The Dreaded Expansion Draft

By Charles Barnard

It is coming. Time is marching on and it will be here soon. And now it’s even sooner……and now it is even sooner….. It is coming and there is nothing that we can do to stop it. It is that thing we are all afraid of. It is that thing that we all dread. What is it? The MLS Expansion Draft.

It is fun seeing the growth of MLS. It is exciting to hear about all these cities that want to form new teams. And it is great seeing the excitement of these fan bases as their teams actually join the league. The downside of all this though is the expansion draft. That day when a member (or members) of your soccer family gets ripped away and put into new colors. It is a day that we all dread. And it is quickly approaching again.

Before looking at RSL specifically, let’s review the rules of the last expansion draft that occurred in 2014 (this year’s rules have yet to be released). As two teams will be coming into the league again next year, the rules will probably be very similar to what they were in 2014.

A few days prior to the draft, each MLS team submits to the league a protection list. The list would be comprised of 11 players that are protected from being selected in the draft. Along with those players, all Homegrown players are automatically protected as well as all Generation Adidas players. Once a player is selected in the draft, the team is then able to submit one additional player to their protection list. Once a team has two players selected, they were exempt from having any additional players selected. In the 2014 draft, Ned Grabavoy and Chris Wingert were selected in the draft.

One benefit that RSL does have going into this draft is the amount of players that are automatically protected. These are the current players on the roster that will not be eligible for the draft.

Danilo Acosta (Homegrown)

Jordan Allen (Homegrown)

Lalo Fernandez (Homegrown)

Justen Glad (Homegrown)

Omar Holness (Generation Adidas)

Phanuel Kavita (Homegrown)

So who should RSL protect this year? That is going to be the big question going into the offseason. For some players, it is pretty easy to determine if you protect them or not. Others, it might be a little harder to decide. A common assumption is that a team should protect their 11 best players. In my mind, it is more important to protect the 11 players that the two expansion teams will want the most. Those two lists don't always match.

Will an expansion team want Javier Morales who will be 37 at the start of the 2017 season? RSL will actually have 5 players over the age of 35 next season (Rimando/Morales/Olave/Wingert/Beckerman). How many of those players do you protect? Or do you gamble and protect other players in the hopes that these aging players do not get taken? Do you protect a young an up-and-coming player like Boyd Okwuonu or do you leave him unprotected in the hopes that he might slip by unnoticed?

These questions (and so many more) will need to be answered. I personally have just begun to debate these questions in my own mind. There are so many things to weigh when considering who to protect. And I am not even taking some factors into consideration like contract length (which is hard information to obtain). I will write a follow up article in the next week or so going over the 11 I would chose to protect. In the meantime, who would you protect? Leave your answers down in the comments or tweet at me (ccb1212) and let me know your list.

And time is still marching on……


(Bonus points to you if you get the song reference in this post) 

RSL in the Last 15 Minutes of Matches

By Charles Barnard

 

With the start of the regular season just days away for RSL, I feel it is still valuable to look back to see what can be learned from the previous season. Everyone has high hopes that this year’s team will be vastly improved over last year’s squad. As I looked at last year’s data there was one area that jumped out at me of where the team has to improve if it wants to be make its way back into the playoff picture.

 

One of the data points that I track is when in a match the team is scoring their goals as well as when they are conceding goals. This information gives a picture of how the team played during the course of matches. This can show if a team is one that starts off fast or slow. Is the team good at making half time adjustments? How does a team finish a match? I break these out into 15 minute sections of the game. For example I will keep track of goals scored between minutes 0-15, 16-30, and so forth.

 

In looking at these numbers for RSL last season there is one number that jumps out compared to all the rest. And if the team is going to improve in the standings it is a number that will have to be corrected this season.

 

Let’s take a look at see how RSL fared last year.

 

	0-15	16-30	31-45	46-60	61-75	76-90
Scored	5	6	9	7	6	4
Conceded	6	7	8	9	4	14

 

 

The one number that jumps out is that RSL gave up 14 goals in the final 15 minutes of matches last year. 14! They were a -10 during that time period. Thinking back I do remember a lot of matches that RSL conceded late. But I don’t think I truly realized how bad it was.

 

Not only is it concerning that the team gave up so many goals during that time, but the team didn’t score many goals during that period. Traditionally the final 15 minutes of matches is when the most goals are scored. This is due to many factors included the insertion of substitutes as well as teams pushing for goals at the end of matches. So it is very worrisome to see that the team scored the less in that time period compared to any other 15 minute period. 

 

If the team is to improve this year, they must play better in the final 15 minutes of matches, on both sides of the ball. This is something that I will continue to keep track this coming season and will occasionally report back here on the blog.

 

Questions About Depth

View from the Upper Deck

By Charles Barnard

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

I am sure that was the reaction of some RSL fans on social media after last week’s loss in Champions League. And I think that reaction would be very harsh. For the first 60 minutes of the match the team actually looked really good. Would I have liked a better result than a 2-0 loss? Of course I would have. But on the whole I think RSL put forth a very respectable effort all things considered.

Now that we have seen the team in action, I think some questions do need to be addressed. My biggest frustration at the end of the match was Coach Cassar not using his third sub. I think this might be my biggest pet peeve in soccer. In my mind, you have three subs and you should use them! Especially when it was clear to see the team was running out of gas.

After expressing these thoughts on Twitter, @JKBranin made a very good point that got me thinking.

“Who would you have subbed in/out? Half of me is frustrated it wasn’t used. Half of me is frustrated there was no one worth bringing in.”

Who would I have brought in? I don’t know. While unlike some I am a big fan of Sandoval. But I don’t think he is what was needed in that match. And who would you take out for him? I guess Stertzer could have been an option. You didn’t need Glad or Wingert in that match.

You know who would have been a good option? Luis Silva. I am sure he was somewhere in the stadium but he wasn’t wearing an RSL kit. What about Mansally? I would have liked to seen his fresh legs getting forward into the attack. What about Jaime coming in providing a spark off the bench? 

Now I know even if we still had all these players on the roster that they wouldn’t have all been on the bench the other night. But it leads me to a question. Do we have a depth problem on the team this season? Yes, we all know and are worried about our lack of depth at center back. That is a huge issue. But I am talking about the lack of depth for the whole team in general.

I don’t think I really thought about this too much in the off season. Did the signing of Yura blind me to how many players we actually lost? Just look at the list.

Gil

Silva

Vasquez

Pecka

Schuler

Bofo

Jaime

Mansally

Honestly did I want all of these players to come back? Absolutely not.  We needed to shake things up. The point I am wondering is this. Did we bring enough talent to not only replace these players but to also improve as a team?

I went back and added up minutes played for players that were on the roster last year that are no longer with the team. The total came to 7658 minutes. That is a lot of minutes to replace. The breakdown of those minutes is 2515 for forwards, 2116 for midfielders, and 3027 on the back line. Those minutes will have to be filled. The question is who is going to fill them?

Now I am sure that Yura will take up a big chunk of that time. And Burrito and Plata will (knock on wood) play more minutes than they did last season. Sunday will take up some of those minutes as well (or steal minutes from Luke). I think these are upgrades to what we had last season. And hopefully the team will get some good luck and sign a center back or two.

Is the sky falling? There is no way you can say that after one game. My question is during the dog days of summer when players start getting injured do we have enough quality off the bench to keep us competitive? That question can’t be answered today, especially since our roster is not set in stone. But I do think it is a question that we as fans should keep our eyes on over the course of the season. 

The Return to the Upper Deck

By Charles Barnard

I am here to announce that I am bringing my writing talents (or lack thereof) back to my blog From the Upper Deck.

 

When I started this blog back in 2013 I wanted a place where I could express my thoughts on all things RSL. I named it From the Upper Deck because that was my viewpoint at the time. I had no team access. All I knew was what I could see from my TV or from my favorite seats at Rio Tinto (hence the name of the blog). I was just a fan that randomly spouted off stats on Twitter. 

 

And then something I didn’t expect started to happen. My blog really started to grow. I discovered that the media relations side of the team was really awesome to work with. People like Trey, and when he was still there Sam, helped with their time and treated my blog with a respect that it probably hadn’t earned to that point. I was given the opportunity to interview players, members of the front office, and the coaching staff. It was awesome.

 

The blog continued to grow. I was proud of what I had created. Even though I loved writing about stats, my series looking at what the RSL family meant to people (players, coaches, fans) was probably the thing I enjoyed writing the most. Some of the stories that people told me were incredibly powerful. I still tear up reading some of them two years later.

 

But as the blog continued to grow, so did the time it took to maintain it. It takes a lot of time out of my life just to maintain the stats that I keep track of. And on top of that I was trying to grow this blog. Not only was it taking away from time with my family it was starting to burn me out. So even though I was having some incredible experiences I let the blog die.

 

Even keeping stats started to be a grind. Through most of this past off season I debated with myself if I would even continue to tweet out my stats. But as the season started to get closer I knew I would dive back in. I just love stats too much to give them up. I also wanted to write again, but was more hesitant to even think about that.

 

Then something happened  that I didn’t expect. I had thoughts about last Wednesday's game and the team in general that I wanted to express. So I just started to write. 700 words later and I had a blog post ready to go. This leads me to this reintroduction to myself and the blog.

 

I know things will be different this time. I won’t post as much as I did in the past. I don’t want to burn out again and my family needs to come first. Will I put some of my stats up here? I am not sure but I probably will. One thing I will do is that I want to write more about my thoughts on the team.  I am going to call these editorials Views From the Upper Deck. I am back to my original view of the team where I don’t have any inside access (although I am sure the team would support me if asked). I am just that guy that randomly tweets out stats and will put my thoughts here on the blog. I hope you enjoy it.