2021 : Simulating the Final Ladder After Round 18
/Just time to slip in an end of home-and-away season ladder simulation before we start doing it all again.
And, this week we find from using the Standard Methodology that we have:
nine teams with a better than 2-in-5 shot at playing Finals, including six that are virtual certainties
five teams that have roughly a 5-in-9 shot or better at the Top 4, including three that are virtual certainties
Under the Heretical Methodology we have:
nine teams with a better than 1-in-3 shot at playing Finals, including six that are virtual certainties
five teams that have roughly a 2-in-5 shot or better at the Top 4, including three that are virtual certainties.
(For details about the methodologies I’ve used, see this earlier blog. Note that I have assumed no change in fixturing for the remainder of the season except for switching the future Swans v Saints game to be a home game for the Saints)
LADDER FINISHES
Team Expected Wins under the Standard Methodology grew by 0.8 wins this week for Geelong and West Coast, and fell by 0.9 wins for Adelaide.
There were, again, some very significant moves in terms of Finals chances, with West Coast’s rising by 23% points to 44%, and Richmond’s rising by 20% points to 41%. As well, Fremantle’s chances fell by 27% points to 29%, and St Kilda’s fell by 21% points to 19%.
Top 4 chances were also moved substantially for a few teams, with Geelong’s increasing by 14% points to 95%, and Port Adelaide’s by 11% points to 46%. The Brisbane Lions were the standout losers on this measure, their chances falling by 28% points to 45%.
According to both the Standard and the Heretical Methodology, the Dees and Dogs are now around 35% to 40% chances for the Minor Premiership, and the Cats around 25%
STANDARD METHODOLOGY
HERETICAL METHODOLOGY
The range of Expected Wins using the Standard Methodology across the 18 teams moved to about 11.4 wins this week, while using the Heretical Methodology it came in again at 11.8 wins.
The animation below shows how each team’s ladder probabilities have varied across the season so far.
Here’s that same data presented as stacked 100 percent bars in a format that I don’t think has a name.
Across the 50,000 Standard Methodology simulations there are 9,377 different sets of teams playing Finals, treating different orderings of the same eight teams as a different set. No ordering appears in more than 108 replicates. If we ignore ordering, there are still 92 different sets of eight Finalists.
Amongst the teams currently in the Top 8, the estimated probability that any 5 through 8 of them play Finals is:
All 8: 12%
Only 7: 60%
Only 6: 27%
Only 5: 0.03%
Put another way, there’s about an 88% estimated chance that the teams playing Finals won’t be the current Top 8 teams.
TEAM AND POSITION CONCENTRATION
The HHI figures for the most recent Standard Methodology simulation replicates appear below.
(For information about the HHI, also see that previous blog linked to earlier).
Teams’ final ladder positions are, as you’d expect becoming less uncertain, as evidenced by the reduction of over one full spot in final ladder position uncertainty this week for GWS, Richmond, West Coast, Collingwood, Gold Coast, Adelaide and Geelong. Only a few teams saw increased uncertainty, most notably Fremantle and Hawthorn.
Carlton, St Kilda, and Fremantle are now the teams with greatest uncertainty about the positions in which they’ll finish on the ladder, each of them effectively competing now for about 8 different ladder spots. North Melbourne has least uncertainty, and is effectively competing for only 1.7 spots, while Sydney, Western Bulldogs, and Melbourne have next least uncertainty and are all effectively competing for only about 3.5 to 4 spots.
After 18 rounds, the average team is now effectively competing for about 5 different ladder positions.
Most ladder positions saw decreases in the effective number of teams competing for them last week, with the only increases being experienced by 1st, 3rd, and 17th, and small increases at that. Particularly large decreases in uncertainty were registered by 12th, 14th, and 15th.
Positions 7th through 14th are still the ones that are associated with most uncertainty, and some of the top and tail positions - 1st and 2nd, 5th and 6th, and 17th and 18th - with least uncertainty.
There are now, effectively, about 3 teams vying for the Minor Premiership, and 1.7 battling for the Spoon.
IMPORTANCE OF PERCENTAGE
The Standard Methodology simulations suggest that percentages are now a bit more likely to decide 8th spot on the ladder, but less likely to determine 4th.
There is now an estimated 47% chance that 8th and 9th will finish equal on competition points, a 18% chance that 8th and 10th will, and a 5% chance that 8th and 11th will.
There’s also about a 35% chance that the double-chance in the Finals will be determined by percentage.
WINS TO MAKE The 8 AND THE 4
Based on the Standard Methodology, the Lions, Swans, Dons, Tigers, and Giants are all better than even-money chances of playing Finals with just 11 wins, while the Eagles, Dockers, Saints, Blues, and Suns would be more likely to miss out than to make it with only 11 wins. Team chances are all still 90% or higher with 12 wins, and still lowest for West Coast and St Kilda.
Looking next at making the Top 4, we see that teams’ chances range from near zero to only about 40% for all teams with 14 wins, and only around 50% for Port Adelaide and Sydney, even with 15 wins.
HOW MANY WINS TO FINISH WHERE
Now a look at what the Standard Methodology shows for the joint distribution of number of wins and final ladder position for each team.
WINS FOR A PARTICULAR LADDER POSITION
And, finally, an update on the distribution of wins associated with each ladder position.
It remains very much the case that 11 wins rather than 12 is more likely to be associated with the team finishing 8th, and that 15 wins rather than 14 will be associated with the team finishing 4th.
GAME IMPORTANCE
Finally, let’s take a look at how the Standard Methodology estimates the importance of each of the remaining 45 games (see this blog for details about how these are calculated).
This week, again, we review the importance information by listing the 10 most important games for each team (except for Adelaide, Geelong, Hawthorn, North Melbourne, Melbourne, and Western Bulldogs, all of whose finals chances are now estimated as either 0% or 100%)
Round 19, then, includes:
Likely very important games for: Essendon, West Coast, Richmond, Fremantle, and St Kilda
Likely moderately important games for: Carlton and GWS
