Shawn Sloan: Part 1 of 6 !

During a damp summer Sunday Ohio morning reserve match at the Obetz training facility I joked with Fox Sports Ohio writer Rick Gethin that I was going to write a six part series about first year Crew player Shawn Sloan.

Rick rolled off a laugh as I made my case. I had seen Sloan play a couple times previous and thought he had something but the joke was that no player like him could possibly make it in a league structured like MLS. As the game progressed... I think both of us became more of a believer.

Sloan started in the back line but was moved up into the middle part of the field later on in the match. This type of thing is the hallmark of a player that is being used as filler on this less than glamorous Crew side. A competent warm body that fills the role of MLS reserve dummy. Or cone. Or what have you.

Seems there was something different in Sloan, though. It wasn't uncommon to see him barking at other players, frustrated that they were not where he thought they should be. In the wrong hands this type of behavior would earn him a spot on the bench. Or worse, disapproval from teammates. I'd seen it before, but neither happened.

I've been around MLS quite a bit since the size of rosters jumped from the low twenties to the thirty it is now back in 2010. Dozens of players like Sloan are left behind to continue on to whatever career track they were on in college a year before (in Shawn's case he could probably make more money not playing soccer).

Turns out, Shawn Sloan has been picked up by the Columbus Crew for the 2014 season.

After a year in which the team saw a new owner and along with a brand new coaching staff, this is pretty remarkable. All of the non-budget/cap players the old regime picked last year (Drew Beckie, Kyle Hyland, Konrad Warzycha) were let go after just a year with the team.

The decision to keep Sloan is a good one and tells me that new head coach and director of soccer ops Gregg Berhalter isn't moving about the early off season flippantly.

What's interesting to me is that Sloan likely matches Berhalter's thinking mind the most out of anyone on the team. Excited to see what's next.

Final 2013 Crew KRAMB Scores

Kramb is a measurement / valuation I've been keeping track of over the past few years that helps tell me who is contributing to the success or failure of the side.

What it does is take an individual player's record when starting (PPG) and on pitch goal difference (GD) above or below team average. It looks like this:

KRAMB = (PLAYER PPG - TEAM PPG) + (PLAYER GD - TEAM GD)

Example:

0.04 : Tyson Wahl (1.21 - 1.21) + (-0.04 - -0.08)

The TEAM here is all the starters. TEAM GD of -0.08 is that of the starters only, compared to -0.12 overall team GD on the year. The drop indicates that subs lost ground (I'll look at that some other time)

Tyson is a good example because he is the replacement level player on the team. 12 players finished above him, 12 below. Here is the complete list, I'll use a five start minimum. At the bottom will be the lower start guys.

KRAMB : NAME : GAMES STARTED
+0.77 : Eddie Gaven 10
+0.56 : Matt Lampson 13
+0.37 : Agustín Viana 20
+0.31 : Justin Meram 9
+0.29 : Bernardo Anor 19
+0.25 : Tony Tchani 13
+0.13 : Dominic Oduro 34
+0.11 : Federico Higuaín 29
+0.10 : Gláuber Berti 13
+0.09 : Chad Barson 18
+0.07 : Chad Marshall 30
+0.04 : Tyson Wahl 24
-0.13 : Wil Trapp 16
-0.13 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
-0.17 : Joshua Williams 25
-0.18 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 21
-0.30 : Eric Gehrig 6
-0.34 : Danny O´Rourke 19
-0.42 : Andy Gruenebaum 21
-0.53 : Ben Speas 10
-0.83 : Matías Sánchez 10

(not enough games)
-0.13 : Konrad Warzycha 2
-0.46 : Ethan Finlay 3
-0.80 : Ryan Finley 3
-1.46 : Kevan George 3

I'll split it out now, starting with PPG (split will be at replacement level):

PPG to REPLACEMENT : NAME : STARTS
0.41 : Matt Lampson 13
0.35 : Justin Meram 9
0.29 : Eddie Gaven 10
0.29 : Konrad Warzycha 2
0.18 : Chad Barson 18
0.14 : Agustín Viana 20
0.12 : Eric Gehrig 6
0.10 : Wil Trapp 16
0.10 : Federico Higuaín 29
0.10 : Tony Tchani 13
0.05 : Bernardo Anor 19

0.02 : Gláuber Berti 13
0.00 : Tyson Wahl 24
0.00 : Dominic Oduro 34

-0.01 : Chad Marshall 30
-0.09 : Joshua Williams 25
-0.11 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 21
-0.21 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
-0.21 : Ethan Finlay 3
-0.21 : Ryan Finley 3
-0.26 : Andy Gruenebaum 21
-0.26 : Danny O´Rourke 19
-0.31 : Ben Speas 10
-0.41 : Matías Sánchez 10
-0.88 : Kevan George 3

...and here's Goal Difference above/below replacement

GD to REPLACEMENT : NAME : STARTS
+0.48 : Eddie Gaven 10
+0.24 : Bernardo Anor 19
+0.23 : Agustín Viana 20
+0.16 : Matt Lampson 13
+0.16 : Tony Tchani 13
+0.14 : Dominic Oduro 34
+0.08 : Gláuber Berti 13
+0.08 : Chad Marshall 30
+0.08 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
+0.04 : Tyson Wahl 24
+0.01 : Federico Higuaín 29

-0.03 : Justin Meram 9
-0.06 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 21
-0.08 : Danny O´Rourke 19

-0.08 : Joshua Williams 25
-0.09 : Chad Barson 18
-0.16 : Andy Gruenebaum 21
-0.22 : Ben Speas 10
-0.23 : Wil Trapp 16
-0.25 : Ethan Finlay 3
-0.42 : Konrad Warzycha 2
-0.42 : Eric Gehrig 6
-0.42 : Matías Sánchez 10
-0.59 : Ryan Finley 3
-0.59 : Kevan George 3

Something that sticks out is the where a player falls on each list. This points to substitution patterns in most, but not all, cases. Next list will be the difference between (absolute value) the player's spot on each list.

ABS : NAME STARTS
18 : Konrad Warzycha 2
14 : Eric Gehrig 6
11 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
11 : Chad Barson 18
11 : Wil Trapp 16
10 : Justin Meram 9
9 : Bernardo Anor 19
8 : Danny O´Rourke 19
8 : Dominic Oduro 34
7 : Chad Marshall 30
5 : Ben Speas 10

5 : Tony Tchani 13
4 : Andy Gruenebaum 21
4 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 21

4 : Ryan Finley 3
3 : Agustín Viana 20
3 : Gláuber Berti 13
3 : Matt Lampson 13
3 : Tyson Wahl 24
2 : Eddie Gaven 10
2 : Federico Higuaín 29
1 : Ethan Finlay 3
1 : Joshua Williams 25
1 : Matías Sánchez 10
0 : Kevan George 3

The guys toward the top aren't matching up. In Konrad's case it is more of a function of having only 2 starts.

Chad Barson is a good one to look at. He ended up 5th in PPG but 16th in GD. What this means is that the team scored after he was subbed out (which happened in Dallas late in the year). He got the win but was not part of the goal.

Fine margins, for sure, but it points to the enormity of a goal in this sport. A goal prevented here, another scored there... it's not just the difference in a single game but the difference between making the playoffs or not in MLS, particularly this year.

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OPPONENT DIFFICULTY

This measurement is just one way to look at things but it is something I find valuable and helps me to ask questions that lead down paths of better understanding of the team.

The largest, most direct path being the difficulty of opponent each starter faced. For example, Glauber ended up facing the easiest competition overall with an average opponent difficulty of 12.7 on the overall combined table.

Breaking Glauber's starts further tells us that 6 of his 13 total starts were against bottom 5 competition.

If you look at the ratio between a player's starts against top 5 and bottom five I see that Lampson, Barson, Anor, Trapp had the most difficult opponents.

For the guys with only a few starts, Kevan George sticks out. His only three starts were against top five teams. Talk about a tough row to hoe; New York, Sporting, LA.

Anyhow, assessing the difficulty of opponents is also affected by where the game is played (even what time it is played).

Gaven overall had easier opponents (only two in top 5) but 6 of his ten games were away. Guys like Anor (11/19 at home), Arrieta (12/21), Trapp (9/16) and Barson (10/18) benefited from home cookin'.

One callout here is Matias Sanchez who was like Gaven in that 6 of his 10 games were on the road (Viana also). Very difficult to get a decent GD this way.

So you can see that there are many ways to look at it.

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I call it KRAMB after Ryan Kramb (PhD, MS, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, BS University of Dayton) who once asked questions about such wild things.

More to come on this topic over at Massive Report so stay tuned!

Thanks for reading.

If you have any questions you can email me at ljbaby654@gmail.com or find me on twitter @helltownbeer.