Season in Review- Plus/Minus

By Charles Barnard

As the emotion starts to die down from the shellacking that RSL received at the hands of the Galaxy, I can return to my look at the end of year stats. This off-season could be one of the most important in club history. Because of this it is even more important to look at these stats as we as a fan base try to figure out what changes we would like to be made.

Today I want to look at the plus/minus stat. This is a stat that has been popular in hockey for years. Recently it has also become a very popular stat to analyze in basketball as well. This stat has also started to make its way into soccer circles. Basically you take the amount of goals scored while a particular player is on the field and subtract the amount of goals given up. With this stat you can get a sense of how well the team played overall while a particular player was on the field.

I feel it is important to include minutes when looking at this stat. It is much more impressive if a player is +5 while playing 500 minutes than if they played 1,000 minutes. To better show this I calculate how much a player’s plus/minus number went up (or down) every 90 minutes played. I also find it interesting to look at the goal differential of the team when the player was off the field which I show in the +/- w/o category. As you will see below, this is also a vital piece of information.

At a point of reference, RSL as a team had a goal differential of +15 this past season. This is the third best goal differential in club history.

I broke the table up between the forwards/midfielders and the defenders to make it a little bit easier to compare and contrast.

	Min. Played	+/-	Plus/Minus per 90	+/- w/o
Beckerman	2520	21	0.75	-6
Grabavoy	2711	18	0.60	-3
Plata	1927	16	0.75	-1
Morales	2645	13	0.44	2
Mulholland	1987	10	0.45	5
Saborio	1148	8	0.63	7
Garcia	1191	6	0.45	9
Jaime	261	6	2.07	9
Velasquez	222	4	1.62	11
Gil	1365	1	0.07	14
Findley	764	-1	-0.12	16
Sandoval	633	-1	-0.14	16
Stertzer	273	-2	-0.66	17
Grossman	532	-2	-0.34	17
Beltran	2393	14	0.53	1
Schuler	2154	11	0.46	4
Wingert	2537	10	0.35	5
Borchers	2856	10	0.32	5
Salcedo	800	6	0.68	9
Maund	432	4	0.83	11
Mansally	655	2	0.27	13
Balchan	233	0	N/A	15

Kyle Beckerman is easily the one player that jumps out the most. The team was +21 when he was on the field. On the other hand, the team was -6 in the time that he did not play. The difference between those two numbers are incredible!

Another player that really stands out to me is Sebastian Jaime. The team was a +6 in the 261 minutes that he played. Even though he did not score a goal, the team was extremely effective when he played.

On the flip side of things is Luis Gil. RSL was only a +1 in the 1365 minutes that he played. That means in the 1695 minutes that he didn't play this season RSL was a +14.

Among the defensive players, I was surprised to see Aaron Maund was a +4 in the limited amount of playing time that he played. Carlos Salcedo also had impressive numbers when you think he was a -2 after the first 30 minutes he played this season.

What stats stand out to you when looking at the table above?

Season in Review- Minutes Per Conceded Goal

By Charles Barnard

In part one of my look at the end of year statistics for RSL I took a look at my Minutes per Team Goal (MpTG) stat. In part 2 I want to take a look at the defensive side of the ball. To do this, I look at Minutes per Conceded Goal (MpCG). This is basically the opposite of MpTG. I am looking at how many goals the team gives up while a particular player is on the field and then compare that against how many goals were given up when that player was not on the field.

For a point of reference, RSL as a team gave up a goal every 71 minutes this past season. Here is a look at the RSL defensive players.

Player	Min	Goals	MpCG	Min not played	Goals	MpCG	Difference
Wingert	2537	33	76.88	523	6	87.17	-10.29
Beltran	2393	34	70.38	667	5	133.4	-63.02
Schuler	2154	27	79.78	906	12	75.5	4.28
Borchers	2856	36	79.33	204	3	68	11.33
Salcedo	800	8	100	2260	31	72.9	27.1
Mansally	655	9	72.78	2405	30	80.17	-7.39
Balchan	233	1	233	2827	38	74.39	158.61
Maund	432	7	61.71	2628	32	82.13	-20.41

The number that really jumps out out to me was how well Carlos Salcedo played this past season. Now remember, the first match that he played was when he had to come in off the bench cold in San Jose. The Earthquakes went on to score two times late to get the draw. I think everyone would say Salcedo was put into a difficult position in that match. If you only look at the last 779 minutes that he has played (throwing out that SJ match) his numbers look even better. At that point the team would only be giving up a goal every 130 minutes when he was in the match.

Rich Balchan’s numbers are also impressive. He had a nightmare of a match down in Chivas but besides that he had outstanding numbers during the limited time he played.

On the flip side I was somewhat surprised with Tony Beltran’s numbers. Statistically last year he was RSL’s best defender. This year the team played really well those few games that Beltran did not play.

This season I also kept track of MpCG for all field midfielders and forwards. Here are those numbers.

	MpCG	MpCG (not on field)
Saborio	76.5	79.6
Plata	80.2	75.5
Findley	84.8	76.53
Garcia	85	74.76
Sandoval	70.33	80.9
Jaime	130.5	75.6
Beckerman	86.9	54
Mulholland	70.9	97.55
Morales	82.6	59.29
Grabavoy	82.15	58.17
Gil	85.31	73.7
Velasquez	55.5	81.09
Stertzer	54.6	81.97
Grossman	59.11	84.27

I was very surprised to see how well the numbers were for Sebastian Jaime. He ended up playing 261 minutes and during that time RSL only gave up 2 goals. I am not sure how much of that can be attributed to Jaime, but it has been talked about how good he is on defending set pieces. Perhaps there is more to this number than meets the eye.

It really should come as no surprise that Kyle Beckerman comes out looking really good in these numbers. Also like when we looked at MpTG, this is another area that shows the value of Ned Grabavoy.

One number that did pop out to me was that of Luke Mulholland. The RSL defense was much poorer when Mulholland was on the field compared to when he was off.

Season in Review- Minute Per Team Goal

By Charles Barnard

It has been a little while since posting on here but I am back. Life has somewhat gotten in my way and I have not had the chance to write as much as I would like of late. With the regular season now concluded for RSL it is the perfect time to start really looking at the season ending stats for the team. I also have one more poll to run asking the question “Who should RSL protect in the expansion draft”. Before we start thinking about the expansion draft lets first look at the stats from this season.

The first thing I want to look at is Minutes per Team Goal (MpTG). For those that are unfamiliar with this stat (I came up with it myself) I look at how many goals were scored while a particular player was on the field. The thinking behind this stat is that even though a player might not have scored the goal or got the assist, they still can have a positive effect on goals being scored. After I see how many goals were scored while the player was on the field I then look at how many goals were scored while the player was not on the field. This gives me a general sense on how much a player affected the overall team on the offensive side of the ball.

Here are the complete 2014 MpTG stats for RSL. For comparison sake, RSL as a whole averaged scoring a goal every 56.6 minutes.

Player	Min	Goals	MpTG
Saborio	1148	23	49.91
Findley	764	8	95.5
Plata	1927	40	48.18
Sandoval	633	8	79.13
Garcia	1191	20	59.55
Gil	1365	17	80.29
Grabavoy	2711	51	53.16
Morales	2645	45	58.78
Velasquez	222	8	27.75
Stertzer	273	3	91
Mulholland	1987	38	52.29
Jaime	261	8	32.63
Grossman	532	7	76
Beckerman	2520	50	50.4

Now here are the stats from when the player was not on the field. The final column is the difference between the two.

Player	Min not played	Goals	MpTG	Difference
Saborio	1912	31	61.68	11.76
Findley	2296	46	49.91	-45.59
Plata	1133	14	80.93	32.75
Sandoval	2427	46	52.76	-26.36
Garcia	1869	34	54.97	-4.58
Gil	1695	37	45.81	-34.48
Grabavoy	349	3	116.33	63.18
Morales	415	9	46.11	-12.67
Velasquez	2838	46	61.7	33.95
Stertzer	2787	51	54.65	-36.35
Mulholland	1073	16	67.06	14.77
Jaime	2799	44	63.61	30.99
Grossman	2528	47	53.79	-22.21
Beckerman	540	4	135	84.6

You will see that Sebastian Velasquez came out on top with the best MpTG. One thing to consider is that Velasquez mostly played in a substitute role. RSL scored 20% of their goals in the final 15 minutes of matches. Because of this, most players that are primarily substitutes could have inflated numbers.

Sebastian Jaime is a perfect example of why I like to look at this stat. Some people are concerned that he did not score one goal this season. But this shows that he did have a very positive effect on the team.

We can gain more information by looking at how well the team played when particular players were not on the field. RSL really struggled offensively when Kyle Beckerman and Ned Grabavoy do not play. Again this shows that players that do not have a lot of traditional offensive stats (goals/assists) still should get credit for the role that they play in the offense.

On the flip side of the coin we have Robbie Findley and Luis Gil. There was a negative effect on the offensive output of the team when these players were on the field. Findley had his struggles on the field (and we will see more of them as I go along with my review) but the player that really concerns me is Gil. The team scored at a much higher rate when Gil did not play. The worrisome thing is that this was the case last year as well.

What are you seeing from these numbers? Is there something that stands out to you?