The Superdraft is Dead, Long Live the Superdraft

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The Major League Soccer SuperDraft is just a few days away, but don’t worry if you had no idea. Its importance in the assembly of good teams has diminished over the years, supplanted by academies, homegrown deals, and myriad other player acquisition methods. However, that doesn’t mean the draft isn’t important anymore. Kevin Minkus examined the SuperDraft for ASA in 2017, but the league is in a different place now than it was then. Plus, we have Goals Added now. 

On Wednesday, teams will draft college players who will make the jump and become successful professionals. Sure, there are fewer draftees who will make final rosters let alone major impacts than in years past, but there’s still value out there. A contributor on an off-cap Generation Adidas contract allows for finite roster resources to be allocated to other players. Even players drafted and signed will make less, and will be under team control for longer than players across the league who provide similar on-field value. 

Hitting on a few draft picks can improve a team’s depth in a league where filling a roster with contributors is a constantly shifting puzzle of salary cap rules. Also, if you’re the New England Revolution over the past five years, you end up with four key contributors on a Supporter’s Shield-winning team and eventually bank $7 million in transfer profit. 

First, Who Has Made Impacts On The Field

Since 2018, players selected in the SuperDraft have played just under 247,000 MLS minutes. Not surprisingly, players picked earlier were more likely to see more game time but even up through about pick 40, selections in the past five drafts have made impacts. Players drafted earlier in this sample have had more seasons to play minutes so it shouldn’t be a surprise that the two players who played the most minutes, Brandon Bye and Chris Mueller, were drafted in 2018. 

(Note: Year corresponds to the year a player was drafted)

So drafted players are still getting on the field in MLS, even as the SuperDraft has fallen out of favor with some teams. But how have those players performed when given those opportunities? The answer isn’t especially surprising: a few very good, more who were not so good, and lots of guys right in the middle. 

There have been very few clear standout performers drafted in the last five years who put up well above average goals added numbers. The names shouldn’t be especially surprising. Brandon Bye, Dayne St. Clair, Tajon Buchanan, DeJuan Jones, Tristan Blackmon, Andre Shinyashiki, and Kamal Miller have all put up above-average g+ in more than 4,500 MLS minutes. Others ranking highly but with fewer minutes include g+ favorite Danny Musovski and Paul Marie.

The top performing players by g+ over the past five drafts were more likely to come from the top 15 picks but there has been value throughout. Because of the comparatively low cost of acquisition, there isn’t a very high bar to clear for some of these picks to have been “worth it”. Getting productive minutes, even at or barely above replacement level production represents value for the drafting team, especially after factoring in contract details.

Then there are the three late draft steals of recent years: Luke Haakenson, Jasper Löffelsend, and Jared Stroud. There were they 80th, 81st, and 83rd picks in their respective drafts and have all played more than 1,100 minutes in the league. When each of the three were selected, multiple teams had already passed on picks. 

Even with the creation of MLS Next Pro, teams still passed on draft picks in 2022 and we’ll see if 2023 is a continuation of that way of thinking. For teams without a ready to go pipeline of talent prepared for professional soccer, why not take all the swings you can? It worked out for Nashville, the New York Red Bulls and Real Salt Lake, at least. Maybe more teams will take advantage this week. 

[My Preferred Team] Needs A [X], Can The Draft Solve That Problem On The Field?

So are there any lessons from the last five years about what positions to draft? First, determining an answer to that question is a little tricky because this data doesn’t account for where players featured in college, just where they played professionally according to ASA’s data. 

The positions with the highest floors appear to be fullback, winger, and center back. Drafted strikers haven’t performed well as measured by g+ and even this chart is a little deceiving because it’s buoyed by Musovski (seriously, g+ really loves him, can he play more?) and both Nick Markanich and Santiago Patiño’s above-average play in a combined 557 minutes. 

Generation Adidas

Generation Adidas contracts throw another wrinkle into the process. Usually, the top players in each year’s draft sign these contracts and they don’t count against a team’s salary cap. So when drafting a GA player, they’re getting a player who is well thought of by the league and who comes with a more advantageous cap situation. 

Over the last five drafts, GA players haven’t exactly lit the world on fire compared to non-GA players, at least as measured by g+. Buchanan and St. Clair are absolutely success stories for the GA program, but Frankie Amaya and Mo Adams drag the overall performance of GAs as a group.

Non-GA players have been huge success stories during this timeframe as well with Bye, Jones, Blackmon, and Miller leading the way. Sure, more players end up being below average, if they make the league at all, but a GA contract isn’t necessarily an indication of a breakthrough talent let alone a success. 

Is [My Preferred Team] Good At Drafting?

A caveat first: this analysis is a little trickier because player movement happens. Take Frankie Amaya, for example. Under the current methodology for pulling this together, Amaya’s g+ contributions count for FC Cincinnati’s totals because we’re looking at teams making the picks. So although he was certainly not stellar in Cincinnati, Amaya’s -4.33 g+ weighs FCC’s total down in this analysis while more than a quarter of that performance, -1.15 g+, occurred when he was playing for NYRB. 

With that said, there’s one team that stands out over the last five years as actually being benefitting from this whole drafting thing: the New England Revolution. As alluded to earlier, four draftees since 2018 played significant roles in the Revolution’s 2021 Supporter’s Shield win including Tajon Buchanan (#9 overall in 2019), DeJuan Jones (#11 overall in 2019), Henry Kessler (#6 overall in 2020), and Brandon Bye (#8 overall in 2018). Those four players combined to contribute more than 30,000 minutes while posting 10.67 goals added above average over the course of their Revolution careers. 

After that, teams’ contributions from drafted players falls off dramatically. LAFC and San Jose both end with above average play over more than 10,000 minutes. Orlando and Minnesota both played draftees a lot though the on field production ended up being slightly worse than average. 

FC Cincinnati looks like the worst drafting team in this analysis but, as mentioned above, Amaya’s contributions weigh this total down slightly. Ian Murphy’s above-average play as a rookie center back in more than 1,600 minutes is a step in the right direction. 

Seattle benefitted more from drafted players than this chart indicates, just not with players they drafted. Jackson Ragen posted an above-average g+ total in 2022 in 1,544 minutes though he was drafted by Chicago only to sign with Tacoma Defiance. 

So even if the draft isn’t what it once was, it can still play a role in MLS teams getting better. With the many limitations on player acquisition, pursuing every avenue available makes sense, even if the vast majority of drafted players make very little impact in MLS. 

After Wednesday’s draft, don’t bank on [insert preferred team here] making the pick that’ll change its fortunes but at the least, a few teams will improve their rosters on the margins. So, while the SuperDraft might have lost some luster, that doesn’t mean it’s not a place where teams can get better. And in a league like MLS, that’s vitally important.