Crew Midfield, MLS Value Conversation

The more time I spend with on this type of analysis the more things start jumping out at me. It's especially apparent now that I've reviewed the Crew Defenders and Midfield. While the specific numbers matter to me, the simpler way to look at this is to call a players contract either a "Hit" or "Miss".

It's great that there are some players far exceeding contract but what is also impressive are those players that demand larger contracts and perform up to that level. Going back to my last post real quick, you'll notice two players that were definite salary / contract "Hits" in Sebastian Miranda and Carlos Mendes and three decidedly "Miss" in James, Vukovic, and Marshall.

Looking at the group as a whole it's easy to say that the Crew missed on the entire backline with contracts falling -$(195,506) to the red. That actually puts them 14th in the league (not good) in regards to the backline (TFC, COL, VAN, PHI) territory. However, upon closer inspection I see that C. Marshall makes up 89% of that deficit.

Similar tale to tell here with the Crew midfield. The players at this position carry a contract deficit of -$(186,126) and through not much fault on his own, Dilly Duka makes up 74% of it (reminder: I always use 'guaranteed contract'). Duka is coming of Generation Adidas graduation and appears to be saddled with a heavily incentivised contract. It is very possible that the 'herky-jerky' nature of his playing time was due to this. Has the Robert Warzycha and Co. ruined a talented player here? I have a feeling we will find out very soon when/if he suits up for another club and plays his natural central MF spot.

Other midfield contract misses are Milovan Mirosevic, Danny O'Rourke and possibly Chris Birchall. Mirosevic's $223,000 is 28% too high in my book. I value him at a healthy $160k, which is significantly above league median of $110k, which means he added value but he did not live up to this heavy price tag.

In fact, no midfielder in MLS really lives up to a salary that high when looking a value based on performance. My analysis shows that anything over $215k might be too high for a MF player in MLS. Or, another way to put that is to say; that if you are a team looking at a offering a contract above $200k... don't, the risk far outweighs the return you will likely get.

As for the contract "Hits" I show Eddie Gaven and Tony Tchani. Now, Gaven is a solid Hit. I rank him as the 3rd best MF in MLS this year. Tchani's hit is a bit of a strange thing, but it makes sense upon closer inspection. MLS is littered with midfield players. Almost 200 different players saw time there (compared with 150 Defenders, 110 Forwards) and a good chunk of them only played in half the games. Only 25% saw more than 2000 minutes compared to 36% of defenders. What this means is the MLS has a lot of midfield players making good money only playing half the time. There are many possible reasons for this, first being that a MF does a lot of running.

That said. This is a 'market value' look at the league so while MLS has a collective problem in searching for the right MF players, Tchani falls into a sweet spot on the list. Here are some of the players around him on my player rating and make similar salary: Gabriel Gomez, Luiz Camargo, David Ferreira, Bobby Convey, Branko Boskovic... Those are some heavy hitters but also some large salaries. All of these players only played in about half their team's games yet make over 200k.

Tony Tchani also has one of these Generation Adidas contracts that tend to out pace player value according to MLS. The difference between his base and guaranteed is $104k and Duka's diff is $130k. That's a lot of added pressure on both player and coach and I can see why MLS is taking a closer look at the GA program (It could be argued that this Adidas program pays correctly and MLS themselves undervalue. I'm not taking that on). Regardless, in my opinion any team with both these players should start them game in / game out. They are talented and will bring wins. Problem with the Crew is that they reached on them before their salary counted towards the cap and now that it does, they realize that, while they are valuable and meet their "Base Salary", they are not worth their heavy guaranteed rates.

CIRCUMSTANCE GUIDES BLISS

Brian Bliss is the Crew Technical Director. On his own, he knows young undiscovered talent (he is connected to that pipeline) but I think he tends to miss on experienced players when he doesn't have the help of folks like Guillermo Barros Schelotto.

Looking up and down the list of Crew midfielders it is circumstance might do in Dilly Duka and Tony Tchani while in my opinion the wise cut might be Mirosevic. If the Crew can rework Duka and Tchani's contracts down to where their guaranteed is at base levels they should keep them as they are both worth that.

One other larger contract th Crew have is Chris Birchall. I'm not sure about him, because he came into the season a little late, if is $109k contract has to be paid in full. I am confident that had he been around all season he would have been a "Hit".

Lastly, we have a trio of lower wage midfielders that contributed well above their league mandated minimums. They were

Kevan George
$33,750 salary : 67,500 HB Value

Bernardo Anor
$44,100 salary : 75,833 HB Value

Cole Grossman (released)
$44,100 salary : 67,600 HB Value

Bernardo could very well end up on the defender list next year even though he's only a defender in the eyes of Robert Warzycha. Note: Ethan Finlay is listed as a Forward by Stats, Inc. I will cover him later with that group.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The MF positions in this league seem to be a revolving door and the Crew is no different. This muddies the waters and makes contract evaluation difficult. My recommendation to the Crew would be to work on a consistent and durable MF lineup (and formation) and work from there. Constant change will only make things more difficult to evaluate and therefore reward/compensate appropriately.

The reason this post is in conversational for is because there is very little to ground these players with. You've got GA players with unbalanced contracts, an aging Chilean who never found his rhythm, a talented young leader who requested out, a skillful gazelle who was put into an unnatural left back position and tore his knee apart, and another who very well could be one of the best MLS midfielders of his generation.

The Crew's problem is here - in the midfield. Not so much in that there isn't enough talent, more that it is probably been misused or there is a disconnect between Brian Bliss and the coaching staff.

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THANKSGIVING

As I'm finishing this midfield post up and getting ready to head out to meet friends on this day I can't help but think of Kirk Urso and his family. While I'd give a lot to be writing about his performance and what he would contribute to next year - his life reminds us all of what is really important.

Preliminary Evaluation, Crew

Only one game left for the Crew but before it all ends I wanted to take a look at different ways to evaluate how the players did this year and, by extension, how team management did.

A tad long on this post and it goes on about stats. Fair warning. If that's what you're looking for - then settle in with your favorite scotch or pour yourself a barley pop. Let's dig in.

CLEARING UP NUMBERS ON MLSsoccer

Earlier this week Craig Merz brought up Robert Warzycha's poor September/October record with Technical Director Brian Bliss. I can't figure how Merz got his winning percentages there no matter how I cut it.

In his article Merz states Warzycha is "...10-16-5 for a winning percentage of .403" in Sept and October since 2009. That's a total of 31 games and 10 wins in those two months. That comes up as a .323 winning %, not a .403 as Merz states. I also ran it as percent of possible pts earned (a true soccer metric) and that came up 35 pts earned out of a possible 93, or 37.6% earned (.376). I haven't a clue where he got .403 for those months.

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[EDIT/NOTE: Thanks to Mr. Steve Sirk for informing me on how Merz got his winning percentage.]

Steve Sirk ‏@stevesirk
@HelltownBeer MLS calculates winning % in the traditional US sense. (W + (T*0.5))/GP

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What's funny is that Brian Bliss goes right along with Merz though, saying: “It is an alarming statistic, for sure. We’ve got to delve into this.”

That said, calling out Craig Merz isn't the point of this post. The reason I bring it up is because I need some baseline numbers. The point Merz is trying to make (Warzycha struggles late in seasons) is valid.

Here are the % of Points Won by Warzycha (RW) coached teams:
51.2% : RW Overall
55.6% : March thru August
37.6% : September and October

Note the measurable dip in Sept and Oct. A similar thing happened this year in that the Crew struggled in those months going 3 wins, 1 draw and 4 loss.

So... QUESTION: Is this RW or is it players? No sense in rewinding the clock back to 2009 right now. 2012 saw RW's team earn 41.7% possible points in Sept and Oct, pretty much inline with his normal 37.6% over his coaching career... so lets focus on this year.

49.5% : Possible Pts Earned, 2012
52.0% : Possible Pts Earned, Mar-Aug 2012
41.7% : Possible Pts Earned, Sept-Oct 2012
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-10.3 Pt dip in Sep/Oct (bad, but amusingly better than his atrocious career -18 pt dip)

Lets focus on the 49.5% for all of 2012. Below is how each player did as a starter in comparison to the team average (above or below 49.5, minimum of 5 starts):

+23.8 : Cole Grossman
+14.1 : Carlos Mendes
+13.8 : Federico Higuaín
+12.4 : Dilly Duka
+10.5 : Bernardo Anor

+06.1 : Danny O´Rourke
+03.4 : Jairo Obando Arrieta
+01.8 : Joshua Williams
+01.5 : Sebastián Miranda
+00.5 : Shaun Francis
+00.5 : Chris Birchall
+00.5 : Emilio Renteria
+00.0 : Eddie Gaven

+0.0 : Replacement (Team)

-01.6 : Andy Gruenebaum
-01.9 : Julius James
-02.3 : Chad Marshall
-05.1 : Nemanja Vukovic
-05.5 : Milovan Mirosevic

-10.1 : Justin Meram
-11.4 : Olman Vargas
-11.4 : Eric Gehrig
-16.2 : Tony Tchani

Some interesting players doing much better than the team average, but it doesn't really tell the full story. What you see up there is how it looks over the entire year. The Crew finished smack dab in the middle of the table; 10th out of 19 teams.

How about we tease out results versus the top half of the table only. The Crew's average against the Top Half of the table in 2012 is 39.2% Total Possible Pts Earned. Here is how Crew players did against that number (minimum of 5 starts).

+34.1 : Cole Grossman
+19.1 : Carlos Mendes
+19.1 : Dilly Duka
+14.1 : Nemanja Vukovic

+02.5 : Joshua Williams
+02.5 : Sebastián Miranda
+02.5 : Emilio Renteria
+00.8 : Justin Meram
+00.8 : Chris Birchall
+00.0 : Andy Gruenebaum
+00.0 : Eddie Gaven

+0.0 : TEAM

-01.1 : Tony Tchani
-01.1 : Danny O´Rourke
-08.9 : Chad Marshall
-09.2 : Jairo Obando Arrieta

-12.5 : Julius James
-24.4 : Milovan Mirosevic

Whoa... What happened to Milovan Mirosevic? And Federico Higuain didn't accumulate more than 5 starts against good teams??

There are some notable players whose possible points earned drastically changes versus good competition. Here is the difference if you compare the full season to how they did against top clubs.

+15.1 Tony Tchani
+10.9 Justin Meram
+10.3 Cole Grossman
+09.0 Nemanja Vukovic
+06.7 Dilly Duka
+05.0 Carlos Mendes
+02.0 Emilio Renteria
+01.6 Andy Gruenebaum
+01.0 Sebastián Miranda
+00.7 Joshua Williams
+00.3 Chris Birchall

+00.0 Eddie Gaven

-06.6 Chad Marshall
-07.2 Danny O´Rourke
-10.6 Julius James
-12.6 Jairo Obando Arrieta
-18.9 Milovan Mirosevic

Tchani, Meram, Grossman and Vukovic really stepped up against tougher opponents this year. When I ran these numbers I struck me as odd to see these players rising to the challenge of good opponents, so I decided to look at the percentage of games each player played against top clubs. For players with over 5 starts, it looks like this:

73% : Carlos Mendes
70% : Cole Grossman
67% : Justin Meram
65% : Dilly Duka
65% : Chris Birchall
59% : Jairo Obando Arrieta
58% : Julius James
57% : Tony Tchani
55% : Joshua Williams
53% : Andy Gruenebaum
52% : Eddie Gaven
50% : Sebastián Miranda
47% : Nemanja Vukovic
46% : Emilio Renteria
46% : Chad Marshall
43% : Danny O´Rourke
38% : Milovan Mirosevic

Again, Federico Higuain didn't even make five starts against the top half of the table. What the hell gives with Milovan Mirosevic?

WHAT THE HELL GIVES WITH MILOVAN MIROSEVIC



Only 9 of Mirosevic's 26 starts were against good teams. He won a grand total of 0 in those 9. You read that right. ZERO. He was 0 wins, 4 draw, 5 loss when starting against top half teams. Not only did he face the least amount of tough talent, he had the worst record against them. It's terrible and might be the single most damning stat against any individual player.

To further drive home the point on Mirosevic against top talent; Here's how each player looks as far as average goal difference when "on the pitch" versus teams 1-9 on the table (this includes when a player comes on as a sub)...

Goal Diff : Name

+1.00 : Cole Grossman
+0.80 : Nemanja Vukovic
+0.63 : Dilly Duka
+0.50 : Carlos Mendes
+0.00 : Justin Meram

-0.06 : Joshua Williams
-0.06 : Sebastián Miranda
-0.10 : Chris Birchall
-0.14 : Tony Tchani
-0.14 : Danny O´Rourke

-0.17 : TEAM

-0.18 : Andy Gruenebaum
-0.24 : Eddie Gaven
-0.25 : Emilio Renteria
-0.40 : Jairo Obando Arrieta
-0.60 : Julius James
-0.64 : Chad Marshall
-0.67 : Milovan Mirosevic

The same players keep showing up at the top and at the bottom of these metrics but put weight in the Goal Difference when on the pitch against top half of the table, if you put any value in any of it.

The more and more I shape the numbers of the past year the more I see that too much trust might have been put in players like Mirosevic, Marshall, Higuain and even Arrieta. As talented as they may be, they couldn't get it done against better talent (or in Higuain's case, not even faced it).

My hope is that Brian Bliss puts value into results and not gut feelings. His "We’ve got to delve into this" comment is telling. Either he is playing dumb or he really doesn't know or track valuable metrics that will make his team better.

Look, I'm no expert on statistics... I'm an Ops Manager who does work in central Ohio. What I'm pulling here isn't over the top for anyone with access to Excel and a little bit of time.

I can see the missteps in the productivity of certain players but doesn't it come down to who puts these guys out there match in and match out? Of course the responsibility falls on the head coach but doesn't it also fall on the team administration? They are the folks that negotiate salary, which in turn results in playing time. Should they be held most accountable?

Does the Crew hold anyone accountable?