The Gold Cup break is upon us in MLS and it's time to take stock as to where your team stands in its quest to reach the MLS Cup Playoffs.
Of the 22 teams, only 12 will reach the playoffs, thus earning a chance to win MLS Cup. Here is how the matchups would line up if the season ended today:
Eastern Conference
Bye to Conference Semifinals
#1 Chicago Fire, #2 Toronto FC
Knockout Round
#3 New York City FC vs. #6 Columbus Crew SC
#4 Atlanta United FC vs. #5 Orlando City SC
Western Conference
Bye to Conference Semifinals
#1 Sporting Kansas City, #2 FC Dallas
Knockout Round
#3 Houston Dynamo vs. #6 Vancouver Whitecaps FC
#4 Portland Timbers vs. #5 San Jose Earthquakes
Of course, those seedings don't take into account the fact that teams have played a different number matches. If we were to organize those seedings according to a team's points per game rather than their total points, the New York Red Bulls would be in the field with Columbus Crew SC missing out.
Season Projections
The real question is how many of these same teams will still be in the playoff field on October 23, after Decision Day. Based on the past two seasons, the odds that these same 12 teams will occupy those playoff positions on the final day of the 2017 season are extremely high.
Of course, you can go to FiveThirtyEight.com and check out their odds for teams to make the playoffs, earn a bye, win the Supporters' Shield and win MLS Cup, but we decided to add some context by looking at previous seasons.
We went back and analyzed where each team stood at roughly the same point of the season (about 55 percent of the way through) and discovered that only three teams have jumped into the playoff field when they were on the outside looking in halfway through. Those three teams were the 2015 Montreal Impact, 2016 D.C. United and 2016 Seattle Sounders.
But that's using total points. If we resort to "points per game," which offers a better correlation to a team's final standing, only two teams have entered the playoff field after being on the outside after 55 percent of the season: the 2015 New England Revolution and, of course, the 2016 Seattle Sounders who made a dramatic run to MLS Cup. They made it at the expense of Orlando City SC and Vancouver Whitecaps FC in their respective conferences.
There are still plenty of games remaining in 2017 – but fans of Columbus, Philadelphia, Montreal, New England, D.C., Seattle, LA, Colorado, Real Salt Lake and Minnesota should know that it's likely that only one, maybe two, of your teams will get in.
