to host Columbus, SJ and New England, none of whom are great road teams (though the Revs improved a bit since Arena took over), and are Away to Cincinnati, NYC and the Impact. That’s 4 very likely wins at least. Then let’s say NYC beat them (not a given but quite likely chance) and they draw the Impact. That’s 13 points and 61 total at season end. Their decision day game is home to the Revs and I already gave ATL that win.

That has us aiming for 62 points. It has to start with winning all the home games, including Atlanta. That is 62 points right away, but it does require beating Atlanta and maintaining a 7-game win streak. All else the same, a draw against Atlanta drops us to 60 and Atlanta up to 62, which requires winning a remaining road game to overcome that. Dallas and the Union are both excellent, above 2 PPG at home. New England is 1.60 including the pre-Arena days.

My bottom line is if NYCFC wins out at home including Atlanta, then the rest probably takes care of itself. Alternatively any 4 wins as long as 1 is Atlanta does it. Disclaimer: no guarantees, etc., etc, but these are reasonable possibilities. If the Union beat LAFC or Atlanta drops points at Home or in Cincinnati, then everything changes, for worse or better.

Filed Under: NYCFC Misc

MLS Interconference Play 2019 – August

September 1, 2019 by Mark Leave a Comment

August – 20 Games
East Record 10-10-4
At Home 7-3-1(9)
On Road 3-7-3 (11)
Goal Differential -4
East Points 34
West Points 34

Season to Date
East Record 47-58-21
At Home 34-18-10 (60)
On Road 13-40-11 (61)
Goal Differential -26
East Points 162
West Points 195

Decent month for the East, managing to match the West in wins despite 2 fewer Home games, but it is clear the Wes is going to win the H2H matchups this year. There should be 18 games remaining and the West’s 11 win lead is effectively insurmountable.

NYCFC is 6-2-2 against the West after beating Vancouver last night.

Filed Under: 2019 Interconference Play

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