2 New MR Posts, Notes

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1. FIVE 2013 CREW MISTAKES

This one started off as a sort of running postmortem commentary on the season I wanted to get out of my head. It's been both a fascinating and disappointing season for the Columbus Crew.

Focusing on mistakes is only part of a postmortem assessment but it is the most important. A critical assessment of performance, no matter what, is vital to success. For the past 36 months the Columbus Crew have had their head buried in the sand and that is playing out in results.

It's also resulted in the hasty sale of this MLS Franchise to an outsider. Most telling thing to me so far? I get excited and can't wait to crack open a $60 dollar video game. Anthony Precourt bought the team for $68 million... And how much time has he spent in Columbus? How many games has he been to?

Always, always, always look at mistakes as a way to get better.

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2. CREW PLAYER RATINGS, WHOSCORED.COM

One of these days I'll get Massive Report's Patrick Guldan to start doing his player ratings again. Until then, all I have is what the folks at WhoScored.com put together.

I decided to summarize them in box plot form because I like to look at consistency of performance. Overall, for the sport of soccer, I think it is important. For Major League Soccer teams? You can't live without it.

One of the things I liked about Chris Anderson and David Sally's book "The Numbers Game" is when they talk on improving the weakest link as vital. In MLS, improving your weakest spot is probably the most important things because of the scarcity of top talent (self inflicted by MLS with Designated player rules and team 'budgets').

Using rating systems like WhoScored.com gives fans a good starting point for determining which players are doing well and which are not. What's great about the site beyond the ratings is the fact that they also have all the Opta data.

Anyhow, go give 'em a read.