I think they're going to add some more metrics, so maybe the direction of the pass will be part of it. We'll see. He is not bad in terms of "opponent's half" vs. "own half".
The list was not a rank of "best players", it was a list of most accurate passers. I've seen people here posting that Baca's passing is poor in terms of giving the ball away, and it's just flatly untrue.
I have a purely technical question. So let's say Baca passes the ball back to a streaking defender, but he does so in his opponent's half. Wouldn't that still count as opponent's half in the stat? If this is the case, then this isn't a very meaningful metric.
It's not clear whether a pass that crosses the midline would be considered to be on the side of where it was passed or on the side of where it was received. But I think they are going to account for "direction" in a future article so we might see something there. I know that I've looked at Baca's pass direction in the past for various games and they are mostly forward, despite what some here would claim.
I would say that passing the ball in any direction in the opponents half would count as a pass made in the opponents half, and it should because otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. How much useful information can be gained by calculating that particular statistic is certainly up for debate, however. Frankly, I'm not sure I completely understand the obsession with forward passing versus backward/sideways passing. The direction isn't really the important thing. What is important is where are opportunities being created. If you create an opportunity by passing slightly backward to an oncoming defender who then sends a cross into the box, should that be counted negatively? What if you pass back to a defender who then passes out wide to the midfielder on the other side of the field where there is space to go forward? It seems a lot of people want to equate passing back with negativity and that is not always the case. Circumstances dictate the direction of pass and type of pass. If you have no options going forward you aren't going to pass in that direction and I would argue the space between the forwards and midfielders often meant that there were no reasonable passes to make going forward for either Cronin or Baca. That's an organizational thing, not a player ability thing.
You have a point. I think Baca is subpar, but I admit he is good about maintaining possession. That being said, a lot of the people ranked below him on that list would be excellent upgrades in his place.
Circumstances are a factor, but player style and tendencies are another. Put Tressor Moreno in Baca's spot, everything else the same, and you'd get a completely different distribution
Yeah, they definitely aren't mutually exclusive. But Moreno didn't stay on with the team and stopped getting playing time. To me, that indicates that they (meaning the coaching staff) wanted to play the way the Cronin-Baca pairing played as it was more conducive to getting opportunities for the type of forwards the team had. I said it before, but I don't really think the issue lies in the midfield so much as it does the forwards. Getting balls on the ground to guys like Lenhart and Gordon doesn't yield as high a return as putting balls in the air to them does. Based off observation, it seems Wondolowski fits into that category as well, although that's a hunch so feel free to correct me. It might help to have a midfielder who can shoot and play through the middle when the opportunity arises, but if that midfielder isn't playing well or is getting marked out of the game, then the service (which is probably already not as good as wide service) dries up very quickly. There are endless scenarios for this, of course. You can have the outside backs used for wide service, but then you have to think about covering for them with the attacking mid, who may not be in a good position to cover that area, or risk going with three at the back for a stretch. So what I'll say is, to a certain extent, yes, player ability will determine how the ball will be moved, but substituting in an attack minded midfielder won't suddenly solve all of the "problems" that the Quakes have faced as many people seem to think it will as it requires a serious rethinking of the defensive scheme. Defense wasn't exactly the team's strong suit up until recently, so I don't know that the Quakes look to move away from an organization where there are plenty of bodies to slide into positions left open.
I wasn't making a value judgment on player tendencies / style or making any suggestion about style, just making the comment that what actually occurs is a combination of "system" and surrounding players and player tendencies. It's kind of the analog of "nature vs. nuture". Is the behavior a product of the surroundings or "innate"? :--). I was not a big fan of the way Moreno played for the Quakes FWIW. He was not very mobile, and tended to take big risk with his passes that seemed to rarely pan out.
They seemed to rarely pan out, to me, because they looked like a good idea, but the pass was into the ether, rather than anywhere near the player who might have benefited...
Supposedly Seattle is shopping EJ. He's fills a need on the Quakes in terms of his skill set, but please, just say no!
No thanks, but I will admit...he's pretty good when he wants to be. I'd love to think what would happen in the event of a Lenny/EJ trade. LOLOLOLOLOL.
Seattle GM recently admitted that Seattle's locker room chemistry wasn't exactly great this year, and got worse after Dempsey joined. I'd be willing to bet that part of that was EJ resentment of the Dempsey contract.
"Yeah, we had locker room problems, I don't want to name any names.. ::coughEJcough:: So, you interested in trading us for EJ?"
Or maybe just the fact that Dempsey had one goal in 651 minutes and only 7 shots on frame from 32 attempts. I hate playing the game of trying to figure out what was going on with players in terms of chemistry and all that because it's basically impossible to know the details of what a human being is feeling, but I'd be willing to bet more than the inclusion of Dempsey and his ridiculous salary was that the team just wasn't very good for some long stretches during the season. Look at how the Quakes deteriorated after their poor start. Had they been playing well and winning games, there'd be no story for "journalists" to talk out of their rears about except to maybe praise Seattle as being super awesome. While a player like Johnson might be a good match in terms of ability and figuring out what's needed, I don't think the Quakes would make a play for him simply for economic considerations. Mattocks would be cheaper, although possibly more difficult to deal with. Apparently his 2012 salary was 100,000.