A Look at the Back Line- Analyzing the Defense

Last week, I took a look at the Minutes per Team Goal (MpTG) for the attacking players on the team. One of the requests that I had was to take a closer look at the defensive side of the ball. Since I brought up some interesting questions in yesterday's Crunching the Numbers, I thought it would be a great time to take a closer look at the defense.

With the defense, I look at something I call Minutes per Conceded Goal (MpCG). It is basically the opposite of MpTG. I take a look at how many goals were given up while a particular player was on the field. From there, I can figure out how many minutes on average it takes for the opposing team to score. I then take a look at all goals that were scored while that player was not on the field and can tell how many goals were given up when the player is not playing. This gives a look at how well the defense plays while that particular player is on and off the field.

The one main thing to remember about MpCG is that you want a bigger number unlike MpTG where the smaller number is better. Another thing that I did for the first time was that I started to calculate Kyle Beckerman in with the defensive players to see how much he affects the defense.

Here is a look at how well the defense plays when each player is on the field. As a team, RSL is currently giving up a goal every 70.54 minutes.

Player	Min	Goals	MpCG
Beltran	1969	22	89.50
Beckerman	1921	23	83.52
Schuler	1080	13	83.08
Watson-Siriboe	630	8	78.75
Wingert	1465	19	77.11
Salcedo	991	13	76.23
Borchers	2160	31	69.68
Mansally	669	11	60.82
Palmer	940	16	58.75
Maund	270	6	45.00
McDonald	180	5	36.00

What can we learn from these numbers? The defensive struggles over the past two months are highlighted when you compare these numbers to the last time I looked at these stats. It is interesting that Chris Schuler is now statistically the best center back for the team. I was also surprised that Borchers' MpCG is so low. 

Now here is a look at how the team played when the players were not on the field. This also has an additional column that shows the difference between when the player plays and when he doesn't. In this case you want a positive difference number .

Player	Min not played	Goals	MpCG	Difference
Beltran	641	15	42.73	46.77
Beckerman	689	14	49.21	34.31
Schuler	1530	27	56.67	26.41
Wingert	1145	18	63.61	13.49
Watson-Siriboe	1980	28	70.71	8.04
Salcedo	1619	23	70.39	5.84
Borchers	450	6	75.00	-5.32
Mansally	1944	26	74.77	-13.95
Palmer	1682	21	80.10	-21.35
Maund	2340	31	75.48	-30.48
McDonald	2430	32	75.94	-39.94

You can see right away that the defense plays very poorly when Beltran and Beckerman do not play. Once again, Schuler comes out looking really good in these numbers. The interesting thing with McDonald is that even though he has very poor statistics here, the team has an even goal differential of 0 when he has played.  

Finally, here is a look at the center back pairings for the team.

Player	Min	Goals	MpCG
Borchers/Schuler	540	5	108
Schuler/Salcedo	90	1	90
Borchers/Watson-Siriboe	270	3	90
Borchers/Salcedo	900	12	75
Schuler/Watson-Siriboe	360	5	72
Borchers/Maund	270	6	45
Borchers/McDonald	180	5	36

I don't think anyone would have guessed that the combination seeing the most time on the field would be the Borchers/Salcedo pairing. Schuler once again comes out looking good here. 

So what do all these things tell us? With all these positive numbers, is Schuler the missing piece to the defensive puzzle? I am not so sure about that. While it is true that he got hurt prior to the defensive struggles, the defense played pretty well in the games immediately after Schuler going down. 

What can you see from this information? Let me know what you think.