Pulling the Trigger- A Look at Shooting Statistics

When thinking about offensive skills for players, one skill that I think is undervalued is the ability to shoot the ball. It seems the skills that people think of are size, speed, and ball control. But without the ability to get a shot off, put it on frame, and to score, the other skills are just not as valuable.

I ran across an interesting stat yesterday. Ned Grabavoy has scored on 22% of the shots that he has taken. Granted, he has only taken 9 shots all year. but that is still a very impressive number. That got me thinking about how our other players were doing at their shooting skills. The numbers are very interesting. Lets look at the forwards first.

Player	Sp90	SoGp90	SoG %	GpS %
Saborio	4.14	1.43	34.62%	15.38%
Findley	3.45	1.29	37.50%	12.50%
Plata	3.28	1.37	41.67%	4.17%
Sandoval	1.92	1.05	54.55%	9.09%
Garcia	3.28	1.26	38.46%	15.38%

The table above shows shots per 90 minutes, shots on goal per 90 minutes, shots on goal percentage and the percentage of goals per shot. So what stands out on these numbers? I wasn't surprised that Saborio was taking the most shots among the forwards. I was surprised that his shots on goal percentage was so low. But that is made up with a very high percentage of his shots hitting the back of the net.

Sandoval's numbers surprised me as well. His shots per 90 minutes were by far the lowest of the forwards. Althought, his shots on goal percentage was far and away the highest. But then his goal percentage was again low. It seems that when he is getting shots off, they are heading right for the keeper. It will be interesting to see if he will get better at this with more experience. In the mean time, I think he should shoot more.

Here is a fun note. A shot that hits the post or crossbar is not considered a "shot on goal". Garcia has now hit the post or crossbar 4 times in his limited appearances. If you were to count those as shots as "on goal", his shots on goal percentage would be 69.23%.

Player	Sp90	SoGp90	SoG %	GpS %
Gil	2.08	0.91	43.48%	8.70%
Grabavoy	0.79	0.35	44.44%	22.22%
Morales	1.84	0.81	43.75%	12.50%
Velasquez	2.13	0.61	28.57%	0.00%
Stephenson	1.36	0.68	50.00%	0.00%
Beckerman	2.03	0.88	43.48%	4.35%

Here are the stats for the midfielders. The 22% by Grabavoy is the highest among the team for goal percentage. I was surprised to see a pretty high shooting rate for Beckerman, Gil, and Velasquez. If Velasquez is going to shoot at that high of a rate, he needs to get more shots on frame. I also find it very interesting that other than Velasquez, the rest of the midfielders have a higher shot on goal percentage than most of the forwards. 

I find these stats very interesting and it is something that I will continue to keep an eye on. What do you think? Are there other stats you think I should take a look at?