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| The MLS SuperDraft, 1996-2019 |
Portland Timbers Update
The Timbers finalized the deal to sign an endearingly happy Felipe Mora to a permanent contract…but doesn’t that seem like that already happened, like, two weeks ago? Elsewhere, Portland picked Dawson McCartney and Diego Gutierrez in last…Wednesday’s(?) MLS SuperDraft, at No. 43 and No. 70, respectively. In other words, nothing of consequence happened. More later…
FC Cincinnati Update
Rumors that FC Cincy had made a move for the New York Red Bulls’ Tim Parker evaporated in hours or even minutes one day last week, so that’s one rumor down. I thought the whole Papu Gomez saga had ended with him going to Sevilla, but I opened a link that said otherwise…before promptly closing it because the page it opened fucking attacked my computer, so let’s call that rumor unverified for now and wait till official channels make the relevant announcement.
Elsewhere, FC Cincinnati selected Calvin Harris (at No. 2), Avionne Flanagan (No. 29), Jonas Fjeldberg (No. 54) and Matthew Vowinkel (No. 56, and dynamite name, kid) in the 2021 MLS SuperDraft. In other words, nothing of consequence to report in FC Cincy circles either….well, maybe Harris will come good - hope springs eternal, etc. - but I’ll get into why it’s more likely he won’t below.
CBA Negotiations Update
Word got out that the Major League Soccer Players’ Association made a counter-offer to the league’s post-force majeure offer yesterday…to which the MLS owners responded publicly by restating what they’ve offered the players (e.g., “committed to paying the players 100% of their salaries this year, in return for a two-year extension of the MLS Collective Bargaining Agreement,” aka, something definite and tangible for something suspiciously vague), which signals a response to the players' offer - and probbaly not a great one. In other words, nothing of consequence happened.
The MLS SuperDraft Update: I’ll Care When They Make Me
I get it. It’s January when those of us who ignore the European leagues stumble around the internets half-starved for news of any kind about the league we adopted at some Las Vegas wedding shit-show we blacked out way back when. In seasons past, the SuperDraft arrived like the first leaf buds on the branches of deciduous trees - i.e., by the time you’ve picked through the names of all the future USL stars, you had only a week or two to wait before your local team reported to preseason training, then preseason followed not too far behind. That was some soothing Circle of Life shit, the rhythm of the domestic calendar tapping away like it’d never stop…
Again…that was mid-May 2021? Shit…
I can’t remember the last time a player that came up through the MLS SuperDraft lit the league on fire, but, because I forget all kinds of shit, I decided to look back at each SuperDraft class going back to 2012 to check on the return on investment. Let the record show I only checked the first two rounds of each draft and, with apologies for some occasionally loose terminology (you’ll see), here’s what I found (also, a link to the list of players drafted is embedded in each year in case you want to check my math/assumptions):
2012
Out of 38 available picks, I found: two “stars” (Ethan Finlay and Matt Hedges), one player of considerable, yet former reputation (Dom Dwyer), and five near-regular starters (Luis Silva, Kelyn Rowe, Nick DeLeon, Ray Gaddis, and Warren Creavalle).
Return on Investment: A loose 8 of 38.
2013
Out of 38 available picks, I found: one star (Walker Zimmerman), two reliable, valuable starters (Andrew Farrell and Ryan Hollingshead), three players who got at least a season’s worth of hype (Kekuta Manneh, Deshorn Brown, and Dillon Powers), and one player who had a solid run (Taylor Kemp).
Return on Investment: 4 of 38, or 7 of 38 if you count the hyped players’ better season(s).
2014
Out of 38 available picks, I found: two stars (Andrew Blake and Aaron Long), two bonafide starters (Steve Birnbaum and Daniel Lovitz), and six bubble starters (Tesho Akindele, Nick Hagglund, Patrick Mullins, Marlon Hairston, Tommy MacNamara, and Chris Duvall).
Return on Investment: 10 of 38, if with considerable stretching (I mean, I like Duvall, but...).
2015
Out of 42 available picks, I found: 1 star (Cyle Larin), two bonafide starters (Tim Parker and Cristian Roldan), three solid and once-solid players (Khiry Shelton, Matt Polster and Axel Sjobeg), plus two bubble starters (Fatai Alashe and Saad Abdul-Salaam).
Return on Investment: 8 of 42, viewed through rose-colored glasses.
2016
Out of 41 available picks, I found: 1 star (Jack Harrison), 3 starters/regulars (Keegan Rosenberry, Fabian Herbers, and Richie Laryea), and…uh…
Return on Investment: 4 of 41.
2017
Out of 44 available picks, I found: five starters/regulars, several quite good (Jeremy Ebobisse, Lalas Abubakar, Jackson Yueill, Julian Gressel, and Jonathan Lewis) and 1 solid regular (Jake Nerwinski).
Return on Investment: I'd call that a solid 6 of 44.
2018
Out of 46 available picks, I found: three starters/regulars (Chris Mueller, Brandon Bye, and Joao Moutinho), and two bubble players (Mason Toye and Mo Adams).
Return on Investment: probably closer to 4 of 46.
2019
Out of 48 available picks, I found: five regular starters (Frankie Amaya, Andre Shinyashiki, DeJuan Jones, Chase Gasper and Hassani Dotson).
Return on Investment: 5 of 48. Also, pending to a fair extent due to the short timeline.
2020
Out of…oops, forgot to write it down, but also, that was last fucking year people. At any rate, here’s what I found: two names I recognize (Daryl Dike and Henry Kessler).
Return on Investment: Pending, but I'd expect something along the lines of 2016 forward.
I’d say I oversold a couple of those classes (I’m looking at you, 2014 and probably 2015) and, in fairness, I left off a fair number of names for whom people could make a decent case for inclusion. The more fundamental reality: I’d say two-thirds of the players picked in the draft are names even the most wired fans heard on draft day and a handful of times after that - i.e., one can’t say they “made it” in MLS. After that, it’s a collection of rare subs, and even more infrequent starters - basically, guys who delayed the trip to lower leagues (or sales departments) a little longer than the others. Moreover, the star power in that list doesn’t sparkle so bright, and that’s why I value the SuperDraft more for its place on the domestic soccer calendar more than I’ll ever value it as an event.
Also, because I decided to look into it, below is a list of all the players the Timbers and FC Cincinnati have drafted since 2012:
Portland Timbers
Andrew-Jean Baptiste and Brendan King (2012)
Dylan Tucker-Gangnes (2013)
Schillo Tshuma and Aaron Long (2014)
Nick Besler, Andy Thoma and Christian Volesky (2015)
Ben Polk and Neco Brett (2016)
Ebobisse and Michael Amick (2017)
Umm… (2018)
Ryan Sierakowski and Lennart Hein (2019)
Aaron Molloy (2019)
By my count, that’s one damn good player (Ebobisse), one damn good player who never played for the Timbers (Long), one semi-regular player (Baptiste), and then a bunch of names rarely or never associated with the first team, and even then only in preseason or as subs. It is very hard to get excited about that...
FC Cincinnati
Amaya, Logan Gdula, Tommy McCabe, Jimmy Hague and Ben Lundt (2019)
Rey Ortiz (2020)
Basically, the same as above, despite the smaller selection, and I still don’t entirely know what the hell I'd do with Amaya if I was coaching the team. To bring the whole conversation full circle, here’s to hoping Calvin Harris becomes a great one for FC Cincy. If he does, he’ll follow in the footsteps of other early draft picks like Ebobisse and Larin…going the other way, Darren Mattocks got picked at No. 2 as well (Class of 2012) and Abu Danladi was the No. 1 pick of 2017.
Overall, if you’re looking for the future stars of MLS, look elsewhere. Which I’ll do now with some random notes from around the league.
MLS Grab-Bag
Heir to the Benny Ball Empire
DC United finally landed its new head coach, an Argentine by the name of Hernan Losada. He comes over from the Belgian league (Beerschot was the team) and, based on reporting by The Athletic ($ site), rather abruptly. Still, he sounds like the very modern model of a Major League Soccer coach (“his attacking mindset and uptempo, press-oriented principles”), and at least one thing he said makes me think he might break the Benny-Ball curse in DC:
“The only thing that matters is the result. I’d rather win 5-4 than 1-0 every single game. We don’t need to forget that supporters go to the stadium to be entertained, and we need to entertain them.”
I know. They all say that. Regardless, if I was a DC United fan I’d be happy for just about any change…
Moneyball Explosion in Houston
I mentioned Parker’s trade a couple miles up above, and he did move last week - only he went to Houston Dynamo FC. That was just one of a flurry of moves by a Houston team that appears to be following the money-ball path of trading within MLS that has brought the Colorado Rapids…a version of success. Other new additions include: Derrick Jones (from Nashville SC), Fafa Picault (from FC Dallas), Maxi Urruti (from Club de Foot Montreal) - all in addition to getting Joe Corona from the Los Angeles Galaxy earlier.
For what it’s worth, I'm more comfortable making sense of trades like these than scouting random dudes via Youtube clips…which isn’t to say all these trades make sense. Put it this way: if you told me Portland or Cincinnati was picking up any of those players, I’d be fine with it in the case of the former (while asking sharp questions about what Portland gave up) and pretty damn happy in the case of the latter (reliving the happy hour I had thinking Cincy had landed Parker…). From Houston’s particular point-of-view, however, they better have something up their sleeve, because these moves won’t do nearly enough to bump them higher in the Western Conference hierarchy.
Ugly Duckling Jordan Morris Becomes a Swan ($ site)
I don’t know what the move means for Swansea City - don’t follow the Prem fer shit - but I don’t see Seattle replacing Morris easily. Beyond posting real numbers for the Sounders, he was a persistent pain in the ass in terms of stretching the field for an attack that feasted on space.
Another Yank Comes Home
I’d be less salty about seeing Bobby Wood sign with Real Salt Lake ($ site) if Cincinnati (who really need the help) hadn’t already failed. RSL has been an imperfect machine since their glory days, but they’re also somewhat consistently just a couple pieces shy of becoming evil again. This feels like a good signing for them and a bad one for the teams that struggled against RSL (e.g., Portland lately).
Finally, the First Clear Sign of Competitive Soccer
It’s depressingly possible that fans of the domestic league won’t see a competitive game of soccer until early April (the U.S. Men versus Trinidad & Tobago does not count), but at least the CONCACAF Champions League has finally named a date, any date. April 6, people, because who gives a shit about the draw (February 10th, in case you do)? It’s gonna be a while, but an oasis has been sighted.
That’s it for this week. I can’t help but think these posts will be thinner going forward, maybe even non-existent here and there. To return to the broad concept of rituals, tracking the silly season is how I prepare myself for the real one…I just need certain things to work with, dammit. With that, till next Saturday, or maybe beyond.
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