Tuesday Update: Power Ranks!

Gentlemen,

A brief explanation about the Power Rankings, since we've not been reviewed them yet this season...

I began doing these about 6-7 years ago - when I felt like every team I played had their best week against me - to determine when the luck of scheduling was removed, who was the best team.

I started tracking the scores each week to determine how we all fared in comparison with each other. Points Scored and Points Against can give you some idea of this info, but can be skewed by outlier weeks.

These are RANKINGS - they RANK us in comparison with each other. It doesn't matter if the top point scorer got 170 points one week, and the next top points scorer only got 100 - for the purposes of ranking against the other teams, they both earn a 1 for their respective weeks.

TOTAL POINTS SCORED

TOTAL POINTS AGAINST

The two grids above are simply Points Scored and Points Against by week for the whole season. This is simply the data used to determine the Power Rankings and also Strength of Schedule.

The Points Scored grid also denotes who has won the Points Bonus (Green) and Loser Bonus (Red) for each week. Totals for the season so far are:

Bill Fredricks	$45.00
Marcus Whitebread	$25.00
Rod Jerks	$20.00
Juan Coconuts	$20.00
Ike Crabs	$20.00
NooShoo Gow	$20.00
Andy Crapswell	$15.00
Kenni Hana	$15.00
Dick Dallus	$15.00
Ned Titwarmer	$5.00

Ok, let's get to the analysis...

POWER RANKINGS

I'm not particularly fond of my team, so this is a little bit surprising. If you want to rip me in the comments, feel free. The fact that I sit atop these rankings, to me, speaks more to how balanced the whole league is this season. The records bear that out.

It's worth noting that Teams 2-9 (which is actually a 3-way tie for 7th) are only separated by 0.5 - what that means is that those teams have all been very, very close.

To be honest, I did not expect to see Kenni sitting there tied for 2... I think the general belief with Kenni is that he is lucky and has no business being 7-3, but based on these metrics, he's performed well enough to have earn the record he has.

I was also surprised to see Crapswell as low as he is... I've personally thought he had one of the stronger teams this season, but much of my belief may have been based on his depth, not necessarily his starting lineup.

Gow's team has been pretty darn bad this year. He's been the lowest point scorer 4 times in just 10 weeks.

If you're interested in looking at these metrics in another way, here are hypothetical records of all teams, if we played every team each week:

Rod Jerks	54-36
Kenni Hana	47-43
Bill Fredricks	47-43
Ned Titwarmer	47-43
Juan Coconuts	46-44
Marcus Whitebread	45-45
Ike Crabs	42-48
Andy Crapswell	42-48
Dick Dallus	42-48
NooShoo Gow	38-52

STRENGTH OF SCHEDULE

These are the same numbers as Power Rankings, but with how your Points Scored Against ranked amongst the other teams.

As you can see, no one has had it tougher this year than Whitebread. I like to give him grief about complaining, but the reality is he really has had it rough. Five times he's had to face the top point scorer in the league. FIVE. Out of TEN. He's currently on the bottom of our standings, but his team is definitely not the worst.

After Whitey, Dallus and Coconuts both have faced stiffer competition as well. Neither to the degree that Cracker has, but it's a big reason why both sit at 4-6 rather than 6-4.

Ned has had just about the easiest rode as we've ever seen. He's faced a team a bottom-four scorer 8 times out of 10 weeks. That's just insanely unfair.

Fun fact: Whitebread would be 7-2 if he had Ned's schedule (removing the week he played against himself).


Let me know if you guys still like this info. What else would you like to see? Is this pointless? Did I miss anything notable in my analysis?