Top Forwards in MLS

Today we are looking at the top Forwards in MLS in continuation with all the other positions that I have evaluated over the last week or so. I did it before last weekend's games, but that only matters in specific stats. The overall rank of players aren't going to change much because I take the rank of the player based on WhoScored.com's measurement against my own here at Helltown.

Here the are, the best Forwards in MLS 2019:

29: Median Age of these guys
$2.0 million: Median salary

	Name(2)	BIRTHPLACE	Team	Age	Salary
1	Carlos Vela	Cancun, Mexico	LAF	30	$6,300,000
2	Diego Rossi	Montevideo, Uruguay	LAF	21	$1,052,000
3	Zlatan Ibrahimovic	Malmo, Sweden	LAG	38	$7,200,000
4	Josef Martínez	Valencia, Venezuela	ATL	26	$3,058,333
5	Wayne Rooney	Liverpool, England	DC	34	$3,507,500
6	Carles Gil	Valencia, Spain	NER	27	$2,337,500
7	Latif Blessing	Accra, Ghana	LAF	23	$103,125
8	Kacper Przybylko	Bielefeld, Germany	PHI	26	$277,000
9	Darwin Quintero	Tumaco, Colombia	MIN	32	$1,750,000
10	Kei Kamara	Kenema, Sierra Leone	COL	35	$750,000

If you are in the MLS orbit, you probably recognize most of these names. Well, I take that back. You probably don't know Elis, Blessing, Castellanos, Heber or Savarino. I wrote about Carles Gil before the season started and it looks like he is paying off for New England this year.

Here are the WhoScored player ratings, sorted:

WS	Name(2)	Team
8.50	Carlos Vela	LAF
7.71	Zlatan Ibrahimovic	LAG
7.49	Kacper Przybylko	PHI
7.44	Diego Rossi	LAF
7.42	Wayne Rooney	DC
7.40	Josef Martínez	ATL
7.37	Alberth Elis	HOU
7.35	Carles Gil	NER
7.30	Kei Kamara	COL
7.30	Johnny Russell	SKC
7.24	Latif Blessing	LAF
7.21	Jefferson Savarino	RSL
7.19	Darwin Quintero	MIN
7.15	Araújo Héber	NYCFC
7.07	Alexandru Mitrita	NYCFC
7.02	Jordan Morris	SEA
7.01	C.J. Sapong	CHI
7.00	Valentin Castellanos	NYCFC
6.93	Mauro Manotas	HOU

As mentioned in one of my other posts on this top player stuff, Rooney is loved by modern measurements because he does loads of stuff in the midfield.

Lastly, Rossi should be mentioned somewhere in there - so Diego Rossi.

Reported Arrieta Salary Drop, Common?

Sources have told the Columbus Dispatch that Jairo Arrieta's 2014 salary will be half of what it was last year.

It seems like a lot so I pulled up MLS salaries since 2010 to see how many examples there are of a player taking a 50% pay cut year over year. Turns out there are a handful every year (including new head coach Gregg Berhalter in 2011).

ARRIETA'S NEW DEAL

Jairo carried a guaranteed 2013 wage of $225k so we are likely looking at a new deal of around 110k or so. From a team perspective this takes my estimated open cap space from $600 to 700k.

On the right nav of the desktop version of Helltown is my updated summary. I'll try and keep it up to date throughout the rest of the offseason.

50% SALARY CUTS NOT COMMON

But they do happen. Year to year from 2010 to 2012 I see about 10 players that saw their wages get slashed in half (well, redo a deal that cut it). Things changed a bit last year as 14 different players had salaries cut in half (about 2% of all league players).

Notables 2012-13: Shalrie Joseph, Corben Bone, Chad Barrett, Blair Gavin, Michael Nanchoff, Conor Casey and Danny Mwanga. Others like Kevin Hartman, Brian Ching, Jamie Smith and Ramiro Corrales were last year victory lap deals.

One cut I didn't notice was Rich Balchan. He went from $69k in 2012 back down to the league minimum of $36k last year.

The player most like Jairo might be Chad Barrett who went from 253k in 2012 to 111k last year.

Crew Defense, Market Value (Salary)

Off and on over the past couple years I've been trying to come up with a meaningful way to measure MLS Player Value. I mentioned it in my last post, calling it HB Market Value. What I did with that was pull the median from the 10 salaries above and below an individual performer based on my own player rating model.

I thought the results were interesting and somewhat useful but there were too many strange outcomes. After some digging I found that it was because the difference in what a Forward makes in relationship to what a Defender or Mid-fielder or what-have-you. So, I've taken one small extra step and pulled out the players by position and re-run the 10 above / 10 below median salary.

I'm satisfied with what I've got right now. Here is what happened with Crew Defenders. It is sorted by % Above or Below 2012 Salary:

1. JOSH WILLIAMS
HB Market Value : $112,500
2012 Salary : $44,100
Difference : +$68,400

2. ERIC GEHRIG
HB Market Value : $71,466
2012 Salary : $44,000
Difference : +$27,466

3. SEBASTIAN MIRANDA
HB Market Value : $160,500
2012 Salary : $140,000
Difference : +$20,500

4. CARLOS MENDES
HB Market Value : $96,250
2012 Salary : $106,209
Difference : -$(9,959)

5. JULIUS JAMES
HB Market Value : $69,313
2012 Salary : $100,000
Difference : -$(30,687)

6. NEMANJA VUKOVIC*
HB Market Value : $84,571
2012 Salary : $125,500
Difference : -$(40,929)

7. DANNY O'ROURKE
HB Market Value : $89,303
2012 Salary : $145,600
Difference : -$(56,297)

8. CHAD MARSHALL
HB Market Value : $161,000
2012 Salary : $341,250
Difference : -($(174,000)

* Vukovic has was let go earlier this week.

If you add these 8 salaries up and subtract my "HB Market Value" you end up with a overall loss on these players.

$1,040,409 : Total Salaries
$844,903 : HB Market Value
-$(195,506.00) : Difference

I can see why the Crew eliminated Vukovic but removing him doesn't take their backline into overall profitability. Oft injured Marshall, James and O'Rourke are concrete boots to this position. All are excellent players (Danny's work roaming the mid-field is master-class, when he's out there. Thus illo above. I'll include him in my Mid-Field market eval) but (right now) their contracts far outweigh contribution.

The only way to take the Crew backline back into profitability would be to drop Marshall and one of the following; James, Vukovic, or O'Rourke.

Marshall was just resigned a long deal and O'Rourke seems to be staying. With Vukovic gone, this leaves Julius James as the odd man out.

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THE LEAGUE PICTURE

153 different players saw time (according to STATS,INC) as a Defender during the 2012 MLS season. The Median salary for this group was $99,000.

Here are the Players who most outperformed their 2012 MLS contract. On the left is % value above salary.



383% : Connor Lade : (NY)
270% : Chris Korb : (DC)
168% : Jeb Brovsky : (MON)
167% : Tyler Ruthven : (NY)
155% : Josh Williams : (CREW)
155% : Bryan Gaul : (LA)
153% : Steven Beitashour : (SJ)
151% : Raymon Gaddis : (PHI)
150% : Jermaine Taylor : (HOU)
146% : Austin Berry : (CHI)

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When I talk "Market Value" I'm talking within Major League Soccer universe only. More specifically the 2012 MLS universe. Trying to determine a player's value to foreign leagues is a completely different species. It's something I would love to take on at some point, but this... that is not.