Analysing the MLS SuperDraft: The GA debate

all this nonsense would stop if MLS follows the NBA example and imposes a minimum age requirement. Perhaps no one younger than 21 can play in MLS. This might be beneficial to the league as young prospects are developed in the college game and ready to star. i.e. Luis Silva and Austin Berry. Just a thought and there is already precedent in the NBA. This would make the college game stronger also.

 

And then we lose all of the talented 18-20 year old Americans to European teams. Fantastic. The NBA can get away with it because a) college basketball is still highly competitive, b) college basketball has a lot more visibility than college soccer, and c) for the best young players, the NBA is the only game in town. If a talented young American soccer player can't play professionally in the US, he can play in the Netherlands. Or Norway. Or England. Or Germany. Or Mexico. Or pretty much anywhere.

 

So, while other leagues are requiring mandatory playing time for young players (and Don Garber is considering it for MLS), you want MLS instead to outlaw talented young players? You think MLS would be a better league without players like Andy Najar and Diego Fagundez (and Landon Donovan)? Wow.

You should go explain to Barcelona what idiots they were for letting Lionel Messi start for their team five years before they should have done.

 

That's an asinine idea given the landscape of development worldwide and what our competitors are doing.

People seem to think because we've had some success with players coming through college, it's the best route. It's only the best route because pro development in this country is poor at the moment. Should get better and it's early, but it's poor. What you're suggesting would be a step backwards. A huge step backwards.

You do realize one reason international basketball players are catching up to us is because they turn pro early and are in the pro system or sports academies as teenagers, right? Vlade Divac, Stojakivoc, Tony Parker, Ginobili, Petrovic, Sabonis, Turkoglu, Rubio, and on and on turned pro before most kids here went to college. Rubio started for Spain in the Olympics when he was 16, and was a starting PG at 15/16 in the Spanish ACB, the best basketball league outside of the NBA. But you would have proposed he played at University of Barcelona until 21 instead? It's because they don't have a great college system like we have here for basketball, so they drill players at an early age and concentrate on the sport around the clock to catch up and it's working. But our college system development wise if far behind soccer academies elsewhere. The answer is to find a way to catch up to them, and it'll never happen with the NCAA soccer restrictions and age limits in MLS.

We need an MLS reserve league and/or guys jumping from academies to NASL/USL and playing in pro environments year round. They need more soccer, not less. They don't need to be forced to play in the NCAA setup only a few months a year, that's asinine.

This is the problem, and MLS just lost another great prospect because of the huge development gap, and while it's technically a one year loan, this doesn't happen without an option to buy. If he impresses, he's gone from MLS. And we might see more of this unless MLS gets a legit reserve league. From the man himself:

“We looked at it and it was really probably the best spot for me in terms of my overall development as a player at this point in my career where I am, you know with my age and everything included in that,” Pfeffer told philadelphiaunion.com. “The main thing is I need a place to play games most importantly good competitive games. … In [the MLS] Reserve League, we have 10 and that’s really not enough, not even close to enough.”

 

From a moneyball perspective ENB Sports is exactly right. MLS is overpaying for a lot of younger players that end up never panning out. They could easily stop competing and let Scandinavia run riot on signing our prospects and undercut them when they come back. (See Cody Arnoux/Marcus Tracy) Though I don't agree all players should stay all four years. I think allowing any underclassmen enter the draft at an entry salary is worth looking into.

The downside is it sends a poor message to the more in tune with youth soccer. I know I would lose interest in the league knowing they aren't making an honest effort in acquiring the top talent. It'll be interesting to see if any team becomes successful by avoiding GAs. NYRB is really the only example and they don't have anything to show for it. (LA and Houston both had multiple GAs play key roles in their championship runs) The real question whether the amount they are overpaying worth the "credibility" that the league gets by getting what is perceived as the best talent.

Personally I think the talent depth is rising with time so you will start to see younger and younger players make a bigger impact, so we'll see more success as time goes on.

I still want to know what leagues MLS is going to sell to for all this money. England has that WP issue, German teams seem to be frugal on what they spend transfer fees on, Italy has limited foreigner spots, Mexico isn't really an option for those without Mexican heritage, Spain has had very little interest in our prospects now when they are free, Netherlands aren't buyers, and Scandinavian leagues go after our prospects when they are free. (South America are sellers not buyers) The best thing American prospects have going for them are that they are free, once you put on a price on them they become significantly less attractive.

 

Good point, I read that article as well. It was just a point of discussion. But I do think the teenagers are overpaid in this league.

 

It wasn't sustained success but the Rapids didn't get a single minute of play from a HG or GA player in their 2010 Cup winning year.

 

Marvell Wynne, but they didn't draft him.

 

I meant GA at the time, Wynne was off his GA contract at that point.

 

I'm not criticizing your data. I appreciate it. Instead, I'm criticizing your analysis.
1) The US (and MLS) is a net importer of talent, not an exporter. So if they don't sign GA, which represent a large percentage of the best players available in the draft, they would have to find them from outside the country. Sure GA's are the bargain, that 4-year college drafted players are. MLS structured their entire league to hold down these players wages. This will be the case until there is a demand for these players from outside MLS. Is there similarly sized pool of equivalent 4 year players MLS teams choose not to sign because they paid closer to market rates to keep many of the best younger prospects from signing with foreign teams?

2) You ignore transfer fees in your analysis. I spent a couple of minutes and did a quick search on the GAs and came up with the following tranfers:

Bryan Arguez: $350,000 (DC United to Hertha Berlin)
Eddie Johnson: $6,000,000(Kansas City to Fulham)
Dempsey: $4,000,000 (New England to Fulham)
Freddy Adu: $2,000,000 (RSL to Benfica)
Altidore for roughly $10 million
Maurice Edu £2.6 million
Guzan $1.2 million
Tim Howard $4 million
Bakary Soumaré $2,14 Million

My quick addition tells me that this is over $30 Million and I probably missed a few. In contrast you advocate signing Wilhelmsson instead. Even without factoring the transfer money, the GA's are probably a better return on investment than the average alternative. When you factor in their actual cost (probably negative - meaning they more than paid for their contracts), there is simply no rational way you can rationally argue foreign replacements would be more cost effective.

3) Castrol is an objective measure that doesn't favor GA or non-GA, foreign imports over college players. Rather than argue an opinion as to whether one player was better than another, it provides a measurement we can use, just as money does. Salaries are actually more flawed since they are impacted by imperfect markets.

 

Training over the summer (as opposed to during the school year) and playing in competition are two different things. The NCAA has a really think rule book and a lot of what is in it is filled with irrational logic from unintended consequences

 

Man U is not a representative sample of professional players. You are talking about one of the richest clubs in the world that buys the best of the best. It is only natural that these guys were able to play first division soccer for someone at a younger age than typical players. Why don't you instead look at a more average EPL team like Stoke City (which is still one of the richest teams in the world) and see what the starting ages for more than a few token appearances. The OP overstates a lot of stuff, but there is merit to his point of view toward the value of 4 year college players. MLS executives certainly feel that way.

 

Eddie Johnson went for $2M (£1M) and Clint Dempsey for $2.5M (£1.5M) at the time of their sales.

But I think I do agree with the OP a little - the league has to be smarter when dispensing $200K salaries to these 18-year old kids. The untold portion of the story is that a successful - by whatever measurements you might prefer - MLS veteran will use these kids as leverage in negotiations and that costs the league additional money.

Castrol is easy to explain. They basically have a value based system that rewards each act on the field of play.

Of course, they won't release the details of their formulas because that's a proprietary information, much like the New Coke.

 

Nobody is saying to get rid of the college system; it's not ideal, but it's the best development option we have right now for players who won't fit on an MLS roster. ENB is the one arguing that we should scrap the academies and use college soccer exclusively.

That said...you're welcome to run the numbers on Stoke yourself. Robert Huth got his first start for Chelsea at 17; Wilson Palacios most likely got first-team minutes at Olimpia before turning 20; Kenwyne Jones was playing for his country as a teenager; Michael Owen was starting for Liverpool at 17.

Jamie Ness, Liverpool, 19, N'Zoni, Blackburn, 19 (or 20?), Charlie Adam, Rangers, 18 or 19, Peter Crouch, QPR, 19 or 20, Thomas Sorensen 19, Cameron Jerome 18.

Then, of course, there's Mo Edu...who was GA.

As far as I can tell from a quick look, Geoff Cameron is the one player on the Stoke City roster who, at the age of 18 or 19, wasn't signed to a professional contract and training full-time with a professional team. A few of them may have been loaned out to League 1 or playing for their club's academy teams, but they were training full-time and playing games.

Again, saying that players aren't playing in the top division, or aren't playing for the senior team every week, is not the most relevant question. They were training full-time with professionals, which is not something you get as a college player, no matter how many games you play.

GA is not a short-term investment. And yes, Altidore was GA; he graduated in 2008.

If you can tell MLS in advance which hot young prospect will actually fetch a big transfer fee, so they can only sign those, my guess is they'll pay you very well for it. That's the way all player development works: you sign a lot of promising kids, some of them pan out, some of them don't.

Last year, not counting homegrowns, MLS was paying 21 ungraduated GA players an average of about $150,000 apiece. If one of those is the next Jozy Altidore, the program will pay for itself on transfer fees alone.

And, again, transfer fees are not the only, or the best, measure of player value. When a team refuses a transfer fee, that also tells you that the player has value to the team over and above the salary the team is currently paying them.

 

Just because you don't sell something doesn't mean it has value. In fact, the better value a player is compared to his contract cost, the less likely you are to sell him.

I don't know what you're trying to say here.

False. Already demonstrated.

There is no proof that it doesn't, and there is pretty strong evidence that it does. You have yet to address the fundamental common sense idea that a player will develop more with full-time professional training than he will with part-time training that's limited to a few months a year.

That's an impossible question to test directly, because you don't have access to a Landon Donovan who turned pro later or a Geoff Cameron who turned pro earlier. What we can demonstrate is that four-year college players aren't achieving as much as players who turned pro earlier than 22 or 23, as measured by national team caps, at least.

 

It is an interesting debate. But something that seems to be lost is it is not an "either or" scenario. You con't take away the money for GA and put it into salaries elsewhere. If you cancelled the GA program that money is likely gone. It is a subsidized program (how much from Adidas is open for debate). So given that, regardless of whether you think the relative value of a particular player matches the salary, you have lost little in providing the salary.

 

1) Once again you keep comparing GAs to 4 year players MLS gets through the draft. Do a search, I've argued those guys were under paid for years. There is a limited supply of MLS capable players available from 4 year drafts. So to continue to point out the Tim Ream got a transfer fee means you don't understand the market place. What is the transfer fee MLS has received from the out of contract 32 year old guys they've signed? That is what you need to compare to.

2) You make another poor assumption that if MLS doesn't sign these guys they will stay in college. Look at Zardes. MLS would love to sign him but he is looking elsewhere. The Yanks abroad is filled with younger players willing to try their luck.

3) Your analysis only focuses on the top players and leaves out the large number of 4 years players that are paid but don't really contribute anything. How much has MLS spent the Dan Keats of the League since 2007 or old foreign guys like Etienne Barbara?

 

First you make it sound like the GAs are all going for $200K. The reality is that only 3 of the GA were paid over $100K in the 2012 draft and only Wenger at $202K was paid over $200K.

1) You make the argument that something has no value unless you try to sell it. Try making that argument to all the people that own houses in this country. The reason teams don't sell is because the replacement cost for a similar player is much higher. So unless the player is really unhappy (Dempsey and effectively goes on strike) or the deal is too good to turn down (Altidore), MLS teams are happy to hold onto the players they have.

2) Not sure your about your second point. But at this point, the value for college/American players is not that well established. This is quickly changing.

3) If you run the numbers you will find that neither are players signed from leagues outside the US. How is the output of Boyd, Marquez, Frings, Koevermans, Hassli etc. been compared to GAs?

4) I'm with you on 4. The key word however is "bench." Most GAs don't end up on the bench.

5) Seriously, what is your basis your last argument? First of the the player who could sign a contract and loses money during that period. If he's not ready to play and his contract is small and thus fails to develop then he loses. But if you are a guy like Altidore and people are going to put you in the line up and pay you millions of dollars you clearly are a big loser if you stay in college and play for free with less games, weaker competition and less practice. You really need to brush up on the concept of opportunity cost. Much of your analysis fails to take this into consideration.

 

The OP continues to neglect that part of the analysis as well. Years ago I had an argument with with people who claimed that US players were over paid when in reality just the opposite is true as the OP argues. MLS went through great pains to make sure US college players are paid as little as possible. However, for players from the rest of the world they need to pay close to what players can get in other markets and most people realize many of those markets will pay much higher than MLS will.