Crew Crowds, Best Since '07

The Crew sales folks have been hittin' it hard this year and getting butts in seats. Their focused initiatives like extra emails, community involvement, social media initiatives, traditional advertising and plain old phone calls are paying off, but are those the main drivers to this years increased sales?

Nope, but I'll get to that in one sec. For now, let's take a look at what Crew attendance looks like by year according to Major League Soccer Fact and Record Book for perspective.

Year: Avg Attendance : Winning %

1996 : 18,950 : 34 %
1999 : 17,696 : 41
2001 : 17,511 : 50
2002 : 17,429 : 39
2004 : 16,872 : 40
2003 : 16,250 : 33
2000 : 15,451 : 34
2007 : 15,230 : 30
1997 : 15,043 : 38

2012 : 14,858 : 40

2008 : 14,662 : 57
2010 : 14,642 : 47
2009 : 14,175 : 43
2006 : 13,294 : 25
2005 : 12,916 : 34
1998 : 12,274 : 47
2011 : 12,185 : 38

Big jump over last year (2011 was the worst attended year in Crew history). Impressive increase? What gives? Well, lots of help from Don Garber, MLS Commish. A couple visits and a World Cup qualifier date announced. The Crew also made a baseball promotions hire in Clark Beacom halfway through last year. Just to name a few things.

But could it be more than that? What's the biggest driver to selling tickets? Winning? They say winning solves everything, right?

Well, winning helps but look at the list above, now back down here... lots of pretty bad teams above some really good ones. But, in fact (on average) less folks come out to winning years. 38% (low) winning percentage for years with ticket sales better then 2012, 42% for those less (even without 2008's 57%).

There are a lot of metrics one could pull for this sort of thing. I know that MLB and NFL have folks dedicated to figuring out and forecasting ticket sales in just about every major US city. Hell, they probably know your middle name and what your vice is. MLS though? Not so much. Maybe I could tie the success of Buckeye football teams to Crew attendance. How about unemployment rates? Weather?

It could be anything really, but what it comes down to is how likable the club is. Look at the Brian McBride years. Only one falls out (1998). This year's club has a group of players that are likable. And a bunch of them from the region.

Having popular players may not always satisfy the dedicated fan, supporter, reporter or blogger but it will put butts in seats (or on benches, as it were).

The picture above is from a Columbus Monthly piece by Taylor Swope. Photo credit goes to Tessa Berg. Excellent stuff.

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Please note where current Crew coach, Robert Warzycha's teams sit. Eric Wynalda just moved to Atlanta to further his career in coaching (over broadcasting). He wants in. I say, let him in.

Goals + Assists per 90, Columbus Crew

A good attacking rate in any league or at any level is a player getting a goal or an assist in a third of the games they play in. The more minutes they player logs, the more meaningful the number.

Below is Crew player G+A per 90 minutes played efficiency with the number of 90 minute games each player has participated in on the right.

League matches only. See bottom of post for notes.

G+A per 90 : Name : GMs Played

0.82 : Jairo Arrieta : 3.7
0.53 : Shaun Francis : 5.6
0.41 : Chris Birchall : 7.3
0.41 : Justin Meram : 7.3
0.30 : Aaron Schoenfeld : 3.3
0.30 : Emilio Rentería : 13.5
0.30 : Nemanja Vukovic : 10.1
0.25 : Eddie Gaven : 19.6
0.25 : Tony Tchani : 11.8
0.19 : Dilly Duka : 5.3
0.18 : Bernardo Anor : 5.5
0.14 : Olman Vargas : 7.3
0.13 : Josh Williams : 15.2
0.13 : Eric Gehrig : 7.9
0.08 : Chad Marshall : 11.8
0.08 : Milovan Mirosevic : 12.5
0.05 : Sebastian Miranda : 18.5
0.00 : Andy Gruenebaum : 20.0
0.00 : Danny O'Rourke : 8.5
0.00 : Carlos Mendes : 5.1
0.00 : Kevan George : 4.7
0.00 : Ethan Finlay : 4.6
0.00 : Cole Grossman : 3.6
0.00 : Julius James : 2.2
0.00 : Tommy Heinemann : 0.1


NOTEs:

• A good goal and assist rate for an individual with less then 5 games is a player trending in the right direction. It should only be seen as a trend, however.

• The best attacking players in the league play in over 70% of total minutes and have G+A per 90 rate of +0.40. Only 22 players in the league have achieved this and that list is impressive.

G+A per 90 : Name : GMs Played

0.91 : Chris Wondolowski : 21.90
0.85 : David Beckham : 17.59
0.78 : Robbie Keane : 17.99
0.75 : Dwayne De Rosario : 20.13
0.74 : Eddie Johnson : 16.24
0.73 : Landon Donovan : 19.27
0.67 : Will Bruin : 19.53
0.66 : Brad Davis : 19.79
0.60 : Fredy Montero : 18.46
0.57 : Graham Zusi : 21.04
0.57 : Kenny Cooper : 21.20
0.56 : Alvaro Saborio : 21.24
0.55 : Saer Sene : 18.04
0.55 : Marco Pappa : 16.27
0.53 : Fabian Espindola : 18.83
0.51 : Felipe Martins : 23.47
0.50 : Kei Kamara : 21.94
0.41 : Martin Rivero : 19.40
0.41 : Ryan Johnson : 22.00
0.41 : Kris Boyd : 19.56
0.40 : Brian Mullan : 19.80
0.40 : Joel Lindpere : 20.08

• Eddie Gaven ranks 36th in this category.

• Columbus is tied for last in number of players that have played in over 70% of minutes possible by club. Gruenebaum, Gaven, Miranda, Williams.

• Josh Williams and his 2 assists in 15.2 games puts him 16th among defenders. He only needs a goal or assist in the next few games to put him at elite defender levels. Interesting note... fellow Ohioan, Marc Burch is right there with him. 3 assists in 16.9 games, good enough for 12th among defenders in this efficiency (0.18).

FORMULA:

Score=((Goals-PK+Assists)/(Minutes Played / Standard Game Length))

Example: Eddie Gaven
0.25 = ((4-0+1)/(1765/90)
4 goals, 0 PKs, 1 Assist in 19.6 games

Points Per Start, Columbus Crew

2012 Season to Date. The Columbus Crew have played 20 League games.

(3 Pts for a win, 1 for a Draw, 0 for loss)

PTS pGM : NAME : GAMES STARTED

3.00 : Cole Grossman 3
2.17 : Carlos Mendes 6
2.00 : Dilly Duka 6
1.80 : Bernardo Anor 5
1.67 : Danny O´Rourke 9
1.50 : Julius James 2
1.50 : Emilio Renteria 14
1.50 : Jairo Obando Arrieta 4
1.50 : Shaun Francis 6
1.47 : Sebastián Miranda 19
1.47 : Joshua Williams 15

1.40 : Andy Gruenebaum 20
1.40 : TEAM AVERAGE
1.40 : Eddie Gaven 20

1.38 : Justin Meram 8
1.33 : Ethan Finlay 3
1.30 : Nemanja Vukovic 10
1.29 : Chris Birchall 7
1.17 : Olman Vargas 6
1.14 : Eric Gehrig 7
1.08 : Tony Tchani 12
1.08 : Chad Marshall 12
1.00 : Aaron Schoenfeld 3
1.00 : Kevan George 4
1.00 : Milovan Mirosevic 13

NOTE:
Right now the club in the last playoff spot (CHI) is averaging 1.59 pts p/GM. Columbus needs 3 wins and 0 losses from where they are (a record of 11 W, 4D, 8L) to get +1.60.

MLS Team of the Week(s)

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Here are the players who have made the MLSsoccer.com Team of the Week the most in 2012 so far.
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5 : Chris Wondolowski
4 : Brad Davis
4 : Lee Nguyen
4 : Kyle Beckerman
4 : Álvaro Saborío
4 : Kei Kamara

The official Major League Soccer website has a weekly post on the best performing players the previous week and compile a starting 11 from it. I thought it would be interesting to pull all those teams and see what I could find. Above are the only players that have made the team more than 3 times.

MLSsoccer.com has listed 19 Team of the Weeks (TotW) this year to date. It started week 2 and was posted each week till the summer break. From there, weeks 13-15 were combined (not all games stopped, but most did?) and we are back to weekly since then. Ergo, 19 TotWs.

So... 19 TotWs (plus a manager) = 228 possible selection spots. 145 different players fill that up.

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Here are the Managers that have made the list more than once.
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2 : Robert Warzycha (CLB)
2 : John Hackworth (PHI)
2 : Frank Yallop (SJE)
2 : Paul Mariner (TFC)

Honorable Mentions: It's pretty reasonable to have a starting 11 + 7 or so guys to round out your weekly best but MLS adds 15-20 players each week under the Honorable Mentions category. So on any given week you'll see ~20 players listed under the TotW feature. That's about 10% of all players getting minutes week to week.

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Here are the guys who have been honorably mentioned the most but as of yet made the starting TotW 11.
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5 : Sebastian Grazzini (CHI)
4 : Chad Marshall (CLB)
4 : Josh Williams (CLB)
4 : Zac MacMath (PHI)

Seems excessive but what it does is give us another tool of which to measure player performance. Remember, never use just one to gauge a players value.

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Here is the count of unique names that have made the TotW starting 11 by team.
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11 : San Jose Earthquakes
9 : New England Revolution
8 : Vancouver Whitecaps
8 : Houston Dynamo
8 : New York Red Bulls
7 : Chivas USA
7 : FC Dallas
7 : Seattle Sounders
7 : D.C. United
7 : Montreal Impact
6 : Philadelphia Union
6 : Toronto FC
6 : Sporting Kansas City
6 : LA Galaxy
5 : Colorado Rapids
5 : Chicago Fire
4 : Portland Timbers
4 : Columbus Crew

Yikes, lots of love for the Revs and 'Caps and hateful toward Crew, Fire and KC. It's not enough to throw out the TotW as a measurement device... yet.

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Here are those Crew players that have made the TotW starting 11.
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3 : Andy Gruenebaum
2 : Eddie Gaven
1 : Emilio Rentería
1 : Jairo Arrieta

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Here are the players picked for TotW starting 11 + Honorable Mention on the Crew.
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7 : Andy Gruenebaum
4 : Chad Marshall
4 : Josh Williams
3 : Eddie Gaven
2 : Justin Meram
2 : Shaun Francis
2 : Emilio Rentería
2 : Jairo Arrieta
1 : Aaron Schoenfeld
1 : Chris Birchall
1 : Danny O'Rourke
1 : Sebastian Miranda
1 : Tony Tchani

Columbus is good for 2nd in the league in Honorable Mentions! SJE 1st with 34, CLB has 24.

I don't have any major conclusions here other than it's interesting to see what the league thinks of it's own players. In a way it's like a self evaluation, or a "on-the-spot reward" type program. The league owns these guys after all.

How about I end this with combined starting 11 and Honorable mentions for the players league wide:

9 : Landon Donovan
7 : Chris Wondolowski
7 : Brad Davis
7 : Andy Gruenebaum
7 : Marvin Chávez
6 : Kyle Beckerman
6 : Chris Pontius
6 : Eddie Johnson
6 : Dan Kennedy
6 : Robbie Keane
6 : Felipe Martins
6 : Alan Gordon

That's some pretty good company Mr. Gruenebaum.


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Hope you enjoyed the post and thanks for reading. MLSsoccer.com is a little messy with this feature. Names are misspelled or shortened or have a tilde sometimes or not, etc. To my knowledge, MLS does not sum all this up so I put this together and took it as far as I care to (spreadsheet fatigue). Questions? you can email me at ljbaby654@gmail.com ... you can find my full spreadsheet file HERE and generate your own conclusions.

Both Thought and Prayer

The Closing Prayer to John Henry Newman's 20th Sermon Wisdom and Innocence.

"May He support us all the day long, till the shadows lengthen, and the evening comes, and the busy world is hushed, and the fever of life is over, and our work is done. Then in His mercy may He give us safe lodging, and a holy rest, and peace at the last."

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The full sermon. Link

Predictions: Crew v. DC

The hallowed grounds of my youth host DC United and the Columbus Crew tonight at 7:30 PM (8:30 PM in Buenos Aries, Argentina and 12:30 AM in Northamptonshire, England).

GAME NOTES:
• DC had a week off from MLS action but did host PSG (friendly). The club has hit a bit of a bad spell of late.
• Alternatively, Crew have won 2 league matches in a row (including a 1:0 win over DC).
• Crew have also won a Reserve game and a friendly against Stoke. Team spirits are soaring.
• Columbus still haven't scored 3 goals in a league game.
• They also have only allowed more than 2 goals once this year.
• Two weeks ago, when these two met in Columbus, DC was coming off a crowded schedule

PREDICTIONS

Good Morning, let's get started with the MLS staff. Jason Saghini, Director of Video is the only one picking Columbus. Four of them are leaning DCU and one other calling for a Draw.

Over on the betting sites we see DC getting a better than normal home advantage. Bet365 has DC 10/11 (fav) odds with a likely scoreline of 1:0 (2:0 or 1:1 after that).

That WV Hooligan, Drew Epperley, has DC winning 1:0 as well. "Tempo will be huge in this game as well, something I think D.C. will bring from the start," says he.

Locally, we've got Mr. Katzeman thinking "United are too good at home and the Crew are too inconsistent," 1:0 to DC.

Ms. Eyer over at Pitch Fest, The Official blog of the Hudson Street Hooligans feels the Crew can get a point out of this one. 2:2 Draw.

Mr. Dispatch Crew himself (Adam Jardy) shares Eyer's positive vibe and even steps it up a notch. In his preview this morning in the paper he thinks Jairo Arrieta's recent production could inspire the club on and give them "a chance at coming home with its longest winning streak of the season."

MY HOMEMADE APPLESAUCE IS GOOD

First off... I think that 58 year old Mr. James Haslam III, new majority owner of the Cleveland Browns, looks like is able play starting QB if Brandon Weeden doesn't work out. He'd also make for a beast CDM for the Crew. The picture above has it all, man (Joshua Gunther up at the Plain Dealer took it). The star quarterback hustling past approvingly... the owners attractive wife looking pleased as punch and the owner who looks like General MacArthur did walking up Red Beach, Palo, Leyte and eats nails for breakfast - front and center. I'm ready to run through walls now, damn you NFL.

2nd off... The Crew are in the middle of good times and playing DC this time of the year is preferred over playing in a late season must win match like last year.

Columbus has won four matches, in all competitions, in a row but each was against weakened clubs.

1. Beat a tired DC team
2. Won Reserve match in Obetz the next day
3. Two goals during backups half of Stoke match
4. Beat a KC team missing 3 key starters

A win is a win and no team is ever fully healthy (especially Columbus) but DC will be as close as you can get to 100% and will absolutely be putting the Crew on their back heels.

Also, this... DC hasn't scored less than 3 goals at RFK since the middle of April. Here is what their home goals look like since then: 4, 3, 2, 3, 3, 3.

Columbus has yet to score over 2 this year so the club's fullbacks and defensive mids better be ready to eat lightning and crap thunder tonight. A Mirosevic return tonight might not be a good idea. If ever there was a night to see Danny O'Rourke back, this would be it.

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The Crew are owned by a "sports group" so they can't get a pic like the one above. It's usually just dudes with suits. Unless you want to imagine Mark McCullers in there. Great things come from great leaders, folks.

Great Leaders, Great things.

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[UPDATE] Final, Crew 0:1 DC. David Burgin has a good recap here.

Ready to Go, MLS Value

Here are some Major League Soccer players that are young, underpaid and very, very good. I'll call it the "Future Star / Currently a Value Team". Admittedly, that's a bad name for a team but hopefully it's descriptive enough to explain this list I'm about to provide.

Put these guys together on one team and you not only have about the best MLS team, you also have the cheapest.

Age : Name : Team : Position : Current Salary ($)

22 : Connor Lade : (NY) : Defender : 34k
26 : Chris Tierney : (NE) : Defender : 75k
25 : Seth Sinovic : (KC) : Defender : 67k
24 : Josh Williams : (CREW) : Defender : 44k

25 : Graham Zusi : (KC : Midfielder : 140k
24 : Alex Caskey : (SEA) : Midfielder : 34k
22 : Martin Rivero : (COL) : Midfielder : 50k
22 : Rafael Baca : (SJ) : Midfielder : 44k

22 : Will Bruin : (HOU) : Forward : 135k
27 : Ryan Johnson : (TOR) : Forward : 140k
25 : Saer Sene : (NE) : Forward : 150k

How these guys made the list

1. Outperforming their MLS Salary
2. Young, low mileage
3. Haven't bounced from club to club
4. High Helltown Player Rating
5. No 'keeper. 50% of MLS have a decent one

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I'm on a Major League Soccer value/bargin kick because the players in it are often incorrectly identified in their formative years. Also, the timing is good because the "international transfer window" is about to go into Hulk Smash mode. Lots of gems floating around in this league. I tried to find players that are still developing through MLS and not paid a whole lot.

Most of these guys are one college, one team players (Saer Sene and Ryan Johnson being exceptions).

Again, these are guys who are relatively untouched yet performing well in Major League Soccer. Part of me hopes that England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain look this way for physically developed talent. The other part hopes that MLS starts to let this talent go and re-invests the money they bring in to help raise / change the existing club salary restrictions.

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For the Crew folks: Josh Williams easily tops performance metrics for the club but he also finds his way atop my league lists. He's having an exceptional first "real" season. His core competencies and physical ability appear to be top level as well. Cream rises to the top and Williams is moving up there.

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Lastly... I try and maintain a place where you can find all MLS player stats, all together. You can find that here: Link.

To Take the Black

it's late... and this is just but a blog. it's like Game of Thrones and Skyrim all in one. LISTEN

Top MLS Bargins (Teams, Players)

In a perfect world, professional athletes would be paid based on performance above all else.

Using my player ratings I can estimate individual player values in relationship to the rest of the league and their corresponding salaries.

The way I do that is to take the aggregate of every player's score and assign a monetary value to each point -- then add all those player values and group by team. From there you get a club value as compared to (above or below) existing salaries (more details below list, promise):

THE BEST (in $$)
+950k : San Jose
+750k : Sporting KC
+650k : Houston
+450k : Columbus
+450k : Real Salt Lake
+450k : Seattle

GOOD
+200k : D.C.
+100k : New England
+100k : Chicago
+100k : Chivas USA
-100k : New York
-300k : Colorado

NOT SO GOOD
-350k : Philadelphia
-400k : FC Dallas
-500k : Los Angeles
-500k : Vancouver

POOR
-731k : Montreal
-751k : Toronto FC
-769k : Portland

MORE DETAILS:
482 players have seen minutes in MLS this year. I've awarded 17,448 pts (on a 0-100 pt scale) when added up from all of them. Total salaries of those 482 players: $ 61,431,169. I've capped salaries at $350k as that is the max MLS counts against cap.*

Total Salaries / total pts = per point value

61,431,169 / 17,488 = $ 3,520.75

Example: I have New York's Teemu Tainio as a "12". He's played 180 minutes on an above average team, no goals or assists but fired off 3 shots and has fouled as much as he has been foul-ed.

12 x 3,520.75 = 40,531.6 (Helltown player value)

Teemu Tainio is being paid A $205,000 guaranteed salary. Which means, by this scale, his overpaid by $164,468.40.

Now imagine that formula aggregated per team and you have my above list (in Dollars).

It's rounded because of some player transactions that I'm not going to bother messing with. Reminder that this only includes players that have seen minutes. There are a total of almost 600 MLS players. For the sake of this exercise, we will consider the players not getting minutes as unused inventory.

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Here are the top 10 players completely outperforming their contracts (by %). Each of these players make less than $60k in guaranteed salary.

Justin Morrow (SJ), Steven Beitashour (SJ), Ryan Meara (NY), Rafael Baca (SJ), Connor Lade (NY), Daniel Woolard (DC), Brian Meredith (SEA), Josh Williams (CLB), Lee Nguyen (NE), Jeb Brovsky (MON).

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Here are how Crew players look when pulling things apart in this way (% above current salary):

SIGNIFICANTLY OUTPERFORMING SALARY
Josh Williams (+350%)
Andy Gruenebaum (+220%)
Eric Gehrig (+190%)
Kirk Urso (+180%)
Kevan George (+160%)
Bernardo Anor (+130%)
Aaron Schoenfeld (+125%)

DOING WELL
Justin Meram (+80%)
Cole Grossman (+75%)
Sebastian Miranda (+70%)
Emilio Rentería (+50%)
Ethan Finlay (+50%)
Eddie Gaven (+40%)
Nemanja Vukovic (+30%)

SLIGHTLY OVERPAID
Danny O'Rourke (-10%)
Tony Tchani (-15%)
Milovan Mirosevic (-20%)
Carlos Mendes (-20%)

OVERPAID
Olman Vargas (-30%)
Julius James (-39%)
Chad Marshall (-50%)
Dilly Duka (-64%)

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Still a lot of MLS season to go so we will see how it turns out. Major League Soccer executives like to talk about the stability of their league. Looking up and down the talent in the league and seeing what they are paid, I would agree. Just not in the way they might like.

There are too many underpaid players in this league, which means MLS is ripe for the pickin' from other leagues. They (MLS) need to let go of talent more easily and reward teams that develop it more fruitfully. It's not a surprise that teams from California, Missouri, Ohio and Texas make my list. They all have talent to spare.

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This is a working model and I should probably not get this specific (rounding is our friend).

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There have been a significant number of high profile "designated player (DP)" trades in MLS this year. To be frankly honest, I think a DP player is useless and a waste of money, time and resources for most clubs.

The recent Crew signing, in particular, is baffling to me. Why? For the most part the Crew have stuck to a formula Simon Kuper (and Stefan Szymanski) wrote about in a their ever so popular book; Soccernomics. Embedded deep in that book was a chapter about helping players adapt to new cultures. While I found it informative and valuable for a Barclay's Premier League like clubs bringing in players from half a world away I felt it relatively unimportant for Major League Soccer teams. Why? Well, the pressure is mostly off in this league and the US is a melting pot. Round a corner and you will probably find folks from your homeland.

Be it lack of funds or otherwise... The Crew have taken the importance of helping players adapt to new cultures (ie. OHIO) to a NEW LEVEL.

Two players from California (Marshall, Grossman), two from Chile (Mirosevic, Miranda), two from Costa Rica (Vargas, Arrieta), two from Indiana (Gehrig, Balchan), two from Missouri (Gruenebaum, Heinemann).

Shall I go on? *deep breath*

Two from New Jersey (Duka, Gaven), two from Tennessee (Schoenfeld, Lampson), two from Venezuela (Anor, Renteria), and two from Trinidad and Tobago (James, George).

I've buried it here in this post because it's nearly comical and just about laugh out loud ridiculous. What's even more ridiculous is that they employ this superficial "buddy system" with just about everyone except their most expensive purchase.

Federico Higuaín.

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*MLS salary regulations get wonky when players make above 350k. Product manipulation, centralized control, all that snuff so I cap it at the max cap hit