2023 - Team Ratings After Round 9

Round 9 results left the Top 2 teams in tact on both Systems, although the Cats shed points on both Systems while the Pies shed them on MoSSBODS but gained them on MoSHBODS.

Further down, there was more movement on both, with Adelaide climbing three places, Port Adelaide and Gold Coast climbing two, and Essendon falling two spots on MoSSBODS. On MoSHBODS, Western Bulldogs climbed three spots, and Adelaide climbed two, while Sydney and St Kilda each fell by two places.

In total, 11 teams changed places on MoSSBODS, and 11 also changed places on MoSHBODS.

The correlation between MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS Combined Ratings now stands at +0.9938.

On the Component Ratings, on offence we find MoSSBODS now with a Top 3 of Cats, Lions, and Power (the latter two tied), and MoSHBODS nowwith a Top 3 of Cats, Lions, and Dees. On defence, MoSSBODS has a Top 3 of Pies, Saints, and Cats, while MoSHBODS has it as Pies, Saints, and Dees.

Both Systems now have nine teams rated as above average on offence (and the same teams, albeit in a different order, in the Top 8). MoSSBODS has 13 rated as above average on defence, and MoSHBODS has 12. Both agree on the Top 12 on defence, though again in a different order.

To put the latest MoSSBODS Ratings in some historical context, here are the Ratings of all teams after Round 9 across V/AFL history.

Collingwood and Geelong, still, are the only teams that have Combined Ratings that are in the top 50% of teams that eventually went on to make the Grand Final. St Kilda continues to sit in a relatively sparsely populated area of the chart, its defensive rating being “too good” given its offensive ratings, or its offensive rating being “too poor” given its defensive rating.

We can also review the trajectory that each team has followed to arrive at its current Rating.

On MoSSBODS, 8 teams are now rated positively on offence and defence (no change), 4 are rated negatively on both (down 1), 1 is rated positively on offence but negatively on defence (no change), and 5 are rated negatively on offence but positively on defence (up 1).

The correlation between the teams’ MoSSBODS offensive and defensive Ratings now stands at +0.76, which is up considerably on last week.

And, finally, to MARS, which re-ranked 10 teams this week, but none of them from the Top or Bottom 4.

Geelong remains top, despite shedding Rating Points, ahead of Melbourne and Brisbane Lions, with Collingwood hanging onto 4th ahead of three multi-spot climbing teams in Port Adelaide, Western Bulldogs, and Richmond.

Below them, St Kilda fell four spots, Carlton and Essendon fell three, and Sydney fell two. Also, Gold Coast climbed three spots, and Adelaide climbed two.

There are now 11 teams rated average or better-than-average by MARS, with Fremantle on 999.7 and Carlton on 999.4 only just missing that list.

The Rating gap between first and last currently stands at 76 Rating Points, which is up by about another 1 Rating Point on where it was last week. The gap between first and eighth is down to 22 Rating Points, however, which is about 5 Rating Points lower than last week.

In short, we’re seeing a transfer of Rating Points from the lowest-ranked teams to the highest-ranked teams, and something of a compression in the Ratings at the top.

Looking across the rankings of all three Systems and ordering the teams based on the current competition ladder, we find relatively large differences between the teams’ ladder positions and their rating system ordering for:

HIGHER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: St Kilda

LOWER ON LADDER THAN ON RANKING SYSTEMS: Geelong and Sydney

MARS this week again provides the most outlying rankings of the three Systems, it having the outright most-extreme ranking for 11 of the teams. MARS is especially different in terms of its Richmond and Adelaide rankings.

MoSSBODS has the outright most-extreme ranking for five of the teams, and MoSHBODS for only two.

MoSHBODS and MARS now agree about the ranking of seven teams, MoSSBODS and MARS about only four teams, and MoSSBODS and MoSHBODS about 11 teams.

Lastly, if we consider the range of rankings that the three Systems have attached to each team, we find that Carlton (5 spots) has the widest range of rankings, while 14 teams have rankings than differ by no more than 2 spots, including Geelong, GWS, Hawthorn, and St Kilda, for which all three Systems have the same ranking.