"FEATURE: Nick Lima selected as Honorable Mention for Rookie of the Year by Goal.com" (SJEarthquakes.com - Wednesday, 11/8/17) GO SAN JOSE EARTHQUAKES!!! -G
Am I the only one deeply disturbed by the fact that the only metrics they used to judge defenders by was minutes played, goals, and assists? I know it's a trend to basically dismiss defensive contributions entirely when rating any and all field players, but that piece was just sad.
Yes, it would be interesting to see how many times they were beaten on a dribble, or how many crosses came in from their side, and most importantly, how many goals/assists came from their side. If you ever watch a Seattle Seahawks game they often show how many times an opposing quarterback throws to Richard Sherman's side of the field compared to the other side. They usually avoid him like the plague. Are certain MLS defenders "avoided" more than others??
Same here. We do really have a dearth of defensive stats. People sometimes resort to counting the number of goals the team gives up while the player is playing, which is a very poor way of assessing a defensive player. There are things like interceptions and clearances and tackles, but that is not nearly enough.
My eyeball test, which is certainly flawed, would venture to guess that Lima was maybe even, but probably negative in terms of overall contributions. He got beaten all the time down the wing. I would also be pretty confident saying that yes, certain defenders are probably avoided more often than others. You can observe this happen during games. One of the tells is if attacking players swap positions in an effort to mismatch the best attacking player against the weakest defending player. Whether specific game management points to larger trends that pinpoint defenders that are considered more league wide as difficult to beat, I'm not sure. The imbalanced schedule could make that difficult to determine since teams don't all play each other with the same frequency, nor is every team constructed the same way and may not run into problems that another team might.
Nats call up!!!!! https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/01/08/earthquakes-defender-gets-national-team-call-up/ Count the days before he gets traded away.
Really stoked Lima got the call up. I'm sure Wondo will give him the run down on what to expect. The timing of the January camp is difficult... tough for players to be thrown into a hyper competitive grueling nats training environment before starting their club preseason training. Hopefully he was training for the potential call up. I hope he shines and most importantly comes back completely healthy.
I think this could work out great for both the Nats and Quakes. Hopefully, he comes into training for the Quakes in great shape, and he should have a renewed appreication for the Bay Area after having been through two weeks of training in Carson.