Top Passers in the USL, 2018

The USL regular season has wrapped up, so I decided to dig into the wealth of data available on their site. First up - Passing.

The better passers you have on the team the better your possession. This means you can dictate more of the game. Do what you want to do instead of having it done to you. If that makes any sense.

Along with a couple of charts, I want to get to what it means to have good passers on your team. How I did this - take a few measurements that Opta has pulled out of USL games. Those categories:

1. Total Passes
2. Pass Completion %
3. % Complete in Opposition Half
4. Long Pass % Complete

Here are the top 12 players when you take the rank in each of those categories:

Having the better passers in the league should mean you have a better team. Obviously, that's not always the case, but let's put it to the test real quick.

By my count, there are 527 players that have managed over 900 minutes this year. If we take to top 20% passers (which works out to be about 100 players) and match them up with their team records, we should see a relationship.

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Pos.	City	P	W	L	T	GD	Pts	Top Passers
1	Cincinnati	34	23	3	8	38	77	4
2	Orange County SC	34	20	8	6	30	66	6
3	Louisville City	34	19	6	9	33	66	5
4	Sacramento Republic	34	19	7	8	15	65	3
5	Phoenix Rising	34	19	9	6	25	63	1
6	Real Monarchs	34	19	12	3	8	60	9
8	Reno 1868	34	16	7	11	18	59	6
7	Pittsburgh Riverhounds	34	15	5	14	21	59	2
9	Charleston Battery	34	14	6	14	13	56	3
10	Portland Timbers 2	34	17	13	4	9	55	4
12	Saint Louis	34	14	9	11	6	53	4
11	Swope Park Rangers	34	15	11	8	-1	53	3
13	New York Red Bulls II	34	13	8	13	12	52	0
14	Bethlehem Steel	34	14	12	8	15	50	2
15	San Antonio	34	14	12	8	-3	50	1
17	Nashville SC	34	12	9	13	11	49	4
16	Indy Eleven	34	13	11	10	3	49	1
18	North Carolina FC	34	13	13	8	10	47	7
19	Ottawa Fury	34	13	15	6	-12	45	0
20	OKC Energy	34	12	15	7	-3	43	4
21	Charlotte Independence	34	10	12	12	-13	42	6
22	Tampa Bay Rowdies	34	11	15	8	0	41	5
24	Fresno FC	34	9	13	12	6	39	3
23	Colorado Springs	34	11	17	6	-3	39	2
25	Rio Grande Valley	34	8	12	14	-6	38	2
26	Penn FC	34	9	15	10	-9	37	1
27	LA Galaxy II	34	10	17	7	-7	37	1
28	Atlanta United 2	34	7	17	10	-35	31	7
29	Las Vegas Lights FC	34	8	19	7	-24	31	0
30	Seattle Sounders 2	34	6	21	7	-31	25	2
31	Richmond Kickers	34	6	24	4	-50	22	3
32	Tulsa Roughnecks	34	3	19	12	-41	21	2
33	Toronto II	34	4	24	6	-35	18	2

Great, it works out (mostly).

- Top 5 average 4 players in the top 20% of all passers in the league.
- Middle group has 3
- Bottom averages 2.

Or, to put it another way. Average points earned if you have +5 top passers is 52. If you have 2 or less? Those teams averaged 41 pts. 11 point difference. Find passers everyone.

Below will be a more straightforward look at the top passers in the USL for 2018. Total passes / Overall Completion %.

USL Passing: Total Passes / Passing % Infogram

SPECIAL PLAYER CALLOUTS 

The United Soccer League isn't looked at as a pathway to a higher league. Part of that is exposure, part of that is the way soccer is structured in the United States. That said, here are some players that warrant a closer look.

1. Graham Smith, North Carolina FC. DM, 24 years old Graham is in the top 20% in all my categories. Notably 5th in passing in the opponents half of the field. At 24, he's reaching mid-career without a whole lot of professional experience, but what he's done in his first USL season is impressive.  

2. Boluwatife Akinyode, Nashville, DM, 24 years old Another defensive mid and ranked first in Pass% and % complete in the opposition half. He's been bouncing around the NY Red Bulls system for years, with stops at Bethlehem and NCFC. Currently mired in mid-table nowhere's ville Nashville, he's definitely worth a closer look.  

3. Justin Portillo, Real Monarchs, MF, 26 years old Justin spent quite a bit of time with the Charleston Battery and has struck gold in the USL. the Monarchs have 9 players in the top 20% according to my measurement, he tops the list.

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There are two Graham Smith's in the USL. The other plays off and on for Swope Park as well as MLS Sporting KC. Both are good players, but the NCFC one is better (at least in terms of the 2018 USL season).

WhoScored Goodies, Crew SC

Taking some time today to update a mess of data and metrics I like to track. One of those things is the overall WhoScored.com player ratings. I like them for what they are and have been recording / tracking them since they started to include MLS back at the beginning of 2013. What that means is that I've got 72 games of Crew SC data of which to pick apart! Wow, time is flying by.

Before I get to a boring box and whisker chart, here are a few fun and exciting TOP 10's...

TOP 10 HIGHEST RATED GAMES, PLAYER
9.62 -- Justin Meram (2013 Round 27 vs Houston)
9.40 -- Aaron Schoenfeld (2014 Rd 33 vs NY Red Bull)
9.25 -- Federico Higuaín (2013 Rd 24 vs Toronto)
9.07 -- Chad Marshall (2013 Rd 29 vs Montreal)
9.03 -- Federico Higuaín (2013 Rd 23 vs NY Red Bull)
9.00 -- Gláuber (2013 Rd 3 vs San Jose)
8.93 -- Justin Meram (2014 Rd 27 vs Chivas USA)
8.89 -- Tony Tchani (2013 Rd 30 vs Chicago)
8.86 -- Justin Meram (2015 Rd 2 vs Toronto)
8.86 -- Federico Higuaín (2014 Rd 12 vs Chicago)

Meram and Higuain take six of the top 10 spots here. Interestingly, six of the 10 are also from 2013. Looking farther down the list though, I see that 2014 dominates the 10-40 spots. Notably, Meram being the first Crew SC player to make top 10 each of last three years.

The top rated match by any Crew SC player since 2013 is Justin Meram back towards the end of 2013. He did just about everything in the middle of the field any MLS player has in this time frame. 80% passing on 46 attempts, 71 touches, 5 shots, 2 on frame. 4 key passes (one completely unselfish pass to Ryan Findley for a goal) and a couple clearances. The performances above are representative of what he can do at the MLS level - which is be dominate. What's interesting is that he never has a stinker of a game. It's only comparatively that we think he stinks it up sometimes. His magnificent performances set the bar high.

A couple more notes for the Crew junkies out there: Not sure many will remember that Schoenfeld late season game vs NY. I played about as well as a forward can in MLS that night (and added a brace). That late season 2013 Marshall game was when old Chad rose up to try and carry the team into the playoffs under interim manager Brian Bliss (it almost worked).

TOP 10 KEY PASS GAMES, PLAYER
8 -- Wil Trapp (2013 Rd 26 vs Seattle)
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
7 -- Federico Higuaín
6 -- Federico Higuaín
6 -- Federico Higuaín

A key pass is a pass that leads to an opportunity. For the Crew, it's basically the "Higuain Stat." He's got 18 of the top 20 in this category.

Next up is a simple check on top defensive performances over the past couple years. What I've done is take the total of a handful of positive defensive actions, add them up and divide by the total number of touches the player had. The actions are Duels, Tackles, Interceptions, Effective Clearances and Shots Blocked.

TOP 10 DEFENSIVE PERFORMANCES
100% -- Giancarlo Gonzalez (2014 Rd 5 vs SJE)
98% -- Michael Parkhurst (2014 Rd 35-PO vs NER)
98% -- Giancarlo Gonzalez (2014 Rd 24 vs LAG)
97% -- Emanuel Pogatetz (2015 Rd 2 vs TFC)
96% -- Tyson Wahl (2014 Rd 36-PO vs. NER)
96% -- Michael Parkhurst (2014 Rd 2 vs. PHI)
96% -- Eric Gehrig (2014 Rd 18 vs. NY)
95% -- Eric Gehrig (2014 Rd 16 vs. FCD)
95% -- Michael Parkhurst (2014 Rd 25 vs. HOU)
94% -- Tyson Wahl (2014 Rd 25 vs. HOU)

Not everything Giancarlo did in that game was perfect (he did miss a couple passes) but Opta data often doesn't add quite up. Close enough for things such as this. Take it as "these dudes had really good defensive games that day."

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Okay, to finally get to why I'm here. WhoScored.com has a rating system that rates each player based on actions each game. Along with Squawka, I think they are a pretty darn good way to get a general feel on how well a player did that night. For people like me, it helps narrow my focus before digging in.

On this box plot is each player's ratings from last year. The orange line is through the first two games this year. The new signings are on here, represented by the orange line only. So far Crew SC have hit on three of these guys (not as easy as they make it look, many times new guys are duds in MLS). I'll highlight Grana as an excellent signing. Pogatetz is a good replacement for Gonzalez and Kei is a massive upgrade at forward. All this is "so far" though. Only two games in.

A couple general notes on the rating scores:

6.80 and above... top MLS player
6.60 to 6.79... slightly above average player
6.40 and below... not looking good

Cost per League Point to Salary Cap Number

That's sort of a confusing post title but It'll make sense in a second.

Dr. Howard Hamilton, who has a B.A.E. degree in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics from Stanford University (whew), took a look at "Front-office Efficiency" by taking the number of league points a team earned and dividing it into total payroll. Seems simple enough. You can read that post here.

However, the game to be played in Major League Soccer isn't total payroll. That's a rich man's game. The true chess match for the grunts in the trenches is how well you do with payroll against the salary cap. Also of note, with respect to Dr. Hamilton; the Major League Soccer season doesn't end with the regular season.

Here is how that same thing looks if you take the team's 2012 year end salary to cap and divide it into total points earned with playoff points earned. On the left is how much each point cost the club to cap and on the right is how many points the club earned including the playoffs.

35,690 : San Jose 69
38,267 : Sporting KC 66
41,434 : Houston 63
43,563 : D.C. 65
44,938 : Seattle 63
46,946 : Los Angeles 66
50,151 : Real Salt Lake 58
51,425 : Columbus 52
54,123 : Chicago 57
57,181 : New England 35
59,211 : Montreal 42
60,585 : New York 57
68,293 : Philadelphia 36
68,320 : FC Dallas 39
69,120 : Portland 34
73,326 : Colorado 37
74,227 : Vancouver 43
85,783 : Chivas USA 30
121,453 : Toronto FC 23

Here is how each team looked as far as Salary to Cap as per MLS Player's Union last reported numbers. Teams in bold ended the year under the cap.

2,001,338 : New England
2,350,091 : Portland
2,458,556 : Philadelphia
2,462,598 : San Jose
2,486,845 : Montreal
2,525,601 : Sporting KC
2,573,478 : Chivas USA
2,610,316 : Houston
2,664,487 : FC Dallas
2,674,084 : Columbus
2,713,058 : Colorado
2,793,413 : Toronto FC

2,831,099 : Seattle
2,831,604 : D.C.
2,908,785 : Real Salt Lake
3,085,014 : Chicago
3,098,430 : Los Angeles
3,191,750 : Vancouver
3,453,370 : New York

You can find MLS salary cap rules here.

Please note; All teams exceed the MLS salary cap at the end of the year were in the playoffs.

I used Base Salary for this exercise as that seems to be what MLS uses as the cap number. Salaries can be found on the MLS Player's Union website.