I understand it fully. Cheap doesn't have to mean stupid. My argument is essentially that paying $430k salary and keeping a boondoggle to avoid paying some smaller buyout, is dumb. If the team is poor the fans will stay away. if the fans stay away the team will hurt on revenue. The Astros displayed this abundantly at the beginning of this decade. They gave up and started spending. The skinflint tightwad idea doesn't work in pro sports when part of what I am paying for is to watch my team be competitive and hopefully win. This is not about sunshine ponies, though I horrifically like to win, as though that is unfair of me to ask. LIMITING PAYROLL OR RELATED ACQUISITION/PARTING EXPENSE AS A PRO SPORTS BUSINESS MODEL IS IDIOTIC. It's basically unilateral disarmanent. Atlanta is not joining you. Your own fans will flee because it's already hot in the summer here and now you're expecting me to back a loser reflexively. I don't expect to win every season. But why do I have to pay to watch a team paying half what the next guy does? I'm not even asking Euro gold plated. I am asking competitive wages. But even failing that I am just asking don't be a self defeating stupid version of moneyball, if that's our game. At least be smart moneyball where at some point a minor cut ties expense doesn't block proper rational roster management. The player was generally horrible except for the odd cross. No effing brainer. I also explained and you did not address my belief that an approach where a moneyball team cannot churn its poor decisions will be fatally crippling to the team's competitiveness because not only will it be at a disadvantage on payroll, it will cripple itself further by tying its hands to move mistakes off roster, thus ensuring that a premise which relies on efficiency -- competing while paying less than the next guy -- will never be met since we have to hold onto any inefficiencies. I also explained how even if we had a handful of good players you would tie your hands to put together a good team to support them by basically giving your mistakes identical tenure as you won't pay to get rid of them. Thus closes any window for success that ever opens. "Well, we have Elis and Quioto and Manotas...." But the team won't do what it takes to shed Lundkvist and other expensive boondoggles to optimize. Then you sell the forwards and that window closes. Congratulations, not only were you cheap but you fumbled away the chance to do something around what talent you do have. That's setting aside unrelated issues of saving a penny that costs a dollar like the academy. It's not just cheap, it's stupid and not profit maximizing.
Re-Entry Draft Stage 1 https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2018/12/13/eligible-players-mls-re-entry-draft-announced Not much there. Given Jordan's tendencies, I wouldn't be shocked if we pick up a bargain bin defender. Kevin Ellis or Jonathan Campbell fit the bill. Usually don't see many selections until Stage 2.
You might want to re-read what I said. I said $200-300k. I never said anything about over his salary. To be clear, I said laid out $1 mil for the guy 6 months ago. You haven't seen much of him (Cabrera has in practice, you haven't). It would be bad business to dump him now given the relative chump change of the difference between his salary and a buy out given you just sank $1 mil in him. That's Chelsea jettison good players within a year because we don't rate them only to have them go elsewhere in the Premier League and tear it up levels of stupid. Now, I assume you probably think they will somehow conjure up a better left back, so just go do it. I labor under no such belief. The odds we upgrade above and beyond this guy at left back seem pretty slim to me.
Waiver draft suggestions McLain GK $67.5 GAA 2018 = 1.20 (wasn't he in camp here one year?) Yaro D $140k 24 y/o Toia D $125k 26 y/o Fisher D $56k 24 y/o Jeffrey M $115 pipeline kid who was in Germany and once in a US camp Villarreal M/F $85k former pipeline player 25 y/o
"Conjure up a better left back?" "Odds we upgrade above ... pretty slim?" Your average competent college draft pick or USL promotion would probably have more appropriate foot speed and defensive skills. Are you kidding me? I hope this is attempted gaslighting of the others -- despite what their own eyes saw -- and not serious argument he's any good. I thought that was repeatedly disproven. How many goals did he give up? Like him, Watts, Leonardo, and Machado. Sheesh. Three of the four are gone. Which of these doesn't belong either? "In practice" when we have watched the games is whacked. That's basically a call to anti-science, the idea that I am somehow disqualified for having only watched the games where he abundantly sucked. No, unless you literally watch his every breath you have to give way to the coach. The other implication here is we let Lundkvist go and he tears up MLS with another team and we regret it. Reality is probably more "Koke." He is too expensive to suck like he does for our purposes, Freddy Adu Stupid to anyone else here, and with a banked deal he has no reason to play here cheaper more like the project he at best would be. So we dump, no one else bites, he goes back to Europe and probably Sweden, market sets his price. He sat behind 98 year old Beasley, struggled when played at LB, couldn't handle the right, seemed lost at mid. We tried. We have him pegged. Move on. I have addressed before the idea of players with flashes of talent. Lopez, Miranda, etc. About everyone at this level offers some flash of something. But he has an expensive contract and it comes down to how useful is a rare left foot assist at that price? No different than any of several kids who have come here who if they had a more rounded game might be world beaters but with their flaws in reality will be lucky to hang on someplace. It's a running game, the inability to keep up dooms a defender. Quit talking Chelsea just because it's my name, like I am burning $100 bills or something. I am doing nothing more than proposing what was done to Koke, Ade, and a list of other flops before......IN HOUSTON. In case you missed my AEG point earlier, it was that this sort of cut bait used to be routine and that rational cull changed when Kinnear and AEG left town. When a player stinks it's your duty to clear house and play the odds of if the next one turns out. You can mock the odds of finding someone else but the odds Lundkvist cost you go closely towards 1. If I know a player sucks any odds that the next one turns out are superior. I thought backing Bruin on this basis held the team back but now you're almost applying it around the field. That's basically paralysis, not analysis.
interesting that juve wants to release or trade everyone on the current roster at significant loss, but wants to bring in this dude. was hot when he was young, has been trash the last 2-3 years. that's why i don't even bother responding anymore.
My offseason critical move under Juve: Cut Seitz & Willis, cut and re-sign Deric at a discounted domestic abuser rate, and sign Brian Perk as a keeper
I mean you can woof all the Juve and Chelsea you want but we don't even act like the old Houston Dynamo that won titles anymore. That team would cut Cerritos, trade Ale, and tear up the deal with Koke after a couple months, if that's what the field product needed. You're suggesting I am asking too much when it's closer to this has actually backslid in terms of cheapness beyond AEG.
The keeper I proposed was in camp here in a recent year. Quit being a d*ck just for the heck of it. I'm at least making suggestions and not spending my time shooting down what others propose. Willis' GAA = 1.62; Seitz = 1.5. On a rational team that would not be "heehee I have a storehouse of great keepers." It would be, "I have a ton of trade bait and hope to god by February I have better net options." I proposed to you a keeper who last year played in 5 games and allowed 6 goals (1.2 GAA) for a team that finished near bottom of the East and allowed 61, nearly 2 a game. Seitz played in 6 games and allowed 9 goals. Seitz makes like 4 times what he does. Are we playing moneyball or what? This is how moneyball works. You know darned well I have said go out and get an entirely different starting keeper. You also know darned well that Deric is now on the cheapest deal of the main 3 and historically far superior on stats. I have a domestic abuse objection as well but rationally the decision should make itself, if you are already past that. The idea I keep the keeper who never gets below 1.5 or 1.6 ahead of the one who has been a lot closer to 1 is stupid. I am not even going to put it in more polite terms. Perk was once the Cropper or Steffen of his day and Arena's pick for LAG backup. For his career he was running a 1.14 GAA. Then he broke his leg. Your rants about this -- implicitly supporting Willis -- are basically crazy talk. This team has disintegrated into a nostalgia exercise where we can't detect what our deficiencies are and get them off the team.
https://www.houstondynamo.com/post/2018/01/23/dynamo-open-2018-preseason-34-players-camp "† Patrick McLain GK 4 29 6-3 205 USA"
The fact that you think I was being serious with my comment only shows you need to loosen your strings a little bit. Right now, I have no expectations for this off season that we end up with exact same squad as last year.... which we've already cut guys I thought needed to go. I actually became a season ticket holder this year.
I always hear about Perk but I also said "draft Joao Plata" and got a list of excuses, international player, too small, etc. 36 G and 33 A later.....
I felt like some of the decisions were right but Lundkvist and Boniek were unwise, together pretty expensive, and of course those two people want to defend. And with the Dynamo there is the ever present risk of them going back to the well even once your contract is nominally up. Like I said, Beasley was in the Christmas video. Back in the day when the team was good, summer was pivotal. Now winter is where we are made or broken. If I am somewhat keyed up and not in a suffering fools place, it's that this is where change can happen and I'm not in a mood to just get a reminder we're cheap and nothing much will change. I've been watching Dortmund this season, so much talent, routinely do what it takes to get a W, I get this is not that but there needs to be at least the feeling we are trying and not cheap to a self defeating level. And it's still to me like I live in a top 4 city and you can't convince me to play along happily like this is some small market like San Jose or Columbus.
Everytime JC brings up a keepers GAA I always flash back to Chivas USA's keeper who had an absurdly high average, yet anyone with at least one eye and a modicum of sense could tell he was one of the best in the league. You just dont understand stats or keepers or defense or all of the above if that is your sole criteria.
You're full of it on GAA. The best keepers on GAA this season are people like Melia, Frei, Johnson, Robles, Guzan, Steffen, Antinella, Hamid. Care to point out for me which of those is a statistical mirage? Oh, but "once some Chivas keeper whose name you can't remember had some fluke" so we should toss out the numbers and their correlation to good keeping and just rely on what our heart says. While we're at it, no keeping track of goals for forwards or assists for middies. Just trust your heart. Pat Onstad's GAA was 1.14. That sound about right? Are you suggesting toss that out? We going to pretend he sucks to make some lame argument in favor of Willis? How about, no keeper here has been a pimple on him since he left. How about, I have had a keeper like that and want another, and think the lame Willis lovefest gets in the way of that. Willis has a very close association with suckage. I could hit you with his GAA first, but let's start with WLT. He has a losing record for his career, 24-41-21. He has a losing record at Houston, 17-27-16. The two years he was starter here, 2016 and 2018, are two of the worst in franchise history. Even in 2017 when we had a winning playoff team he lost more than he won. Deric, same team, good GAA. Willis' career GAA is 1.66, that is, 143 goals in 86 games. Willis' Houston GAA is 1.58, that is, 95 goals in 60 games. Does that deluge not worry you at all? Do you not get it? Not want to get it? WTF dude. Deric has played on lousy Houston teams with lousy defenses just like Willis for years now and only lost 2 more than he has won, with a 1.27 GAA. Does it just not matter to you that controlling for defense in front of them, one guy allows nearly a goal every two games more than the other, and loses a ton more games? Are you that eager to troll me? It's not like we were some awesome defense with him at the helm. In 2018 the Dynamo scored 58, allowed 58. Half of the teams in the playoffs from our conference didn't manage 58 goals. I have previously gone through and detailed all the blown leads, which I think correlates to our GA slippage this season. I explained how you could argue that our defensive slippage was the difference between how the two seasons went. The offense, though sometimes frustrating, actually scored 1 more goal than in 2017. The defense allowed 13 more goals than in 2018. There are only so many potential scapegoats for this. There were limited changes from 2017 - 2018. One, Fuenmayor came in. I don't think that cost us more goals. Two, Wenger stepped in at RB. I don't think that cost us more goals. Three, some of the older backs fell off. Voila. Four, Willis became starter. Deric started last year on up to the playoff series where the domestic abuse hit. Voila. A smart team would clear out every player that makes them worse. I fully understand that defense plays a role as well. However, between the two keepers who have played behind the same shoddy defense, one is much better on both wins and GAA. But I guess you'd prefer us to just give up because the defense is crap, doesn't matter at that point. Well, if you understood the above, in 2017 vs 2018 the main negative defensive personnel change was keeper, and the stats got markedly worse. One team was a conference semi team with one keeper, scoring one fewer goal, other team watched the playoffs, 13 more goals. The thing YOU don't seem to understand, despite having once had Onstad, and surely having watched USMNT, is that a good keeper standing on his head can make a bad team better. The problem with Willis is that he is not making those great saves that bail out a defense. The guy beats Machado, usually he scores. As a defender I know full well that you can have sweepers or keepers who clean up your messes, or ones who basically give up any mistake you make. You can excuse the keeper because I made a mistake, or you can get a keeper who cleans up more mistakes. I think y'all just take the intellectually sloppy easy road of blaming the defense even though the keeper rarely has any dominant nights where he gets the result all by himself. I can remember those kind of nights with Onstad or Deric. The Astros go out and sign good fielders and catchers because you don't just depend on the pitcher to get all the outs. So I am not excusing the keeper because the defense wouldn't be that great anyway. I'd like a fighting chance that if the defense glitches the keeper might clean it up. Or that the keeper alone could get us points some nights. I have made it pretty clear I would start over at keeper, use the names we have as trade bait. Failing that, if Deric is to be part of this team, he is cheaper and better. That should not even be a debate. Even the lamentable Seitz is basically a stats push with Willis, gave up .16 of a goal less per game. When the guy no one wants to start allows a lower goal rate than your starter........QED.
It's not like I am saying run Onstad out of town. I am being critical of a keeper with 14 losses more than wins here and a GAA of over 1.5. In other words on a given night he is more likely to lose than win, and odds are he will allow not just 1, but slightly worse than a coin toss that he allows 2. Only a fool does that to himself on purpose.
I get knocking on GAA as a stat, but Willis is an interesting case because we have a direct comparison in Deric. 2017 Deric is 1.19 GAA, Willis 1.75 GAA. That's more or less behind the same backline. 2018 backline didn't change too drastically absent DeLaGarza. Fuenmayor is an upgrade over Leonardo and Senderos actually saw minutes. I think overall slightly better backline outside of the muddling at right-back and Willis is sitting at 1.61 GAA. Willis to me isn't a great keeper. He can and does make highlight reel saves, but compensates for that by not controlling his area (does not come out and claim crosses) and letting in soft goals (guy gets beat near post way too often for my liking). I don't think he's awful, but I do feel that he is maybe rated better than he is. I feel like the decline in keeper from '17 Deric to '18 Willis is one of the reasons we missed out on the playoffs versus slumming it into the 5th/6th seed. Dan Kennedy is the Chivas keeper that has been mentioned by the way, but I don't know if that's even a fair comparison. Kennedy put together some nice years (1.33 GAA in 2010, 1.21 GAA in 2011) over there before the bottom completely fell out on that team. Then as soon as he made it out of there and to Dallas he put up 1.19 GAA. Also look at the number of saves he had to put up in those shitty Chivas years (100, 109, 104, 93). That's more than Deric had to deal with on the rock bottom 2015 Dynamo I don't think Willis really compares to that. Ideal world I wish we could scrap the keepers and start over. Certainly wouldn't have shed tears if they declined Willis' option.
My bringing up Chelsea (the first time I've ever done it here, by the way, so you can knock off the "quit bringing up Chelsea") has nothing to do with your name. Has to do with being a long time Chelsea fan and former inhabitant of Chelsea within reasonable walking distance of the grounds.
I think you have your finger on Willis' issues. To me he is lumbering. He gets caught in no man's land on breaks and if he has to come off his line doesn't dominate the aerial game, despite his height. He occasionally makes a decent reaction save but to me this is MLS, short of having Tony Caig any keeper good enough to get a 1 shirt is going to look decent sometimes. It's the cumulative failure to do the spectacular. And before you dismiss me for expecting big things, that is in fact the difference between him and the NT quality keepers at the top of GAA. They will get to that low ball to the far side, that ball high up in the upper 90, and not just that point blank reaction save you liked. They will also get to so many balls in the 18 they can thwart a crossing attack by themselves. I mean, most college keepers tend to look pretty acrobatic. I think y'all sell the expectations short. To be fair, Willis is the more accurate and longer distributor. But that's not the primary thing you hire a keeper for. This is kind of disintegrating into the same old keeper discussion, I've said I find Deric now unreliable and suggested flipping everyone but Nelson. I also don't see the point in both Seitz and Willis at substantial salaries if I don't even think either one is that good.
Lundkvist to me is massively overpriced and we'd be lucky to find a taker. But keeper I would think we could move as many as we want and have someone willing on the other end. Someone else can take the chance that Deric personally matures and becomes job-reliable, beyond what he has proved as a keeper. I don't like setting ourselves up for the same pitfalls again. And Seitz and Willis both fit in the trade bait category of not sooooooo expensive but ok, not so great we would be dumb to part but not so good it's wise to keep them. To the team on the other end, just good enough to risk that they get some upside we missed. Same thing, if they want to take that chance, have at it. I think we have them pegged. I'd like for the team to get younger and be built around more of a 5-10 year horizon, start slowly getting good Elis type pieces and build somewhere. I think the way they handled the defense was dumb because the horizon was the fence line basically. They didn't even really get one good year out of that before it cracked and then last year sucked. Boniek was not that bad but to me it's the same short termist mentality. I want a new mid in who is producing for the next 5-10 years. Not let's see if we can milk one more semi productive year from a 34 year old mid. Or 36 year old wingback. At that age the odds are just as likely they end up like AJ two years ago, depended on and then knacked. To be fair, I think they need to take Lundkvist type risks, but they need to be able to move right back out of them if they blow up. The way this team can possibly compete is you get in Elis and Quioto but also some junk one year, you ship the junk back out, try again, maybe a new star or two that next year, ship the junk back out. If we're stuck with our mistakes this is a poor payroll and we can't possibly keep up.
And to me the whole point of 4 keepers under contract is to move someone or 2 or 3. And ideally you don't do that in such a way you literally wind up back with pretty much what you had before.
The guy who scored 21 for us this year had 6 goals when surrounded by rubbish in 2016. Deric's GAA inflated somewhat in 2016 when we had a horrible defense. I understand "grain of salt." I understand some of these stats can in a particular year be not your fault. I am sure if the Astros dismantled half their lineup, the players left behind would hit a lower batting average, because you wouldn't have to pitch the good ones like another good one is next. You could throw Altuve trash and pitch to the next guy, so to speak. But I kind of doubt Altuve suddenly can't hit a ball. But (1) I am not offering silly "value above replacement" type Elias BS and (2) these happen to be the objective metrics available to us goals assists passing percentage save percentage GAA The alternative is you suggesting to me I am not seeing right when every year he starts here -- or anywhere in the league for that matter -- the team struggles and misses the playoffs. Deric gets healthy and doesn't get arrested and we make the playoffs. He gets arrested, Willis goes in, whamo, way down the table. Some of that is defense but not enough. I cannot accept your eye test over what the cold numbers tell me, and more to the point, to be blunt, my eyes tell me something else. I also feel like in the NT context when someone is like, but what would Berhalter be like with a better team, that is sheer speculation. David Moyes with ManU shows where there are no guarantees that someone with "promise" actually takes off when promoted, ie, Peter Principle. I bring that up because Willis is the same thing only worse. Little objective success, bad numbers, but his whole career is not his fault I guess. At a certain point this is anti-science, self serving speculation. "I would like to think with a better team he'd do better." But the thing is you could kind of say that about anyone. It's counter-factual. He was last year on a playoff team and he lost more than he won, had a crap GAA, and got shelled by Seattle. How about, he's a mediocre keeper onto which bad teams latch? Like, no good team is going to try that, but some struggling team will take the risk. So you saying he could take off is me saying he plays for who he does how he does because he is what he is, ie, a player who before we got him spent most of his last season in the minors. I also think we wander towards extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence when it's like, oh, he has this documented statistical history but let us optimistically assume better of the future. Or when the eye test matches his numbers but you're acting like I am imagining things. He's an ok player. A lousy DC team turned him into a backup and then dumped him to the minors before shipping him here. He is serviceable in the spot here. But he now makes starter money for backup numbers. I don't get why this is painfully obvious on Seitz but Willis gets a pass. To be blunt, there has always been a loyalist/ nostalgia driven urge to hold onto security blankets here. It was more supportable when we were winning titles, even if it's objectively wrong. But now it's like the team doesn't even have to be good or their stats impressive to get the reflex. This is not Brian Ching holding the trophies. This is Willis. We're not only pimping tenure on a cheap team that needs to be more nimble and efficient on personnel, we're giving tenure to trash. Like I said the other day, if we can't get the journeymen or busts off the roster in hopes of better, this is probably a terminal midtable team.
The fundamental contradiction on this team in recent years is the misguided belief that I can take your cast offs and beat you with them. The likely outcome of that is actually 2016 and 2018, that if I get Alvarez Ceren Anibaba Horst Leonardo Warner Alexander etc. etc. that what happens is your A team beats my accretion of your B team. Willis is one example of that mentality. This to me is why HGP and the draft are so important, is getting off the scraps treadmill.
https://www.elheraldo.hn/deportes/1...octavo-jugador-hondureño-en-el-houston-dynamo Kevin Alvarez apparently is a done deal. They should put DeLaGarza on the trading block now in my opinion.