Average age of MLS players

[kenntomasch]

I found that I couldn't get my spreadsheet to accurately figure the age of someone born after the date in question - everybody whose birthday was July 1 or after was a "year" too old, so I had to go back through and revise those downward to get the player's actual age on July 1.

So, anyway, revising your figures would seem to get us to about the 26-27 range, right? Which is in line with the other numbers. I'm seeing a trend here. I've found some more A-League birthdates, but I doubt I've got half the guys in the league yet.

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by kenntomasch
Trying to do the same type study on the A-League is not quite as simple. While their stat-keeping is much improved over several years ago, I'm still not 100% sure of them, and it's hard to track down players' birthdates. Some teams don't have birthdates on the rosters listed on their websites.

I've only been able to track down birthdates for a little less than half (225 of 476) of the players who played in the A-League this year.

They ranged from 36-year-old Scott Benedetti of Portland to 18-year-old Sita-Taty Matondo of Montreal.

The average age of those 225 players was 29.5.

49 guys were 30 or over (as of July 1, 2003). Only 11 were under 21.

Again, that's with less than half of the precincts reporting.

Adjusting for playing time, the average drops a bit, to 26.7.

Kenn, the player ages are listed on the uslsoccer.com website. Just click on team and then on an individual player; except for a few exceptions (mainly Riverhawks, unsurprisingly), they're all there.

Using July 1 2003 as the cutoff, I got radically different numbers: 25.8 average age, minutes adjusted average of 26.3. Way lower than I would have guessed.

Scott Benedetti and Sita-Taty were still the oldest and youngest, respectively. The Canadian teams clearly have a whole lot more very young players than the rest of the league - the only team that comes close to competing is El Paso.

[kenntomasch]

Wow. Well done. Thanks. I'll run those numbers, and if you want to exchange data, send it to me at kenn@mc.net. Thanks.

Not surprising that your average age would be lower than mine, but it's interesting that the adjusted for minutes figure is almost identical to mine.

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by kenntomasch
Wow. Well done. Thanks. I'll run those numbers, and if you want to exchange data, send it to me at kenn@mc.net. Thanks.

Not surprising that your average age would be lower than mine, but it's interesting that the adjusted for minutes figure is almost identical to mine.

I don't know, I wouldn't have expected the average age and minutes-adjusted average age to have been as far apart as you got. If there are all these old players in the league who aren't getting played, what are they doing on rosters? I'm sure they get paid a good deal more than the 22 and 23 year old's just out of college. I'd be very surprised if the A-league, like MLS, ever had an average age older than its minutes adjusted average age - you're a lot more likely to keep a young player not getting playing time on your squad than you are to keep a 35 year old.

[kenntomasch]

Remember, mine was based on less than half of the players in the league. When I double-check mine against yours, we'll see what we get. And I've asked my guy at USL for the birthdates of the missing guys.

Thanks.

[kenntomasch]

Just going through your list and my list off the top of my head I can see a few differences in our methods:

1 - You've got guys who played for more than one team counted with each team, and, in effect, counted twice. I combined all the stats of players who played on more than one team into one "season" line for each player, and only counted him once.

2 - You've counted guys who didn't play any minutes. For my purposes, at least, I'm not counting anybody who didn't play a minute, partly because if I do that, I know I'm missing a lot of guys who may have been on a roster but didn't make it onto the USL website for some reason, but more importantly because I really don't care about a player if he doesn't play. It's not really that relevant if a team has a 30-year-old guy who is an orange cone or a 21-year-old guy who is an orange cone. The players who play (even briefly) are the meaningful ones to me.

I'm not sure how big an effect that will have, but we'll see.

[kenntomasch]

With serious thanks to ChrisE, I now have birthdates for 472 of the 476 players who played in the A-League in 2003.

The average age of those 472 players as of July 1, 2003 was 25.39.

Weighing the age for playing time, the average was 26.01.

Makes sense. I would imagine the second level would be slightly younger than the one above it. And even if the PDL wasn't by mandate predominantly a U23 league, that average should be even lower. If anyone wants to try their hand at that study, be my guess. The PDL average is probably between 20 and 21. Just a guess.

Number of players of each age:


Age...#
18....2
19...13
20...10
21...19
22...63
23...59
24...54
25...53
26...56
27...31
28...16
29...24
30...19
31...14
32...18
33....5
34....9
35....4
36....3


The big clump was from 22-26 and then there was a significant drop. It makes sense that there would be a lot of 22-year-olds - that's usually the age at which you graduate from college.

This is some valuable information that I don't think anyone has ever put together before - thanks to Chris and Phil for their work on this and the MLS age study.

[Karl K]

Very interesting information...thanks guys.

I wonder if, in the A League, the steep drop off at age 25, 26 is attributable to what I might call call the "career come to Jesus moment."

You've been playing since you got out diapers, you've been a star at club, in HS, probably in college, but you've plateaued. There's never gonna be Europe for you, never a national team cap -- you look at the guys who are 30, 32 years old, maybe they've postponed kids, a real family life, and you say to yourself -- "Gee, enough already. Time to get a normal life, a real job."

Anyway, just a thought.

[kenntomasch]

There is also that moment when the team owner cashes in his chips.

The A-League has been relatively stable the last couple of seasons (before this one), but has about a third fewer teams than it had at its peak.

I wonder if marginal players go by the wayside when their teams fold, if they're not good enough to be in a reduced A-League.

We'd have to check to see if those type players drop to D3, or if they give up the ghost, or go play in the MISL, or what.

[ChrisE]

This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere else. I thought I'd take a look at who was joining MLS and who was leaving it - how the demographics were changing. I'm going to start just with 2003. This year, by my admittetly unreliable count, 68 players entered the league who had never played here before; four guys didn't play in 2002, but did in 2001 (Ching, Bardales, Burciaga, Cassar); I'm leaving them out. Meanwhile, coincidentally, 68 players departed the league. Of those 68, 21 appeared only in 2002. Of those 21, 10 were Americans.

By nationality, you've got 43 Americans leaving (assuming Brian Piesner and Dustin Sheppard are Americans?) Of the remaining 25, 10 were latins, 6 were africans, 5 europeans, 3 from the caribbean, and 1 was canadian.

Of the 68 joining: 45 were Americans, 10 latins, 7 Europeans, 5 Africans, 3 Caribbean, 1 Canadian, 1 Asian.

Frankly, the balance we're keeping there is pretty amazing.


Alternatively, the average age of the departees was (counting from June 1) 29.1, while the average age of the new blood was 24.2. How did these break down?

Departees:


22 - 3
23 - 9
24 - 7
25 - 4
26 - 3
27 - 8
28 - 2
29 - 5
30 - 3
31 - 3
32 - 6
33 - 2
34 - 5
35 - 1
36 - 4
37 - 0
38 - 1
39 - 1
40 - 0
41 - 1

foreign departees:

23 - 2
24 - 4
25 - 1
26 - 1
27 - 5
29 - 2
31 - 1
32 - 3
33 - 1
34 - 2
38 - 1
39 - 1
41 - 1


Arrivals:

16 - 1
17 - 2
18 - 1
19 - 0
20 - 4
21 - 10
22 - 21
23 - 7
24 - 4
25 - 4
26 - 5
27 - 2
28 - 2
29 - 1
30 - 0
31 - 1
32 - 3
33 - 1
34 - 2
35 - 1

Of the foreign arrivals:

20 - 1
21 - 1
22 - 4
23 - 3
24 - 3
25 - 2
26 - 4
27 - 2
...
31 - 1
32 - 2
33 - 1
34 - 2
35 - 1

By my count, the only player who departed because he was sold, last year, was Mamadou Diallo. Additionally, I believe only 3 more left for Europe - Luchi Gonzalez, Matt Jordan, and Wade Barrett. All four went to Scandinavia.

Meanwhile, of the players we added, the league paid for (I believe): Jose Cancela, Hong Myung Bo, Toni Nhlecko, Amado Guevara, Jonathan Bolanos, and Galin Ivanov.

[Karl K]

Originally posted by ChrisE
This seems like as good a place to put this as anywhere else. I thought I'd take a look at who was joining MLS and who was leaving it - how the demographics were changing.

Great stuff Chris.

My gut has told me that the MLS is turning into a "young player's league" -- I would bet more than any other 1st division professional league worldwide.

That 46 of the 68 players who entered the league were 23 yoa or younger would seem to suggest that this is the case. Or course, it would be helpful to compare such "entry" ages to other leagues, probably modified somewhat for the effects of promotion.

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by Karl Keller
Great stuff Chris.

Thanks Karl.


My gut has told me that the MLS is turning into a "young player's league" -- I would bet more than any other 1st division professional league worldwide.
That 46 of the 68 players who entered the league were 23 yoa or younger would seem to suggest that this is the case. Or course, it would be helpful to compare such "entry" ages to other leagues, probably modified somewhat for the effects of promotion.

I think we're becoming more oriented towards young players (clearly), but I think you may be overstating things a little bit. I took a look at Cruzeiro's website, considering that, since they're the Brazilian champions (I believe) they would probably be one of the older teams. Maybe they're not, but I don't think there's any reason they would be particularly young.

The average age of the players on their first team roster is 21.9! They don't list minutes played, but they do list games played; if you weight the ages by games played, the age rises to a geriatric 22.5. I don't think that MLS is ever going to get to that point, and I don't think there's any reason to really hope for us to.

Cruzeiro Estatisticas (http://www.cruzeiro.com.br/cruzeiro/profissional/estatisticas/)

[mpruitt]

Originally posted by ChrisE
Thanks Karl.

The average age of the players on their first team roster is 21.9! They don't list minutes played, but they do list games played; if you weight the ages by games played, the age rises to a geriatric 22.5. I don't think that MLS is ever going to get to that point, and I don't think there's any reason to really hope for us to.

Cruzeiro Estatisticas (http://www.cruzeiro.com.br/cruzeiro/profissional/estatisticas/)

I absolutely agree with you. Interesting look at the Brazilian league which essentially an all out feeder league for Europe. In terms of discussing a 'youth movement' it'd be interesting to look at the average age in the Brazillian leagues over the past 5,10,15 years, or whatever other point might be good to look at how econmics have affected that league visa vie average ages.

[whip]

Originally posted by Karl Keller
Maybe I should have said "mean."

Over the next few years I think you will see the following three trends:

--more players will skip college and go pron at 18 and younger

--teams will build like the Fire did this year, with a core of 4 or 5 veterans and with lots of cheap young players

--fewer players over 33, and certainly fewer international players over 33. 18 players in the league were over 33. I wouldn't be surprised if that number drops to 10 or ( one per franchise). Preki will be the last 40 year old in the league.

I really hope to see this very soon, what about some movement on the coaching staff???

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by beineke
Me too, though I think the average might be masking some interesting effects. My belief (which needs to be verified) is that while the average was staying constant, the US player pool was simultaneously getting both older and younger.

At the outset, the great majority of US players in MLS were in the age range from 24 (McBride, Armas) to 31 (Doyle, Trittschuh). As this generation got older, we had a gradual increase in the numbers of over-30 players. At the same time, the league also began to add players like Corrales, Olsen, Wolff, etc., who were able to start contributing as college-aged players. Perhaps the story isn't a shift in the average, but rather a widening of the age range?

I did my best to figure this out, beineke, and it looks like you're right. I used as my sample all US players who played 500 or more minutes in a season (I'd defined US-players as guys who significantly developed in the US, so Preki, Dooley, and maybe some others were left out).

For the first seven years (not six, surprisingly), the average of this group stayed pretty much the same. However, every single year until 2002, the standard deviation increased (I know I should have adjusted this for sample size, but don't know how). Anyway, here is how things went:


Year Age N St. dev
1996 26.21 124 2.92
1997 26.37 122 3.30
1998 26.55 142 3.62
1999 26.46 143 3.78
2000 26.39 149 4.11
2001 26.43 137 4.21
2002 26.49 116 3.93
2003 25.60 121 3.98


The drop in average age in 2003 is very very impressive.

I made histograms of each year, but unfortunately bigsoccer doesn't have graph capabilities, so you'll have to settle for yet another chart:


1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003
16 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.5 0.7 0.0 0.8
17 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.7 0.9 0.9 0.6
18 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.2 1.5 0.6 3.5
19 0.0 1.2 0.0 1.0 0.3 1.8 1.3 1.7
20 0.0 1.8 4.2 2.1 3.5 0.9 2.8 4.1

21 4.8 3.5 7.2 6.3 5.7 6.8 3.9 7.6
22 9.1 10.0 6.2 12.8 11.2 7.7 8.8 8.3
23 12.9 9.4 9.2 9.4 12.8 8.6 7.5 8.1
24 10.3 9.8 9.0 8.2 8.2 11.9 10.1 8.1
25 11.1 10.7 10.0 7.7 8.2 10.8 13.6 11.0
26 8.5 13.1 7.6 8.9 6.9 8.2 12.5 13.0
27 13.3 7.0 11.6 7.2 6.7 5.5 6.3 7.9
28 11.5 8.6 7.2 9.8 5.9 5.3 5.2 4.8
29 7.5 7.6 8.6 4.2 6.9 4.7 5.6 5.2

30 4.6 7.0 6.0 7.7 4.2 7.7 4.1 4.5
31 2.2 4.9 5.8 5.2 5.9 4.6 6.5 2.5
32 3.2 2.0 2.8 5.1 4.0 5.3 2.8 5.2
33 0.6 3.1 1.1 1.9 4.7 2.7 2.8 1.2
34 0.4 0.2 2.6 0.7 1.8 2.7 1.5 0.8
35 0.0 0.0 0.5 1.0 0.7 0.7 3.2 0.6
36 0.0 0.0 0.4 0.3 1.0 0.7 0.0 0.6
37+ 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.3 0.0 0.4 0.0 0.0


And another chart, with ages divided into three groups:


16-20 0.0 3.1 4.2 3.1 5.2 5.8 5.6 10.7
20-29 88.9 79.7 76.6 74.5 72.5 69.3 73.5 73.8
30-36 11.1 17.2 19.2 22.4 22.3 24.8 20.9 15.5


It's quite clear that the teenage set has become vastly more important to MLS over the last 8 years; what's more surprising, in my opinion, is that the 30+ crowd actually played a more important role in MLS in 2003 than they did in 1996.

[mpruitt]

Thats some pretty compelling stuff Chris. I really liked the way you broke it down. You can see wheer that average age drop in 2003 happend, MLS added twice as many young players while reducing the number o older players by 25% or so. Why do you think that 2001 would be the year with the fewest middle aged players? Obviously they're still predominate, and the drop isn't hugely signifigant but why 2001?

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by maxim-1
Thats some pretty compelling stuff Chris. I really liked the way you broke it down. You can see wheer that average age drop in 2003 happend, MLS added twice as many young players while reducing the number o older players by 25% or so. Why do you think that 2001 would be the year with the fewest middle aged players? Obviously they're still predominate, and the drop isn't hugely signifigant but why 2001?

Well, if you notice (and this is only a guess), 20-29 year olds decreased every year from 96-01, and it was at a pretty steady 2% clip from 98-01. I'd guess most of the gain had to do with contraction, as older players got pushed out, and younger players found themselves with more competition.

[beineke]

Originally posted by ChrisE
However, every single year until 2002, the standard deviation increased (I know I should have adjusted this for sample size, but don't know how). Anyway, here is how things went:


Actually, this is ok -- standard deviations are like averages; you can compare them without adjusting for sample size.

BTW in light of your data, I think it's worth looking again at the repercussions of 1998. That was the expansion year, as well as the first year of Project-40.

In the five subseqent seasons, only three age groups have topped the 10% mark in your measure: players who were 21 in 98 (they did it in all five years), players who were 20 in 98 (in three of five), and players who were 22 in 98 (in two of five). I think those youngsters benefited from the added opportunity.

Also, up through 2001, every generation of players shrank from age 23 to 24. On average, the drop was by over 12%.

In sharp contrast, players who were 23 in 2001 contributed 17% more as 24-year-olds in 2002, and players who were 23 in 2002 contributed 8% more in 2003.

To me, this indicates a rapid shift from a seller's market to a buyer's market. Players used to be given the opportunity to play before they had established themselves as MLS-quality. (Why else would they be getting phased out at age 24?)

Today, players have to work their way in ... this means that reserve teams would be an increasingly useful addition.

[ChrisE]

I realize that I didn't really provide as much information as I should have. Because those numbers are focused specifically on the US nats pool (and spec. the US players who got 500+ minutes), it's not exactly possible to interpret trends about MLS in general using them. So, here's a little bit about how the Nats pool compares to the total MLS population:


Year lg min nat min >500 min US % >500 US%
1996 315981 215559 205413 0.682 0.650
1997 316037 218495 211293 0.691 0.669
1998 378028 251416 240246 0.665 0.636
1999 378670 259794 248453 0.686 0.656
2000 387215 273969 265458 0.708 0.686
2001 318993 221996 214674 0.696 0.673
2002 282540 199340 193148 0.706 0.684
2003 306758 222986 215486 0.727 0.702

[ChrisE]

Originally posted by beineke

wisdom


This is really just great analysis, beineke. Thanks.