2021 - Team Ratings After Round 5

A dozen teams were re-ranked on MoSSBODS this week, and 10 on MoSHBODS but, once again the Top 3 were left unchanged on both Systems as Western Bulldogs, Melbourne, and then Richmond. The two Systems also both left Hawthorn in 17th and North Melbourne in 18th.

The big movers on MoSSBODS were Fremantle and GWS, who both climbed four places, and St Kilda, who fell five. On MoSHBODS, the only teams to move more than two places were Sydney, down three spots, and St Kilda, down four.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.997, and the Rating gap between 1st and 8th stands at about 6 Scoring Shots on MoSSBODS, and 20 Points on MoSHBODS.

On the Component Ratings, MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS now have Top 3s of Dogs, Tigers, and Dees, while on Defence they both have Top 3s of Dees, Dogs, and Tigers. That’s the first time I can recall the two Systems having the same three teams filling the Top 3 spots on both Offence and Defence.

On MoSSBODS, 6 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (down 1), 6 are rated negatively on both (up 1), 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (down 2), and 5 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 2). The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.678, which is up considerably on last week’s number.

In the animation below, we can see the path that each team has taken to arrive at its current Rating.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 11 teams this week, including swapping Port Adelaide and Richmond in the Top 2, and moving Melbourne up to 4th.

Only four teams moved by more than a single spot: Melbourne, GWS, and Fremantle (all up 2), and St Kilda (down 3).

With Collingwood now Rated at 997.4, MARS still has only eight teams rated as better-than-average, with eight more Rated about 988 or above.

The Rating gap between first and last now stands at just 54 Rating Points (up about 7 Points). By comparison, at the same point last year the range was just under 40 Rating Points.

The gap between 1st and 8th is about 18 Rating Points, which equates to roughly 13-14 points at a neutral venue.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find the highest differences for Sydney and Adelaide, where Rating System rankings are relatively lower than Ladder position, and for Collingwood (and, less so, Carlton and Brisbane Lions) where Rating System rankings are relatively higher than Ladder position.

MARS continues to provide the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it having the outright most-extreme ranking for 14 of the teams, with Sydney, Richmond, Adelaide, and Collingwood the most notable examples.

By comparison, MoSSBODS has the outright most-extreme ranking for just three teams, and MoSHBODS for only one.

MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS now agree about the ranking of 14 teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about the ranking of two teams, and MoSHBODS and MARS about the ranking of four teams. In short, MARS has quite a different view about the proper ranking of a number of teams, compared to the MoS twins.

Lastly, if we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that Carlton and West Coast (5 spots) have the widest range of rankings, while 12 teams have rankings that differ by no more than 2 spots, including North Melbourne and Sydney, for which all three Systems have the same ranking.