Free Agents MLS (Live Broadcast...[updating])

HelltownBeer


Earlier this week MLS released a list of their first "free agent" class. 26 total players. Qualification to make the list is basically - play 8 years in the league. Almost all on the list were from the USA, over the age of 30 and overpaid.

Back on Monday, one of the MLS people said that the guys on the list would "make the playoffs" if they were on a team. I decided to put that to the test and create a team on EA's FIFA 16 (Xbox One) and simulate a season (via custom tournament). I'm towards the end of my 1st sim now. The team didn't make the playoffs.

In fact... they came in last. Restarting the process now, check it out!

More Details: I put all the guys on the Northampton Town Cobblers and swapped out the Philadelphia Union. This post will be up for just a little bit, if you want to watch just click on the video above.

[UPDATE: keep checking back, I'll be playing off and on for the next couple days. I'm kinda enjoying it. More broadcasts to come...]

Here's the list of players on this team:

Finlay, Meram Exploring Options

In the wake of MLS Cup Final at Mapfre Stadium Sunday, news drops that points towards Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay looking at offseason options outside of the comfortable confines of Columbus.

#CrewSC midfielder Justin Meram said he played the last few weeks with an injury. Also responded "We'll see" when asked if he'll return.

— Patrick Murphy (@_Pat_Murphy_) December 8, 2015

Source: AIK in Sweden want to trial Ethan Finlay, may be declined if he gets USMNT call up in January.

— MLS Transfers (@MLSTransfers) December 8, 2015

Both players were critical parts to Gregg Berhalter's success thus far in MLS. Not just with their play on the pitch but what they (knowingly or not) offered off the field as well.

Let me explain that second "off the field" part for a second.

When Anthony Precourt and Gregg Berhalter took full control of the team they had thousands of decisions to make about staff and players. There isn't time to make them all in a short period of time so you work off a couple major philosophies to drive the rest going forward. That way you keep things consistent and fair. Not saying that everyone does this. In fact, it's entirely possible that these guys didn't... but I think they did.

Here's a quick summary of the two philosophical approaches to leadership / management change:

1. BUILDING ON EXISTING FOUNDATION: By not flipping over the apple cart and retaining many of the players they inherited Precourt and Berhalter allowed the team to be successful. There is a risk to this approach in that you just might not have the people around to get you where you want to be.

2. TEAR IT ALL DOWN, REBUILD: The other side of taking control of an organization or business is to clear out all the voices and habits of the old guard. Slam the door open, set the bar impossibly high, hire your own staff, ride existing staff within an inch of their life and then tone it down, bring back smiles and go into build mode.

Justin Meram and Ethan Finlay are from the 'old guard.' Upon his arrival we saw Berhalter jettison a couple voices from the locker room (like Chad Marshall) and insert his own (Michael Parkhurst), but he kept most of the rest of the group. This decision turned out to be completely successful.

You don't realize how much easier things are when you have people around that know how to turn on the lights and let the cat out (so to speak).

It's completely understandable for players to get a little emotional after a big loss. It's also completely understandable for both these players to make a little noise at this time as well. You gotta make hay while the sun shines in sports. Your career is only so long. Guys entering their mid to late 20s start to realize this.

I would like to see Columbus have complete freedom, but MLS is so restrictive in what they can offer them. Not just with the cap but also on an individual player to player basis.

Per MLS rules; MLS raises have a max increase based on current salary...

+25%: make less than $100k
+20%: $100k-200k
+15%: if salary greater than $200k

So, if you are making in the $100k - 200k range (like both Finlay and Meram) your max increase is is only 20% greater than what they made last year. Because of single entity and lack of any form of real free agency, they are pretty much stuck unless they have outside of MLS options (or are a USMNT star like Graham Zusi or Matt Besler).

Whenever I hear about players wanting to move on, I think of all the MLS rules they are tangled up in and wish them to get out if they have the option. Same goes for Finlay and Meram. GET OUT. It'd be great to have them here in town for another year or two but they climbed the MLS moutain. Explore something new. A new city. Fall down, fail, get up, succeed. Grow as people. Meet new people. Have some fun!

35 Years Ago, Tonight

Video: John Lennon’s murder 35 years ago tonight, reported by @NBCNightlyNews (2 mins.): https://t.co/3ZVMwviWMn

— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) December 8, 2015

Crew SC Roster Moves

The deadline for MLS teams to pick up player options passed last week on December 1st. Teams making the final were given extensions (although it looks like a handful teams used the extra week to decide / announce).

Columbus posted theirs yesterday, less than 24 hours after they hosted the MLS Cup Final. Mile high view: ~20% was trimmed from both the overall budget as well as the "cap."

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$5.6m : Total Budget YE 2015
$4.5m : Total current Budget

$4.2m : "Cap" number
$3.4m : Current "Cap" after roster moves
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Options Not Exercised:

Matt Lampson, GK, $60k
Emanuel Pogatetz, CB, 263k
Kristinn Steindorsson, MF, 119k
Ben Speas, MF, 68k

Out of Contract, Negotiating:

Jack McInerney, F, $334k
Kevan George, DM, 60k
Aaron Schoenfeld, F, 60k

NOTES: Four down-roster players from the previous ownership group (Lampson, Speas, George, Schoenfeld) and three "in the 18" from the current (Pogatetz, Steindorsson, McInerney) appear to be moving on their way. It's strange to see George and Schoenfeld under the "negotiating" category as they are already at the league minimum. McInernery's contract (likely prorated this past year) is one they might be trying to work down. Something that doesn't happen often in MLS.

Players Currently Under Contract, 2016:

Federico Higuain - $118k
Gaston Sauro - 600k
Kei Kamara - 537k
Michael Parkhurst - 300k
Cedrick Mabwati - 254k
Tony Tchani - 195k
Steve Clark - 188k
Justin Meram - 175k
Waylon Francis - 170k
Wil Trapp - 165k
Harrison Afful - 150k
Ethan Finlay - 143k
Mohammed Saeid - 110k
Hector Jimenez - 90k
Chris Klute - 88k
Ben Swanson - 80k
Romain Gall - 63k
Brad Stuver - 60k
Chad Barson - 60k
Sergio Campbell - 53k

NOTES: So far so good for Gregg Berhalter and team in regards to maintaining a solid core from the successful 2015 team. The only risks I see between now and the start of next year come in the form of the January transfer window. MLS is notorious for not allowing free movement of players to other leagues, but Crew SC could have a few players in that group. Sauro, Kamara lead the list. Meram, Mabwati, Francis and Afful are internationals that likely have some options. In the youth category, you've got Swanson and Gall who have value.
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What's next for MLS rosters are a series of drafts (waiver and re-entry) throughout the month of December. A new twist this year is there is a class of "free agents" out there that meet the most recent CBA qualifiers of being 28 years old and have 8 years experience. MLS is a single entity so it is certainly a strange mechanism they have introduced.

First MLS "Free Agent" Class:

Looking over the list, I can see why the league agreed to it. It's mostly durable US based players who are overpaid mainly due to the fact they have survived and still pull a check in the single entity system (incremental increases year to year). My hunch is that these guys will be negotiating down, which is sort of the opposite of what the union expected.

"Rating" (far right column) comes from my own player rating system I've used since 2011. It's driven by (but not just) playing time and team results - obvious theory being; playing more on good teams means you are good. It's scaled 0-10, so a score of 5 is average, 10 is best. It is based on this season only.

Defense Wins Cup for Portland

It's interesting how I noticed different things watching the game from the stands versus watching it now, on a screen.

To put it simply, on the screen it looks more like a loosely called MLS match. In person, however, I noticed a man for man difference in quality and comfort with and around the ball. The passing and possession might not have been there for the Timbers (~70% passing as a team, ~40% possession), but they had no problem dispossessing Columbus players when they got into dangerous areas. Nor did they have any trouble working out or around Crew players stabbing at the ball. This effectively shut down a Crew SC that was hellbent on getting the ball crossed into Kei Kamara all season from deep wing positions.

Going back over it, Caleb Porter's Portland team was never really in trouble (only one shot on frame). The Columbus gameplan was no real secret and, with the benefit of hindsight, teams in the playoffs were able to shut down - Crew SC finished the playoffs with a losing record of three losses, two wins. All three teams they faced in the playoffs were able to beat them.

My short little video above is one possession later on in the game that shows the Timbers having no trouble with what the Crew were doing. In it, you see that the Crew had resorted (a bit) to having to get the ball into Kamara from deep. When Higuain gathers it he sends it over to the left wing (again, familiar) but two Portland players are there and have no trouble clearing the danger.

During the post game radio show here in town, Dwight Burgess and Neil Sika touched on the need for Columbus to enact a "plan B" when things aren't working and I couldn't agree more. Interesting, Columbus has another way of playing. If you look back at the end of last year (not the playoffs) and the game against DC that closed out the regular season this year, you see that Crew SC have options in playing style.

Perhaps next year will see more of a combination of the two instead of running just about everything through Kamara. Though, that did get them within a stone's throw of the Cup.

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Columbus finished the playoffs with 1.40 goals per game vs. 1.71 in the regular season. Their defense did improve with Gaston Sauro in the back line, even towards the end of the year. Regular season 1.56 goals against per game, 1.20 in the playoffs.

Portland did exactly what Cup winning teams do. Improved goal scoring in the playoffs and built on an already stout defense. 1.15 goals against all season, 1.00 in the playoffs. 1.83 goals for in the playoffs, 1.21 in the regular season.

Columbus, Portland, Today!

MLS Cup Final kicks off later today - 4 PM to be exact. Best of luck to both MLS organizations.

There were a dozen or so good narratives to sift through this week, but most of them took a backseat to both "mid-market" cities being excited to have a championship trophy to cheer for.

One question that has lingered over my head all week that the narratives didn't answer is - "How did these teams wind up in the final." The last two years have seen MLS open up the checkbook a little more to allow teams in big markets to buy top talent, but where are they today?

The easy trap to fall into is the one that says these two built "teams" instead of focusing on two, three or four high-quality players, theory being: "A team that works hard, regardless of money, beats out talent." It's very American to think this way. We've seen this narrative ever since the "DP" rule was introduced back in the late 2000s, but before this season started I looked at the last five years and found out that the folks that spent the most generally win things over the long haul.


Work and player chemistry is certainly important, but just like anything, it's a combination of things that have put Crew SC and the Timbers in the Final.

The two big ones for me are - 1. Gregg Berhalter and Caleb Porter are capable tacticians and have out managed the rest of the league and - 2. The two organizations are "all in." from the groundskeepers to the primary operator / investor.

The latter feeds the former.

The MLS Cup is IT for Anthony Precourt and Merritt Paulson. They don't have any other major sporting interests outside what they are doing in MLS. In many ways their teams are little kingdoms inside the MLS system. No stadium or office sharing with other pro sports. No operators who also run NFL teams or disconnected man-children of former founders of the league.

I don't want to compare this game too much to the one two years ago when Sporting KC and Real Salt Lake wound up in the final, but it is like that in a number of ways. I wouldn't mind a league (or soccer pyramid!) filled with teams from Salt Lake, Kansas City, Columbus and Portland. Who wouldn't?

I'm looking very much forward to today's match. Money and expansion to more major markets (NY, LA, Atlanta, even Minneapolis) is going to make it harder for teams on a budget to continuously win hardware in MLS. Just like other leagues in the US, the larger the market, the more money it brings to owners / investors.

Let's look at the major pro leagues in the US and their recent winners:

NHL - Chicago (x3), LA (x2), Boston
NFL - Boston, Seattle, Baltimore, NY, Green Bay*, New Orleans*
MLB - KC*, San Francisco (x3), St. Louis, NY
NBA - San Francisco, San Antonio*, Miami (x2), Dallas, LA
*Not on the coast or in a huge market.

I've got 24 titles up there since around 2010 and only 4 (5 if you count St. Louis) are not in big-boy cities and this quick analysis doesn't take into account the opponents (which are usually large markets as well).

Each major league almost always has a large market playing in the final. In the NBA, the last time two smaller market teams played was 2007 when the Spurs played Cleveland (they did have that James guy, though) and before that? You have to go back to the mid 90s when Houston played Orlando. In baseball you have to go back nearly as far to find two little guys (1997, really, Marlins, Cavs).

The NFL is a little better. Two years ago had Seattle and Denver (if that counts). Anything with Pittsburgh doesn't really count because of their gigantic fan base but 2011 kinda counts with Green Bay and Pitt. Looking over the list, I'll have to say that my favorite Super Bowl matchup is 2003 - Tampa Bay and Oakland. I've looked up the ratings. Interestingly, NFL ratings have been growing since that game.

The league office likely preferred to have larger TV markets in the final for TV ratings as they have been dipping over recent years, but I truly believe the environment at the stadium today is going to be one of the best in MLS history.

It might not draw the figure they want on ESPN or Unimas and we will see lots of handwringing after the numbers are out... but, will show that dozens of other cities similar in size and history (not just another 4, 5, or 6) should have a chance to earn their way to a seat at the table. For me? Therein lays the key to unlocking the sport in this country. It might not be what the 20-28 MLS investors / groups want, but it would be awesome for tens of millions of soccer fans across North America and beyond.

[podcast] Red Cards in Helltown: MLS Cup Preview Show

RCiH team gets together to preview the MLS Cup - and a little bit more.

Wednesday, Cup Countdown...

Tony Tchani and Justin Meram are the last guys remaining from the 2011 Columbus Crew playoff season. That year they crashed out of the playoffs in the first round to the Colorado Rapids on a Thursday(?) in front of 8,000.

Meram didn't play that night, but Tchani did much to the surprise of just about everyone in Columbus. If you remember back, he was traded to Columbus in July and came into town unable to play due to injury. His start was a head scratcher. Looking back now we see that Robert Warzycha's faith in him as a player wasn't completely misguided. Tchani is one of the cornerstones of Gregg Berhalter's starting lineup.

2011 was a three team year for him. Starting in NY with the Red Bulls, then to Toronto and finally with Columbus. He's a good example of the league knowing he was a good player, just not able to unlock what he had inside of him.

Tchani has developed a large on-pitch personality. He's always involved in one scuffle or another. Pushing, shoving, talking, smiling, mean-mugging, or what have you. It's the type of player you see on a lot of good teams. Not quite the enforcer, per say. But, something close.

One thing is for certain - Tony Tchani is one huge reason Columbus Crew SC are in the MLS Cup Final.

Tuesday, Cup Countdown Continues

[continuing my freeform-ish posts for MLS Cup week, check out yesterday's if you haven't]

Woke up this morning to a Tom Reed article over at Cleveland.com on how a disaster of a Browns season will lead to a high draft pick. It's a built-in mechanism these days that the worst pick first. It's been this way for as long as I can remember, save for the NBA when I think they had regional drafts way back.

It's got me thinking about building teams in MLS...

The older I get the "last picks first" model comes across as elementary school recess nonsense. It's 100% anti-player. It does more to wreck potential careers than help and it's difficult to find a team in any league (save for the 1980s-90s NBA) where it as helped dramatically. It is what it is, though. Looking at how Golden State has drafted since they picked Stephen Curry back in 2009, you see a list of regular picks (as far as draft position) that most teams get up the championship team they are today. As a matter of fact, they haven't even had a draft pick outside of a guy named Kevon Looney since 2012.

[It's not just me, check out 538 and their 7000+ submissions to help fix the NBA draft]

How much of their success is picking the right guys and how much is it the environment they go into. I wonder if there is a formula. Like...

50% Coaching, development, training
25% Player Ability
15% Team location, environment
10% Media and press

If I were to grade, say, the Cleveland Browns it would look like this:

F - Coaching, teaching, training
B - Player Ability
D - Team location, environment
C - Media and fans

That's a poor overall 1.10 GPA on a 4 pt scale. For me, that first item is sort of a gate to the rest. If you have the development down then you can move on to the rest. That's the foundation.

For the Columbus Crew SC under Anthony Precourt, you see how they have built around the first item. Not just Gregg Berhalter but also with Josh Wolff, Pat Onstad, Sixten Boström and the rest of the team. Their score looks something like...

A - Coaching, teaching, training
B - Player Ability
C - Team location, environment
C - Media and fans

3.25! Hey, I kinda like this. I may have to do a rating of more teams in the future, but you get my point. You've got to have the right coaching and create that environment for players to succeed and then give them the tools. Look at Tony Tchani, Justin Meram, Ethan Finlay. Guys who were a season away from no longer earning a MLS paycheck are now top in the league and playing in a final.

You see this with three of the four MLS Conference final teams. FC Dallas is likely the strongest right now with A, A, C, F (3.30 gpa) followed by Portland with B, A, B, B (3.15 gpa).

NY Red Bulls are the odd team out here. B, C, D, D (2.25 gpa). Looking at it this way, I don't expect them to have a good year next year. Impressive this year, of course, but you never want the situation they walked into this year as far as the supporter mess and big time players heading out. It can galvanize a team, but it isn't a sustainable practice that you can build around. I guess some teams like the headlines, though, in those cases, I would create a separate set of grading criteria.

MLS does all they can to control player movement and entry into the league. They are coming at the whole thing from a different angle because the are a small fish in a gigantic pond. It's part of the reason there are so many rules, as a whole.

I think what Crew SC the last couple offseasons in regards to the college entry draft has been stellar. With Berhalter running the show the college draft of 2015 yielded exactly one start. His talent is coming by way of experience. Steve Clark, Michael Parkhurst, Kei Kamara, Gaston Sauro, Harrison Afful, Mohammed Saeid and Cedrick are all players that didn't develop in the college system or even really in MLS (outside Kamara, but he has since gained a lot of international experience.

Non-of those guys were "last picks first" guys or even really "MLS guys" (think; Dax McCarty). They are smartly chosen professionals. In a lot of ways their careers sort of match Berhalter. Not a bad thing.

MLS BUZZ

Don't think anyone was expecting a rip-roaring build-up to the final this weekend but it does seem very quiet out there. Last night on the local news I saw NBC4 had a reporter stationed at the stadium for the evening news but there wasn't a whole lot of gravity to the report or the event.

There was also this, I guess:

Just cried happy/excited tears when I saw @keikamara on the news. Then I laughed, "CBJ Forward." #ForColumbus pic.twitter.com/4WUqk5FCwA

— Julie (@jjulesjenks) December 1, 2015

Meanwhile, over at Reddit (somewhere) is a conversation about TV ratings. Things aren't looking good, sad to say. I'm thinking the English language will be around the 500-750k range and Spanish around the same (closer to the low). It's due to a lot of reasons that I don't feel like getting into right now. League has a lot to sort.

On a bright note, Mapfre Stadium sold out in about 15 hours. What aided this was that it was pretty clear that both Portland and Columbus were advancing after the first leg. Stadium is going to be loud and fun.

All for now.