Crew Box and Whisker, Connor Maloney

Another way to look at WhoScored player ratings for the Crew this year is via box and whisker:

A couple surprises: Connor Maloney and Youness Mokhtar.

I had to do a double-take on Luis Argudo because I thought his performances had been good. Turns out he's just a little up and down.

A general rule of thumb - you want player performances to be above 6.5 - at least. Only Pedro Santos is pulling that off, with Maloney and Trapp nearly there.

CONNOR MALONEY

I'm going to go ahead and state that Maloney should be starting the rest of the season and get a new deal ASAP (currently at $70k, 3rd season). With these performances, he should be somewhere around $150-200k.

His last four starts: 7.39... 6.93... 6.80... 6.82 - Solid.

 Here are players that are currently in that range that play right and/or left back, for comparison.


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	Name	Birthplace	Team	Age	Salary
6.84	Donny Toia	Tucson, Arizona	RSL	27	$131,254
6.84	Graham Zusi	Orlando, Florida	SKC	33	$688,333
6.83	Kelvin Leerdam	Paramaribo, Suriname	SEA	29	$600,000
6.83	Auro	Sao Paulo, Brazil	TFC	24	$276,667
6.83	Connor Lade	Morristown, New Jersey	NYR	30	$132,750
6.8	Brad Smith	Penrith, Australia	SEA	25	$564,365
6.8	Joao Moutinho	Lisbon, Portugal	ORL	22	$203,000
6.79	Kai Wagner	Geislingen an der Steige, Germany	PHI	23	$360,150
6.79	Edgar Castillo	Los Cruces, New Mexico	NER	33	$250,000

Median age is 27 (Maloney is 24) and the median salary is $277k.

Milton Valenzuela returns next year after a major knee injury that will put Maloney back on the bench, but I think his play, even at this early stage of evaluation, warrants a new deal and regular spot in the gameday 18. If he's able to keep this up, he may even have a shot at challenging Harrison Afful ($364k) for the RB role.

When I see a player crush his opportunity after waiting for one over multiple seasons, well, it warms me inside. Means the guy has been staying in shape and working hard outside the spotlight. You can't underestimate the value of that in regards to predicting what type of player he will be going forward.

Another sign of a quality person is Maloney was voted by teammates as the Kirk Urso Heart Award winner in 2018.

A solid $200k, gameday 18 endorsement from Helltown.