The General Manager Position in MLS

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During tonight's podcast we will be talking a bit about the constructs of MLS offices. It's easy to question the thinking behind transactions and player dealings. Each person has a specific idea behind the move and their own end game and plan that they wish to execute.  Personnel decision making is an important skill. We can find out more about some of the these skills if we actually know the individuals behind the desk of their respective clubs. This list is far from exhaustive. The effort is to give a single point of reference for front office types in each MLS club. The problem behind this little pilot study is that not all them are singularly responsible for the decision making as there are others: CEOs, CFOs, Presidents and a myriad of others that help influence these decisions.

That said this is a good start to getting an idea as to who is pulling some of the strings when it comes to putting together the 30-man roster and dealing with the salary cap. The list is sorted according to the current (9/4) Supporter Shield standings.

LA Galaxy - Jovan Kirovski, Technical Director
Seattle Sounders - Adrian Hanauer, General Manager
Impact - Nick De Santis, Sporting Director/General Manager
NYRB - Andy Roxburgh, Sporting Director
Sporting KC - Peter Vermes, Team Manager & Technical Director
Philadelphia Union - Rob Vartughian, Coach & Technical Director
Colorado Rapids - Paul Bravo, Technical Director
Timbers - Gavin Wilkinson, General Manager
Whitecaps - Bob Lenarduzzi, General Manager & Team President
New Endgland Revs - Michael Burns, General Manager
Houston Dynamo - Nick Kowba, Director of Soccer Operations
FC Dallas - Fernando Clavijo, Technical Director
Chicago Fire - Javier Leon, President Soccer Operations
San Jose - John Doyle, General Manager of Soccer Operations
Columbus Crew - Brian Bliss, Technical Director
Chivas USA - Juan Francisco Palencia, Technical Director
Toronto - (formerly) Kevin Payne, General Manager & Team President 
DC United - Dave Kasper. General Manager
Personally, the three names that stand out to me are (maybe, unsurprisingly) Adrian Hanauer, Rob Vartughian and Javier Leon (though admittedly there isn't much on him). The three men are the only three to not have played professionally at any level. Something to think about and consider with these hirings.

Making Note of Interesting MLS Moves: Brandon McDonald

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We're going to see a lot of people forever reference a term for finding something undervalued relative to what it provides. Such moves in sports are often spun off as "moneyball" type moves. I love the idea of finding undervalued assets, things that can have their production used in a manner which it benefits someone who actually needs it. The problem is most of the time when people refer to something as "moneyball" it's mostly just butchering the term or passing off a sale for the sake of either saving face or trying to sound semi-intelligent about an acquisition. It just seems to be an overused term in sports today and it has started to defeat the principle of the idea. And then there is this...

"The basic premise of ‘Money Ball’ is that you try to acquire undervalued assets," general manager Garth Lagerwey said. "We’ve had a long track record of picking up pieces that other people don’t want anymore and cultivating their talents, and that’s a credit to our coaching staff and the guys in our locker room who believe in our system."

Garth Lagerway, the current General Manager of Real Salt Lake, is explaining why he just worked out a deal with the worst team in the league for a player they just benched. The narrative delivered by the Salt Lake press is rather uninteresting and all together doesn't matter. What is interesting, at least to me, is the outlook for an RSL team that has sought to add depth to their weakness. While being a club that has been pretty much on par with teams like the Portland Timbers and Seattle Sounders in terms of allowing shots, they've been outstanding preventing those opportunities from turning into goals. You could of course point to Nick Rimando, but also Josh Saunders who worked a shut out of his own against FC Dallas this past weekend.

However, no amounts of Saunders and Rimando are going to help the Lakers keep up with that rate. The only way they can be assured of limiting future goals is by limiting future attempts. Enter Brandon McDonald, formerly of the last place DC United, who was owed approximately 275K at the start of this season. He's hardly a "money ball" type buy. But a couple points have been mentioned. Lagerway surrendered basically nothing very little (third-round pick (2014) and a conditional choice (2015), neither of which should have much, if any impact to the United and their chances at fielding a competitive team next season) in order to acquire someone who was instrumental in enabling his club to make a late second half run into the playoffs last season.

I'm sure our own DCU season ticket holder, Drew, and others can speak more to how well he's performed this season. The standards set by Squwaka have him ranked as the #71 overall defender (among all defenders) with a performance score an even 150, though sorted purely by defensive score he ranks 57th overall with a score of 93. Turning to the other side of the analytical coin; Whoscored ranks him as the #2 best performer with a rating of 7.02 and leading the team in defensive actions and more specifically block shots.

Okay, so comparing him to his peers, he's probably not "worthy" of being a bench guy on the last place team. But is he worth the 100+ thousand dollars that RSL will owe him this season on the rest of his contract. The answer is surprising. According to a couple of anonymous sources and general digging, it appears that Real Salt Lake may have a solid collection of allocation money saved for a rainy day and possibly used to pay down McDonald's salary. Now, we don't know much about allocation money, and the amounts that teams have are a well-guarded secret. But I was told that they planned on using a small amount on McDonald and now suddenly his salary isn't so influential on the salary cap.

This is an interesting move and one that could go either way, good or bad. I'm not sure I would call this a "moneyball" move. But it's certainly interesting and it's something that I think you'll see more of as teams fall away from the pack. It's expensive to find players outside of the league, and many teams are in a state of transition (Seattle, for one) and do not necessarily have all the finances usually afforded them. Buying low or taking advantage of players that teams are ready to sell on---but can still be useful to your team---is always a smart business practice. I guess that kind of would qualify as a "undervalued asset".

Right there, I made my own skin crawl.

DC United Score Alain Rochart On The Cheap

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Today, the Vancouver Whitecaps traded defender Alain Rochart, their starting left back, to DC United for a second-round selection in the 2015 MLS SuperDraft as well as an conditional pick in 2016. Vancouver gets a rough lottery ticket, a little bit of freed up cash and the United get a veteran defensive back.  It's not specified if Vancouver will still be on the hook for Rochart's salary, but considering the lack of return, for the basis of this work I'm going to assume that to be the case. The trade on the peripherals seems rather odd and strikes a few questions in my mind as to why this move was even made and what EXACTLY did each team acquire.

Looking at the Swede, Alain Rochat, DC United obviously get a guy who is average positionally in the league. He's not brilliant by any stretch of the imagination, but he's not bad at what he does. He's going to give you minutes; he's given the Whitecaps back-to-back seasons of nearly 2,500 minutes. While being able to provide minutes is great, the larger issue is the quality of those minutes. How does he compare to the rest of the league?

According to the site Whoscored.com they have him listed as the 9th best starting left back in MLS and is the 8th highest paid. So over all the price tag pretty much suits what  he costs, though the average cost of an outside back is roughly $100k.

Point Total Team Name WhoScored Rating Minutes Wage
24 RSL Chris Wingert 7.12 508 $160,000.00
11 Chicago Gonzalo Segares 7.09 990 $155,000.00
20 LA Todd Dunivant 7.12 608 $150,000.00
22 Portland Michael Harrington 7 1159 $140,000.00
18 Seattle Leo Gonzalez 7.47 882 $135,000.00
15 San Jose Justin Morrow 6.8 1174 $130,000.00
25 New York Roy Miller 7.07 877 $124,000.00
16 Vancouver Alain Rochat 7.02 969 $120,000.00
11 Chivas Wálter Vílchez 6.64 340 $117,000.00
22 Houston Cory Ashe 6.91 1215 $101,000.00
5 DC United Daniel Woolard 6.72 719 $100,000.00
22 Kansas City Seth Sinovic 7.13 1270 $90,000.00
28 Dallas Jair Benitez 6.83 1106 $90,000.00
19 New England Chris Tierney 6.93 658 $82,000.00
26 Montreal Jeb Brovsky 7.11 990 $80,000.00
14 Columbus Tyson Wahl 6.88 1165 $76,000.00
8 Toronto Ashtone Morgan 6.2 469 $60,000.00
8 Toronto Logan Emory 6.7 238 $48,000.00
22 Philadelphia Raymon Gaddis 6.88 1339 $47,000.00
20 Colorado Chris Klute 7.42 956 $46,000.00

Interestingly enough, Rochart matches up pretty well with Portland Timbers left back Michael Harrington, who costs just a nudge more and is rated very similarly. Both possess the ball well and deliver smart short passes out of the back while neither are very strong at tackling.

This comparison is interesting simply because the Timbers acquired Harrington from Sporting Kansas City this past off-season. While the details of the deal aren't disclosed to the public, we know that it centered around allocation money and  a guess in the $75K range isn't crazy.

So we can say the going rate for which DC United paid for is roughly $75K in "specialized "cap space. That's on top of the money that is saved from moving the individual. DC United paid a draft pick, potentially two, depending on the circumstances--of which we have no idea. So let's just work with the understanding that they are only giving up a second round pick in two years.

This is a little tricky because of the fact that we don't necessarily know what overall pick DC United will be giving up. While this matters only for the sake of history and being able to create context based upon past experiences, it only minimally limits our understanding of the value of this pick.

In the 2013 Superdraft, a second-round pick's average contract was worth roughly 35K, and that's specifically for a young-ish sort of player that qualifies for the draft. While that potentially could be of some value, you can see players such as Chris Klute, Chris Tierney and Seth Sinovic as great examples, as it could lend itself to assisting to provide some roster flexibility. It's not nearly as lucrative as any type of allocation money.

DC United got a serviceable upgrade and helped solidify a back line that has had a gaping hole in it this past season, while paying nearly nothing for it. On the other hand, the Whitecaps presumably cleared 120,000 dollars off their roster and got a low-risk/medium-reward lottery ticket, and potentially two of them. However, they did this at the cost of downgrading one of their team's strengths.

I can't say that this was a bad move for the Vancouver, but it's an all-too-perplexing one for a team that is only sitting 4 points out of playoff position in the table. Kudos to DC United for making a cheap and smart purchase. At least they did something with their season.

New England Revolution acquires Juan Agudelo: What does that mean?

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First things first before I make fun of the Revolution (and I will).  Their defense has been---excluding the New York outlier---borderline elite this season. That's possibly one of the few reasons they're still afloat and maybe the only reason to watch them (sorry, Lee Nguyen).

Tempo-free soccer has the Revs ranked 6th in dAG (defensive attempts on goals), which is how many times an opposing team has made any attempt at their goal. Add to that that we have them ranked 2nd (6.2%) in Opposing Finishing%, which is how often a team's opponents successfully convert attempts into actual goals. They're better than every team outside of Montreal in that category.

This has all culminated in only 6 goals allowed in 9 games. Something that would be overlooked if it wasn't for their horrible attack and the need for at least some positive mention.

But now the Revs have added the young (former starlett?) Juan Agudelo, someone who saw time with the US National team only 6 months ago in Russia and didn't look awful by any stretch. To be fair, he's someone that has actually come out looking very strong for Chivas earlier this season, but he's been hampered the last few weeks with hamstring issues.

It was thought that he had mended a brewing off-season situation between himself and Chivas USA head coach, El Chelis. But of late, Chelis has given a lot of credit to his now former striker. He told MLSSoccer:

"I didn’t know what I had in Agudelo, but by having him, what I asked for doesn’t matter because Agudelo is a model. He is the natural on this team. He’s a player that has many technical qualities. He’s very involved in working to improve others."

And now he's shipped off to the greater Boston area and we are with out the full detail of the acquisition being yet to be vented  in exchange the Goats received allocation money. The spice of life and magic dust that no one talks about and everyone wants. Of course for us this isn't about the details at this point.

What Juan Agudelo will bring is spectacular things and then all together frustrating things. He averages about 16 shots on goal per 1500 minutes, a number he has yet to reach in either of his stops in Chivas or New York. A team averages a goal on 9.4% of its attempts this season, and 26.9% of its shots on goal. Using that, there's a possibility that he adds a few additional goals to the line-up. Assuming he is just average at finishing.

That said Agudelo has beat the average ratio over his 3,000 minutes, scoring 11 goals in 36 shots on goal (30.6%). Scoring goals is a skill, and though we don't know how much is luck vs. his ability, I think it's very possible that he will continue to beat the league average conversion rates.

Looking at Chris Wondolowski, Kenny Cooper and Álvaro Saborío--the top 3 scorers for 2012--they all combined to beat the league average by scoring a goal on 43.9% of their shots on target. So, we can safely attribute scoring goals on shots on target as being a skill, the only problem is trying to account for luck. That's a little difficult at this stage, and so for now, we'll just mention it.

But assuming that Agudelo is consistent and continues scoring at a high rate and matches 1500 minutes. I have him for about 6 goals this season. Right now considering their goal conversion and their already abysmal offense, the Revs are on pace for 36 goals total to end the season. Considering their ability to suppress their opponent's talent and ability to score goals I have them for 26 goals allowed, assuming they continue their defensive supremacy.

Using SoccerMetricsPythagorean this comes out at about 51 points... given the asinine goal difference. Add in the additional 6 goals that Juan Agudelo brings and that brings them to a total of 56. Basically almost a full point for each goal.

Now, I'm not about to say that the Revolution have a shot at 60 points, not in your life. But in the last 3 years the only teams to have a plus goal differential AND not make the playoffs were 2011 Chicago Fire and the 2010 Kansas City Wizards. Considering a team-wide return to a league-average ability to score goals AND adding Juan Agudelo, it's very possible that New England just moved themselves within striking distance for the 4th or 5th spot in the East.

Columbus and Philly, beware.