Should have just DP'd him for a season to see how things worked out. If he wasn't worth the slot cut or waive him, not taking a chance put us in a hole, and know we'll never know
My position requires you to see that players can be crap, but still give you good one-off seasons and never again produce similar results. My position does not just look at the crappiest players of the bunch in RJ, Salinas and Morrow. It looks at the above average players in Dawkins, Chavez, Convey, and Beita too. My position is not just based on what a guy does in the regular season, it's based on what he does in the post season which is just as important, maybe not to you, but it is to me. My position does not place a higher importance on a poacher in a team with no playmaker. My position takes into account the fact that a team on limited funds cannot spend money on a DP that has little star power, has a poor record thus far in the most important matches, and has a skillset that revolves around having consistent creative players on the team alongside so that his qualities show through. My position does not fit into the box you want to put it in and my position is validated by the fact Wondo this year as a DP is on a strike rate that is one of the lowest for DP's in the league at .39 goals per game, a score percentage that is also low at 10.6 % with 66 shots taken. That's Henry-like production except for the fact Henry is well you know HENRY.
Hey I'm not the one trying make a point that all strikers are equally dependent on service and are fundamentally players that have similar play styles.
It's not for lack of one guy that we suck. Dawkins was not a super hero who could pull us out of our funk. He didn't start in front of Shea last season, until Shea got hurt. We all want some simple answer as to why we are crap, but it's much more complicated than that. If we had signed Dawkins . . . We wouldn't have been able to sign Walmart. No loss there as Dawkins is better and they play the same position, more or less. We wouldn't have been able to sign Goodson. Ouch! We'd have had to cut someone, not a defender because our defender corps are woefully understaffed. We could have signed Stewart and Alas, because they are off budget anyway. So, do you really think that one more quality midfielder would have changed anything? We still played too damn much long ball early, and that killed us. We still had too many starters out injured at the beginning of the season, and that killed us. We still couldn't finish to save our lives, and that killed us. We were unfit at the beginning of the season, and that killed us. Gordon would still have gotten a three game suspension for being stupid, and that hurt. We didn't even try to play possession until after Frank got fired, and that killed us. Frank might not have tried Jahn in central midfield, but he might have, with Dawkins on the wing. Morrow and Beita would still have had atrocious seasons whether or not Dawkins was on the team. Oh, and the refs hates us my precious! And Dawkins would not have changed that either. It's a multitude of things. Even if we had prepared as hard and carefully as we did during the preseason last year, we were still going to have a rough road this season. The coaching staff weighed the opportunity cost of signing Dawkins and chose not to. You can hate the coaches all you want. I hate all of them except for Ian, so you're welcome to join me. But don't reduce this to one mistake. It's not about one misstep, it's about a whole cluster #$%& of missteps. Edit: And it's not about Wolff and Fisher being cheap skates either. There is a salary cap limit. The fact that we over pay certain players is on Frank and JD. This was a perfect storm of screwups. It's not one thing, it's a bunch. Pendejadas en español. go quakes!! Fire Watson!! - Mark
I claim that Dawkins offers a skillset that significantly opens up the Quakes attack, which is the ability to effectively attack in the middle with the ball at his feet. Salinas has tried to do it at times this year, but he is just not on the same level. Most of those Salinas forays will result in him either losing possession or providing a poor final ball. I admire his work rate and tenacity and attitude, but he just doesn't have near the quality that Dawkins has in that sort of attack. This is of course not the only reason that the results are so much worse this year. There are a lot of reasons. But I think it's one of the biggest ones. Chavez has also had a significant drop-off this year, but he can join the party along with Gordon, Morrow, Beita, etc. But Chavez just can't seem to get it going this year like he did last year. He is either suspended or injuried, and when he plays he doesn't seem to have the same kind of speed and determination as last year.
I guess I have to keep explaining myself and be careful to "watch those words" (and I know you are all much too young to have a clue what that might allude to...hint - it's a famous movie). In today's world, being a "billionaire", while something that the majority of us will never accomplish, is not a particularly noteworthy accomplishment. To paraphrase a much overused cliche', a billionaire is the new millionaire. H*ll, everyone around the Bay Aria is a millionaire these days (almost). Having a couple of billion dollars in net worth is more than most have, but it does not put an individual into the same wealth class as those who might truly be super rich. Granted, I should have gone back and re-read my posts, just to be sure I did not contradict my own specific words. That said, I never contradicted my intent. Just for a little comparison. Jeff Bezos, the guy who owns Amazon.com just purchased The Washington Post. He is what I would call "filthy rich". His net worth, at $25 Billion is about 11X greater than John Fisher's. Even at that, he is a long way from being in the same wealth class as people like Larry Ellison, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc. The other thing that seems to go over people's heads is that net worth seldom has a whole lot to do with available cash. Just because someone has assets that are valued so much in excess of their liabilities on a balance sheet, it does not by definition mean they have that kind of cash readily available.
So now you are talking relativism. Well in the world of MLS he's filthy rich because he has enough money in the bank to help MLS buy Dempsey for 9 mil along with the other 18 ownership groups just so another team can use him. Zelaya is worth 200k to buy and a lot less than Dempsey's 4 mil a year salary. This group up until now hasn't bought anyone or signed a big player on a free, yet they have enough cash in the MLS owner's joint-bank account to splash money so that another team gets better and the league (or Fisher and the rest of the owner's) profit. That's the world of MLS is it not? Where the collective (owners) profit together? A world where your team does not necessarily have to try to be an elite club and the owners still profit as a whole?
You have to keep explaining yourself because your argument is ridiculous. According to Forbes, John Fisher is the 670th richest person in the world, the 206th richest in the United States: http://www.forbes.com/profile/john-fisher/. I also strongly disagree with your assertion that almost everyone in the Bay Area is a millionaire. I don't have the time or desire to find the link, but median household income in San Francisco is about $75,000 per year. This is undoubtedly a wealthier than average area, but everyone a millionaire. Not even close. Your steadfast defense of the ultra wealthy reminds me of a poll result publicized during the (too short) Occupy movement: 50% of Americans believe that they are part of the 1% or will be one day. I apologize for the political nature of this comment, but I have to call bullshit when I see it.
This is MLS, not EPL. The teams are even enough that due to what Jazzy described, Wondo can still score on any team while playing for any team, unlike in an unbalanced league. His performance during playoffs though, still remains to be proven.
That's absurd and you know it. Do you know any "only single billionaires" who have never made a a one joke about how much money they have relative to other people? Based on your implications, if you haven't you should get out more....because you haven't spent enough time with any...just because they're poor working class billionares doesn't change reality. Forbes top 1000 ends with a billionare, basically. History being incomparable and having more technology/etc to spend your $ on in an unprecedented larger scale still doesn't change that the top 0.000017% would be in the "filthy rich" range. You make it sound like there are only a few rich people, but the reality is that there are thousands. That being said 2 million $ for a player is a hell of a lot of money even for a billionare, however it's hard to argue that limiting your revenue with an 18K stadium is a smart move, unless it was really that close to a do-or-die situation with the stadium getting built.
Just for fun, my personal filthy rich scale would probably start at around 5-10 million net worth. I really haven't thought about it much...such a pauperous upbringing mine, with such a number you can extrapolate.
If the subject is going to change to relative equity (or inequity) within the league structure, that's another story altogether. The ever murkier realm of "gray area" that is MLS player acquisition procedure clearly becomes more favorable to the "haves" if Dempsey turns out to be some sort of league super star. On the other hand, if he turns out to be just another player, the "others" probably gain some influence at the very least. How John Fisher fits into that is anyone's guess. His money is his money, not the Earthquakes' money, not MLS money. How much of his fortune is even available for such adventure is anyone's guess. Just because he has the assets, it doesn't mean they are available for any use he might personally fancy. Plus, as I stated in another post, assets don't necessarily equal cash anyway. Net worth can disappear overnight without spending a dime (just ask the millions of mutual funds investors and other various investors who lived through late 2008 and early 2009).
You are insinuating I think he has all 2.2billion at his disposal to spend on the team. Of course he doesn't. What can be said is he has enough to chip in with Lew for for Dempsey's transfer. It doesn't matter if the league is in Cuba. The football is fundamentally the same throughout. All players have specific skillsets that have to be taken into account when building the team. In the EPL, Hernadez can score goals for any team too, but just like in England, in the US and every other league worth anything the more limited a player is no matter how good his strength's are will be more dependent on the players around him over the players that are more complete.
Here's a useful guide to economic class from Joe Bageant (RIP): "When you go to work, if your name is on the building — you’re rich; if your name is on an office door — you’re middle class; if your name is on your shirt — you’re poor." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Bageant http://www.joebageant.com/
That's probably not far off the mark, especially if the building doesn't have a mortgage, you also own the ground on which it sits and it's in the Bay Area or New York.
Well, since the owners sign very restrictive franchise agreements, I don't any of them have much to say about how MLS does business. It's not like the league "passed the hat". Besides, when did Fisher start getting involved in the day to day business of the league or the Quakes?