Trading scorecard of MLS teams

In the previous post, I mentioned that I would go in-depth about the anomalies behind the performance of MLS teams and their player recruitment scorecard - Superdraft and overseas combined. I think I have found why teams like Real Salt lake and San Jose have done so well even though they did not recruit that many quality players through Superdraft and overseas recruitment.

Let's take a look at the third source of player recruitment - trade, specially the trades that have resulted in the receiving team having a player in the top 100 PAR list from 2011 onwards. Both Real Salt Lake and San Jose Earthquake have managed to lure away 5 elite players from other teams! RSL's best trade is Kyle Beckerman from Colorado and Earthquake's best trade is Chris Wondolowski  from Houston! By comparison, Dallas has gained 3 players via trade and two of them have not made any contribution in last two years. They are sort of middle of the pack (11th in points earned last 3 seasons) even though their combined Superdraft and overseas recruitment scorecard is pretty good - 5 th.

Team	Number of players recruited via trades who have made the top 150 list at least  one of the seasons 2011 or 2012 or 2013	Player (highest PAR position, best year) - year of trade
Chicago	3	Mike Magee (4, 2013)  - 2013 Dominic Oduro (19, 2011) - 2011 Dilly Duka (54, 2013) - 2013
Chivas	3	Juan Pablo Angel (41, 2011) - 2011 Nick LaBrocca (48, 2011) - 2011 Heath Pearce (75, 2011) - 2011
Colorado	5	Drew Moor (2, 2011) - 2009 Marvell Wynne (30, 2011) - 2010 Jeff Larentowicz (45, 2011) - 2010 Nathan Sturgis (61, 2013) - 2013 Matt Pickens (67, 2012) - 2009
Columbus	2	Dominic Oduro (23, 2013) - 2013 Eddie Gaven (47, 2011) - 2006
DC United	2	Dwayne DeRosario (26, 2011) - 2011 Maicon Santos (58, 2012) - 2012
Dallas	3	Ugo Ihemelu (9, 2011) - 2009 Kevin Hartman (41, 2012) - 2010 Maicon Santos (53, 2011) - 2011
Houston	4	Bobby Boswell (6, 2011) - 2008 Macoumba Kandji (44, 2012) - 2012 Brad Davis (44, 2011) - 2005 Calen Carr (57, 2012) - 2011
LA Galaxy	2	Todd Dunivant (27, 2011) - 2009 Edson Buddle (96, 2012) - 2012
Montreal	1	Troy Perkins (54, 2012) - 2012
New England	0
New York	3	Kenny Cooper (14, 2012) - 2012 Fabian Espindola (64, 2013) - 2013 Jamison Olave (68, 2013) - 2013
Philadelphia	2	Conor Casey (30, 2013) - 2013 Sebastien Le Toux (69, 2013) - 2012
Portland	5	Donovan Ricketts(1, 2013) - 2012 Ryan Johnson (24, 2013) - 2013 Rodney Wallace (60, 2013) - 2011 Will Johnson (65, 2013) - 2013 Jack Jewsbury (80, 2011) - 2011
Real Salt Lake	5	Nick Rimando (5, 2013) - 2006 Kyle Beckerman (50, 2013) - 2007 Will Johnson (59, 2011) - 2008 Robbie Findley (71, 2013) - 2007 Chris Wingert (98, 2011) - 2007
San Jose Earthquakes	5	Chris Wondolowski (2, 2012) - 2009 Steven Lenhart (4, 2012) - 2011 Alan Gordon (8, 2012) - 2011 Shea Salinas (52, 2013) - 2012 Marvin Chavez (100, 2012) - 2012
Seattle	2	Eddie Johnson (13, 2013) - 2012 Lamar Neagle (22, 2013) - 2013
Sporting Kansas City	3	Kei Kamara (6, 2012) - 2009 Ike Opara (35, 2013) - 2013 Benny Feilhaber (39, 2013) - 2013
Toronto	2	Ryan Johnson (39, 2012) - 2011 Milos Kocic (66, 2011) - 2010
Vancouver	1	Brad Knighton (57, 2013) - 2012

3 Year team performance and combined (Superdraft plus overseas) recruitment scorecard of MLS teams

First, here is a table I made to rank the overall team performance of all MLS teams over the last three years. Excluded Montreal since they joined only in 2012.

Team	Points 2011+12+13	Rank
Chicago	43 + 57 + 49 = 149	8
Chivas	36 + 30 + 26 = 92	17
Colorado	49 + 37 + 51 = 137	10
Columbus	47 + 52 + 41 = 140	9
DC United	38 + 59 + 16 = 113	16
Dallas	52 + 39 + 44 = 135	11
Houston	49 + 53 + 51 = 153	7
LA Galaxy	67 + 54 + 53 = 174	1
New England	28 + 35 + 51 = 114	15
New York	46 + 57 + 59 = 162	5
Philadelphia	48 + 36 + 46 = 130	13
Portland	42 + 34 + 57 = 133	12
Real Salt Lake	53 + 57 + 56 = 166	4
San Jose Earthquakes	38 + 66 + 51 = 155	6
Seattle	63 + 56 + 52 = 171	3
Sporting Kansas City	51 + 63 + 58 =172	2
Toronto	33 + 23 + 29 = 85	18
Vancouver	28 + 43 + 48 =  119	14

Next, I added the quality players (based on PAR rating) recruited from Drafts and overseas. I included players drafted via Superdraft and overseas since 2009, for Portland and Vancouver, since 2011. The first row in the table is of course no surprise - LA Galaxy has twice won MLS Cup in last 3 years and they managed to recruit 15 top quality players via Superdraft or overseas, including players like Omar Gonzalvez and Robbie Keane. In the top one third of the table, (1-6), there are couple of surprises though. Performance rank of Real Salt Lake is 4th, but their combined recruitment scorecard is 12th! Even stranger anomaly is 6th position holder San Jose Earthquakes, their combined recruitment score card is 17th of 18 teams, only recruited 6 quality players via Superdraft and from overseas clubs!

I will look at this anomaly at a future post.

Team	Superdraft players + overseas recruits = Total	Rank(Total)
1. LA Galaxy	6 + 9  = 15	1-T
2. Sporting Kansas City	6 + 6  = 12	7-T
3. Seattle	2 + 12 = 14	3-T
4. Real Salt Lake	3 + 6 = 9	12-T
5. New York	4 + 11 = 15	1-T
6. San Jose Earthquakes	4 + 2 = 6	17-T
7. Houston	4 + 5 = 9	12-T
8. Chicago Fire	4 + 6 = 10	9-T
9. Columbus	3 + 6 = 9	12-T
10. Colorado	3 + 3 = 6	17-T
11. Dallas	4 + 9 = 13	5-T
12. Portland	2 + 6 = 8	15
13. Philadelphia	7 + 3 = 10	9-T
14. Vancouver	2 + 10 = 12	7-T
15. New England	9 + 5  = 14	3-T
16. DC United	6 + 1 = 7	16
17. Chivas	6 + 4 = 10	9-T
18. Toronto	6 + 7  = 13	5-T

A lot of things stand out from this list. San Jose is in the top third but are tied for last in overall player recruits. Dallas is tied for fifth but is stuck in the second third and New England are tied for third but dwell in the bottom third. I'll address these issues in the next post.

Overseas player recruitment scorecard of MLS teams

In my previous post about the Superdraft, I showed that some teams drafted better than others based on Superdrafts from 2010 to 2012. But, some teams like Seattle have done very well even though they did not find any gems in Superdrafts between 2010 to 2012; only one of their recruits (Alex Caskey) has played more than 1000 minutes in his first two years So why is that? There are multiple ways to acquire talent and now I'll take a look at another source - international players.

I'll take a look at another source of talent - overseas clubs. Most clubs have at least couple of their starters recruited internationally, mostly from CONCACAF countries or South American countries though rich clubs like LA and New York have recruited some of the top players from Europe.

Not all overseas recruits make an impact for their MLS clubs though, in fact less than half have done it. I have made a list of overseas players who have made to either  Castrol Index or PAR list in at least one of the years from 2011 to 2013. PAR list is not widely known, so let me tell a bit about it. It stands for Points Above Replacement and was created by Dave Laidig, and is modeled after baseball’s Wins Above Replacement  (WAR) stats. More details can be found at www.par-stat.com. I found that the list of names are mostly common but a few players who have played very well for few games but didn't play much did not make it to the Castrol Index list but made it to the PAR list. This is because Castrol Index gives high weight to number of minutes played. One example is Vancouver's Kekuta Manneh (recruited via Superdraft)

Team	Number of overseas recruits who has made the top 150 list at least  one of the seasons 2011 or 2012 or 2013	Three best overseas recruits
Chicago	6	Marco Pappa Arne Friedrich Alex
Chivas	4	Maicon Santos Erick Torres Michael Umana
Colorado	3	Hendry Thomas Jaime Castrillon Jamie Smith
Columbus	6	Federico Higuaín Jairo Arrieta Emilio Renteria
DC United	1	Hamdi Salihi
Dallas	9	David Ferreira Jair Benitez Marvin Chavez
Houston	5	Oscar Boniek García Jermaine Taylor Lovel Palmer
LA Galaxy	9	Robbie Keane David Beckham Juninho
Montreal	6	Marco Di Vaio Felipe Martins Alessandro Nesta
New England	5	Jose Gonçalves Saer Sene Jerry Bengtson
New York	11	Tim Cahill Thierry Henry Juan Pablo Angel
Philadelphia	3	Lionard Pajoy Keon Daniel Carlos Valdes
Portland	6	Diego Valeri Pa-Modou Kah Diego Chara
Real Salt Lake	6	Javier Morales Fabian Espindola Jamison Olave
San Jose Earthquakes	2	Victor Bernardez Simon Dawkins
Seattle	12	Osvaldo Alonso Mauro Rosales Fredy Montero
Sporting Kansas City	6	Aurelien Collin Jimmy Nielsen Oriol Rosell
Toronto	7	Danny Kovermans Adrian Cann Robert Earnshaw
Vancouver	10	Camilo Gershon Koffie Lee Young-Pyo

-One of the tools many MLS clubs utilize is agent Alejandro Taraciuk. Taracuik is a former MLS intern-turned-agent who helped establish Real Salt Lake's 2009 championship team by recommending Fabian Espindola, Javier Morales, and Jamison Olave. Taracuik pratically represents MLS in South America; he also brought Jorge Perlaza, Diego Chara, and Diego Valeri to Portland as well as Fredy Montero and Jhon Kennedy Hurtado to Seattle. Taraciuk also said, "I have been responsible for bringing approximately 70 players to the league and without doubt Diego Valeri is one of the best players I have placed in MLS." It would be interesting to find the role of agents in international players coming in. Teams also seem to focus around certain regions like Montreal in Italy.

-It is worth noting that there is no direct co-relation between recruiting quality players from overseas clubs and success in MLS. Dallas has recruited 9 international players and  Vancouver has 10 players who have been starters for them, still they had far less success than San Jose, who have just two significant overseas recruits during the same period - and Simon Dawkins of them was on loan from parent club Tottenham. So really they just have Victor Bernardez to show for.

So, there are more ways to assemble a good team, than drafting and overseas scouting. I'll cover it in a future post.

Superdraft score card of MLS teams

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)

Reality check on the MLS Superdraft

In the last couple of weeks MLS web sites have been buzzing with Superdraft related material - and for good reason, the big day is just around the corner on the 16th. Instead of joining the bandwagon and starting the speculation of who will be drafted by which team and whose stock is rising or falling, I asked myself the question how much Superdraft really means to the MLS teams.

First, let me explain my methodology.

I made a list of top 100 players who are the "elite" class of players from 2013 using the Castrol Index; I picked 100 players since that represents approximately top 20% - MLS now has about 500 players among its 19 teams. The coaches would like to get their entire first eleven from these two groups, but only MLS Champion Kansas City managed to do this. Most teams had 4 to 6.

The Superdraft is not the only source of recruitment for MLS clubs. Clubs often recruit from overseas, which  includes Europe, South America and other CONCACAF countries. MLS teams also hold try-outs, and use their academies to develop "home grown" players. They also recruit players from the lower tiers of North American soccer, like the NASL and USL. MLS also recruits American players playing abroad and allocates them to a team via their allocation process.

What I found interesting is that Superdraft brought only 41 of 100 elite players to MLS, but remember these players were recruited over a span of 14 years from 2000 to 2013, so on average each year's super draft brought only about three future stars to MLS. Overseas players recruited 34 out of 100, is the next major source. All other sources roughly contributed one fourth.

So, what does this tell us ?

First, Superdraft is not the only definitely source of recruiting quality players; overseas may be more expensive and the players may take more time to adapt to MLS' physical style of play, but that is the distance between the playoff teams and non-playoff teams(You can see that Real Salt Lake got a head start in 2007 and 2008 by signing Fabian Espindola, Javier Morales, and Jamison Olave long before the explosion of talent in 2011 ans 2012). Second, not too many star players join via Superdraft every year, may be about three to five. So, don't get carried away by the buzz generated around 30+ players, most of whom will be forgotten soon.

Anyways, let me give you some good news, especially if your team doesn't have a high draft pick. Only half of the elite players were not top 10 drafts, and lot of players picked up from 11 to 30 became future MLS stars. Of course, if your favorite team's coach has real eye for diamond in the rough (or just lucky) can still spot another future Chris Wondolowski pick 89.

Top 100 players sorted by Castrol Index rank:

*Year is when the player joined MLS

Player	Year	Source of Recruitment
Donovan Ricketts	2009	Overseas Club
Marco Di Vaio	2012	Overseas Club
Mike Magee	2003	Draft pick #3
Robbie Keane	2011	Overseas Club
Chris Wondolowski	2005	Draft pick #89
Jack McInerney	2010	Draft pick #7
Nick Rimando	2000	Draft pick #35
Blas Pérez	2012	Overseas Club
Eddie Johnson	2001	Draft pick #19
Graham Zusi	2009	Draft pick #23
Diego Fagundez	2011	Homegrown
Camilo Sanvezzo	2011	Overseas Club
Tim Cahill	2012	Overseas Club
Lamar Neagle	2009	Trialist
Ryan Johnson	2006	Draft pick #26
Thierry Henry	2010	Overseas Club
Luis Robles	2012	MLS Allocation
Will Bruin	2011	Draft pick #11
Drew Moor	2005	Draft pick #6
Giles Barnes	2012	Overseas Club
José Gonçalves	2013	Overseas Club
Dominic Oduro	2006	Draft pick #22
Jon Busch	2002	Draft pick #23
Diego Valeri	2013	Overseas Club
Conor Casey	2007	MLS Allocation
Zac MacMath	2011	Draft pick #5
Shea Salinas	2008	Draft pick #15
Aurélien Collin	2011	Overseas Club
Marcelo Sarvas	2012	Overseas Club
Benny Feilhaber	2011	MLS Allocation
Federico Higuaín	2012	Overseas Club
Brad Davis	2002	Draft pick #3
Nathan Sturgis	2006	Draft pick #12
Rodney Wallace	2009	Draft pick #6
Kyle Beckerman	2000	MLS Allocation
Chad Marshall	2004	Draft pick #2
Matt Besler	2009	Draft pick #8
Clinton Irwin	2013	USL
Javier Morales	2007	Overseas Club
Dilly Duka	2010	Draft pick #8
George John	2009	Draft pick #14
Deshorn Brown	2013	Draft pick #6
Omar González	2009	Draft pick #3
Sebastien Le Toux	2009	USL
Jamison Olave	2008	Overseas Club
Erick Torres	2013	Overseas Club
Kenny Miller	2012	Overseas Club
Fabian Espindola	2007	Overseas Club
Landon Donovan	2001	MLS Allocation
Juninho	2010	Overseas Club
Amobi Okugo	2010	Draft pick #6
Patrick Nyarko	2008	Draft pick #7
Chance Myers	2008	Draft pick #1
Bernardo Anor	2011	Draft pick #48
Ike Opara	2010	Draft pick #3
Claudio Bieler	2013	Overseas Club
Matt Hedges	2012	Draft pick #11
Gyasi Zardes	2013	Homegrown
Pa-Modou Kah	2013	Overseas Club
Jairo Arrieta	2012	Overseas Club
Will Johnson	2005	Trialist
Michael Gspurning	2012	Overseas Club
Dan Kennedy	2005	Draft pick #38
Dillon Powers	2013	Draft pick #11
Stephen McCarthy	2011	Draft pick #24
Todd Dunivant	2003	Draft pick #6
Oscar Boniek García	2012	Overseas Club
Robert Earnshaw	2013	Overseas Club
A.J. DeLaGarza	2009	Draft pick #17
Oriol Rosell	2013	Overseas Club
Sheanon Williams	2010	USL
Warren Creavalle	2012	Draft pick #37
Josh Williams	2010	Trialist
Bobby Shuttleworth	2009	Trialist
Darlington Nagbe	2011	Draft pick #2
Michael Farfan	2011	Draft pick #23
Steven Caldwell	2013	Overseas Club
Kelyn Rowe	2012	Draft pick #3
Obafemi Martins	2013	Overseas Club
Soony Saad	2011	MLS Allocation
Jimmy Nielsen	2010	Overseas Club
Tally Hall	2009	Recruited by Club
Doneil Henry	2010	Homegrown
Justin Mapp	2002	Draft pick #4
Seth Sinovic	2010	Draft pick #25
Diego Chara	2011	Overseas Club
Jonathan Osorio	2012	Trialist
Osvaldo Alonso	2009	Overseas Club
Victor Bernardez	2012	Overseas Club
Djimi Traore	2013	Overseas Club
Lee Nguyen	2012	MLS Allocation
Andrew Jacobson	2009	MLS Allocation
Alvaro Saborio	2010	Overseas Club
Ricardo Clark	2003	Draft pick #2
Jeff Larentowicz	2005	Draft pick #45
Kenny Cooper	2006	Recruited by Club
Bobby Boswell	2005	Trialist
Andrew Driver	2013	Overseas Club
DeAndre Yedlin	2013	Homegrown
Troy Perkins	2003	Trialist