Well, some say that past performance is no guarantee for future performance. But on the eve of the Superdraft, I decided to give my two cents. I decided to base my research on recent years instead of last 10 years since the coaching staff for many clubs survives for around three years and no current coach has survived in the same team for ten years.
My methodology is simple; I just checked the picks made by various MLS teams in the 2010/2011/2012 Superdrafts and count the number of players they picked up who played in MLS for 1000 minutes or more in their rookie and sophomore year combined. I picked up 1000 minutes for couple of reasons. First, 1000 minutes imply that the player has at least few starts and is definitely much more than late sub. Second and most important, I found some thing interesting, almost all future stars of MLS played at least 1000 minutes in their first two seasons. Only big exception is Chris Wondowlski and a handful of goalkeepers, who anyways are usually late bloomers. So, while playing for 1000 minutes in the first couple of seasons always do not lead to a future successful MLS career, they are almost a pre-requisite and indicates a good pick.
The table below is almost like a kaleidoscope! You twist and turn it and look at it from another angle and you would get a different winner ! For example, if we use the sum of the top 3 players (playing minutes wise) as the winning criteria, Chicago is the clear winner! However, no matter which way one looks at it, it is pretty obvious that in teams like Philly, Chicago, New England and DC are far superior to San Jose, Seattle and Colorado in picking up right player at Superdraft. Another interesting side note, as you'd probably guess, Toronto's three 1,000 minute guys? All are no longer with the team.
Note: I did not include Portland, Vancouver and Montreal, since they did not participate in all three of the Superdrafts 2010-12
| Team | Number of draft picks who played 1000+ minutes in first two seasons | Three players who clocked most minutes |
|---|---|---|
| Chicago | 3 | Austin Berry (5580) Jalil Anibaba (5441) Sean Johnson (3690) |
| Chivas | 4 | Ben Zemanski (3599) Zarek Valentin (3275) Blair Gavin (2327) |
| Colorado | 1 | Tony Cascio (2222) Andre Akpan (492) Ross LaBauex (485) |
| Columbus | 3 | Rich Balchan (1705) Dilly Duka (1624) Justin Meram (1475) |
| DC United | 4 | Perry Kitchen (5890) Nick DeLeon (4087) Chris Korb (3341) |
| Dallas | 3 | Matt Hedges (4815) Zach Loyd (4496) Eric Alexander (2272) |
| Houston | 3 | Will Bruin (4731) Warren Creavalle (2504) Kofi Sarkodie (1804) |
| LA Galaxy | 4 | Michael Stephens (3005) Tommy Meyer (1694) Paolo Cardozo (1513) |
| New England | 6 | A.J. Soares (5075) Kelyn Rowe (4630) Stephen McCarthy (3746) |
| New York | 3 | Tim Ream (5670) Tony Tchani (1722) Ryan Meara (1620) |
| Philadelphia | 7 | Raymon Gaddis (4278) Michael Farfan (4262) Zac MacMath (3555) |
| Real Salt Lake | 3 | Chris Schuler (1728) Collen Warner (1566) Sebastian Velasquez (1537) |
| San Jose Earthquakes | 2 | Steven Beitashour (2295) Ike Opara (1399) Justin Morrow (869) |
| Seattle | 1 | Alex Caskey (1093) Brian Meredith (990) Servando Carrasco (924) |
| Sporting Kansas City | 2 | CJ Sapong (4306) Teal Bunbury (3431) Dom Dwyer (678) |
| Toronto | 3 | Luis Silva (4043) Joao Plata (2391) Aaron Maund (1217) |
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