The COR Score- RSL Offensive Ratings

Everyone that reads my blog knows that I think highly of the Minutes per Team Goal stat (MpTG). I feel that it is a good indication for how the team plays while a player is either on or off the field. But what it doesn't do very well is tell the story on how a player is playing overall.

Now I know that there is not one stat that can tell you the whole story. Garth Lagerwey said as much when I interviewed him about statistics. But what I did want was something that could at least tell me part of the story. I wanted something more than just goals and assists. I also felt that the MpTG was an important piece of the puzzle as well. I really wanted something that combined individual stats with MpTG. I felt this would give a better overall picture. So I created the Charles Offensive Rating system or COR. Not the most original of names but the name isn't really important anyway. 

Here is how COR works: It starts off by using MpTG as a base. Now remember, with MpTG the lower the number, the better it is. From there I created a formula that calculates in goals, assists, shots on goal, shots, goals per shot %, and completed pass %. Why did I choose these stats? I felt that they were all important in showing how well a player is doing on the offensive side of the ball. Also, they are stats that are somewhat easy to obtain from www.mlssoccer.com. I would love to include more things, but as an outsider I only have access to what stats that I can find on the web.

Once I picked the stats I was going to include, I went through a process of weighing how important I thought each stat was. I felt a goal should get greater weight than an assist. A shot on goal is worth more than just a shot and so forth. I spoke with a couple others to get their thoughts as well. I gave each stat a numerical value depending on how important I believed each stat was. For example, a goal might be worth 10 points and an assist might be worth 8. From there I added up all the points that a player received and then subtracted that total number from the MpTG to get there overall COR score. On the COR scale, the lower the number, the more effective that player is offensively. 

It was here that I ran into a problem. Starters were coming out with a much lower COR scores. This was due to them just playing more than some of the guys on the bench. I still wanted to be able to compare all players so I changed up my formula a bit. Instead of using goals, assists, shots, and shots on goal, I calculated goals per 90 minutes, assists per 90 minutes and so on. By doing this, it didn't matter how many minutes a player had played. Just how well he was doing per 90 minutes that he was playing.

Below are my findings.

Player	COR
Garcia	-35.22
Morales	-8.57
Grabavoy	11.70
Velasquez	19.61
Plata	21.88
Sabo	24.17
Sandoval	24.33
Findley	24.61
Stephenson	31.13
Beckerman	33.57
Gil	36.27
Alvarez	37.83

We all know that Garcia has been amazing this season. His high offensive production with his limited minutes puts him off the charts. I think it is no surprise that Morales is so high either with his 5 goals and 8 assists. 

Given the nature of these stats and the position that they play, it does not surprise me that Beckerman and Alvarez are towards the bottom of the team. I only ran these numbers for forwards and midfielders, no defenders. The defenders would be even lower if included.

What is interesting is some of the guys in the middle. Sandoval has a killer MpTG stat. But his individual stats are not very impressive. On the opposite end of the spectrum is Saborio. He has a very poor MpTG but his individual stats are pretty good. In that sense, COR seems to be doing a good job in combining individual stats with MpTG. 

So what do these numbers really tell us?  Other than the fact that Garcia has been amazing, I am not really sure yet. I am going to keep tracking this to see if I can get a better sense of what it means. I would love to hear other opinions. Do you think there is value to be found in a stat like COR?