Discussion of Mark Lisi on another thread got me to pondering that trade (Lisi and Ziadie for Perez and Villegas). Lisi was a first round pick, #3 overall, and Ziadie was a 3rd round, #28 overall. And what have we got to show for it? As much as what we've got to show for the #11 overall pick this year, Kante? Who or what did we get for Perez? I can't remember. To those of you who know more about this than I do (which is just about everybody) -- is this just plain incompentent drafting, or is it just that there isn't any talent out there? We sure could use the kind of shrewdness or blind luck (I don't know which it was) that allowed Kevin Payne to pull off the Roy for Roy (Wegerle for Lassitser) trade a few years ago, that gave us Rocket Roy for a couple of his most productive years.
The MLS draft has always been a crap shoot. Sometimes players show up big and other times they shrivel on the vine. For every Ben Olsen, there are a bunch of "Steve Shak" or "Jamar Beasley" type players with a bunch of pre-MLS quality but can't handle the big leagues. It seems to be very difficult to actually judge who will succeed and who won't. In foreign countries the formula is something like one in a thousand or so is good enough to play on a youth team, from which a team is expected to get one or two players a year for the first team. Not high percentages at all. So, it is not a surprise that so many college players fail in MLS.
We got Chicago's Second Round 2003 SuperDraft pick. It's probably a wash. If things fall as they appear to be doing right now with the SuperDraft entrants, we'll likely be able to pick up a very good P-40 player with that pick. This means someone who is about what Orlando Perez is as a player, but who counts ZERO on our salary cap, and has a much bigger upside/potential than Perez. Tall fast average skilled defenders aren't easy to come by, but they're also not that hard to find either. If we are lucky and get someone like Hunter Freeman (18 year old freshman defender for UVa) we will have almost a Perez clone athleticly and skillwise immediately. The difference being, Hunter Freeman can play centrally, on either wing, or at Dmid, Perez is strictly a left back. Freeman is probably already as good a defender as Perez, and is certain to get a LOT better over the next few years. He could become a Bocanegra-like organizer, or a Reyes-like attacker, or a Mastroeni-like Dmid. He's really got a future. This draft looks like it'll have more good young talent than any prior SuperDraft. Second round picks in 2003 will likely be guys who would have gone in the first round in previous years. This may be a very very deep draft, with real quality in the fourth round. The Perez trade wasn't bad, but let's see how we use the draft pick before we call it good. Mark Lisi was widely regarded as a good pick under Rongen. His performance since Rongen's departure hasn't been as good. I predict that he'll end up in Colorado and that Hankinson will awaken Lisi's creative skills. Nelsen was a good pick. Last season I think our drafting was fine, although I wasn't happy about Kante at the time. Mapp will become an excellent left winger, but he missed almost all of the season, only joining at the end, and at 17 years old, it's hard to make up for all of that lost training time and jumping from high-school (and USMYT Residency) to MLS. Kante proved us wrong. At New England he's shown more skill than any defenders drafted behind him with the possible exception of Jeff Stewart, and that's still debatable. He is everything Hudson claimed that he was, big, fast, and raw tacticly. As he gets more experience he's becoming a very good player. What we should criticize is roster management, which has everything to do with the Salary Cap. Realizing (my hindsight is 20-20 ) that Kante is a good defender, we should have cut another player and made a roster spot for Kante. We didn't. Then we essentially gave him for free to New England. IMHO, we should have worked out some sort of performance-based compensation at a minimum for his services. As for Hudson's allocation/dispersal picks, he brought in Nick Rimando, and many people criticized him for it, but Hudson was right. He also brought in Lazo Alavanja, who is assistant coach Trask's guy. Hudson depends upon Trask a lot for the day-to-day operations of the team. They work very well together as a staff. One player wasn't going to make or break United IMHO. If you're looking at all of Hudson's personnel moves, we need to look at these too: OUT.......................................IN Carey Talley............................Richie Williams Mark Lisi.................................Petter Villegas Brian Kamler............................Eliseo Quintanilla Craig Zaidie.............................Orlando Perez Chris Albright...........................Milton Reyes Stephen Armstrong...................Brandon Prideaux Mike Ammann...........................Nick Rimando Mark Watson............................Roy Lassiter Scott Vermillion.........................Lazo Alavanja Bryan Namoff............................Henry Zambrano On the whole, I'd say he did a good job of the Player acquisitions. Rimando and Prideaux being his biggest catches (Reyes was in the pipeline pre-Hudson). And, while it isn't really highlighted very often, Hudson has done a masterful job with the salary cap, because all of the new talent is very affordable. -Tron
I'm just wondering if that is the only time Ben Olsen and Steve Shak will be in the same sentence that did not include some reference to burning, or blowing by .....
My 2 cents worth... 1. Yes, the MLS draft is a crapshoot. Plus, whenever you change coaches, there is player turnover. The reality is that coaches prefer certain systems and have favorite players (even the really good coaches). Thus, DCU drafts Pope and Peay in the same draft, both are Olympians, both start as rookies, now Pope is a mainstay of the National team and Peay has been out of soccer for a while. Look at #1 picks. Jason Moore (who was a consensus #1 by everyone), Steve Shak, Chris Carrieri. Even Gbandi (who was a consensus #1) contributed nothing to Dallas this year). 2. Most young players don't work out. I'd read a study recently that someone in the USSF ranks within the state of Virginia did. The guy looked at how many players on the rosters of the youth WC teams had productive professional careers (ie: were starting for professional teams 5 years later--that sort of thing). He discovered that it was an incredibly high dropout rate--something like 80% of the kids on those rosters never made it as pro starters in any league. There was a similar study involving British youth stars which found an even smaller number ever made it to starting roles in the Premiership (a deceptive standard since 1st division teams can can promoted and then go right back down). Can't remember the numbers but it was something in single digits. The big point is: select the best and brightest youth you've got and most of them never amount to anything professionally. 3. Our draft and talent decisions this year were fine. Our biggest decision was made prior draft and dispersal. It was: do you count on Etcheverry, Olsen, Conteh, Quaranta, Convey, Moreno and Pope to be team leaders and the core of your squad or not? The decision was made to give those guys another shot. That meant all our personnel changes were nibbling around the edges--filling gaps, adding cheap players. And we excelled at that. The initial decision(s) though--a gamble--turned out to be wrong. Convey is still a keeper but initially had trouble adjusting to Hudson and carrying more responsibility. Quaranta improved but couldn't carry the team and got hurt again. Conteh showed his one season was a fluke and he couldn't be counted on to finish. Olsen--despite a fine finish, required 2 surgeries and didn't contribute until late in the season. Etcheverry was game, worked hard, showed more hustle and defense this year than the past 2 but also showed he has lost 2 steps and much skill. Moreno--counted on to be the foundation for the frontline--was a shell of himself. Pope played well and we expected him to miss the WC. In short, the decision to keep the hand rather than ask for new cards didn't work. One can argue that the past success of Etcheverry and Moreno (plus the league re-signing both prior to Hudson's arrival) meant they deserved another shot. 4. This was the worst possible year to be a player in the draft. 2 teams of players contracted and available for everyone to sign (with fewer teams). A top A-league team (Hershey) folded with their players available. TV revenues for the WC and local Euro and SA leagues down significantly (leading to a number of players being dumped, reduced rosters, free transfers--all of which meant more competition for jobs in MLS). MLS rosters were reduced. All of that meant is was incredibly difficult to make an MLS roster this year and contribute major minutes. In prior years, a McKinley would have gone to Asia or some other place rather than take a cut from $100K to $50K. Here, he swallowed and took the 50% paycut. 5. People can insist that we should have taken APC or some other player in the allocation/dispersal draft or drafted differently in the superdraft. Among the first round picks, they pretty much turned out how people figured. Martino was flashy and highly regarded. Davis went to a team that needed an outside mid. Our choice of Mapp was a wise one (and one that assumed Convey and Olsen weren't going to be allowing much playing time to anyone at outside mid--so why draft someone to play there unless its for the future?).
I've read a lot of JoeW's stuff lately ... nice to see ya posting again here on the DC United board! As usual, I think it's spot on. Some additional thoughts. Gbandi could have played this season, but because Paul Broome made such a phenomenal improvement for the Burn, Jefferies decided not to rush Chris Gbandi. He also didn't want to disrupt the good chemistry developing on his back line and on the left side of his team. According to the reports I've heard, Gbandi still looks like he's going to be a great MLS player and in the USMNT pool. We really cannot bust on Carrieri. While he did seem like a flop at first, he's scored 11 goals (I think) and a few assists for Hankinson, most when Spencer wasn't even available to take pressure off of him. I think the US talent and the MLS scouting have gotten a lot better. On the Youth Teams study, if it's the one I'm thinking of, it deals with all levels of youth teams, including the U-17's. At that age physical maturity accounts for a lot. Also, the guy that did the study (if it's the same one) said that his data was dated, and that in today's world the youth systems are better organized so that fewer players fall through the cracks, and we're seeing a trend of increasingly more percentages making it professionally. But your point is still well taken, less than half will be professionals, we can feel pretty confident of that. Following up on last season being the worst possible year to come out in the draft, that's correct, and fewer youth prospects came out, but the ones that did were solid gold, all 5 P-40 players gave their clubs what they expected or more. Mapp didn't play many minutes, but wasn't expected to either. Next season there should be a bevy of P-40's because of the slingshot from last season's not coming out and because the competition for the U-20 and Olympic teams is so fierce. There seems to be a lot of sentiment that if you don't come out now, you may not make those teams. Also the timing of some international competitions almost negates the college season for some players, so they may just turn pro a little earlier than they intended. This should lead to a glut of P-40's of all ages from 16 (probably will be 2-4 aged 16) to 21, so we'll see very few developmental players that are not P-40's next season. The figure I've heard bandied about was that McKinley is making 40K this season and was promised 70-80K next season. I dunno if that ever was true, is now true, or will be true, but those are the numbers I heard. -Tron
this stupid draft is all part of the player development process that is so screwed up here. in most parts of the world clubs get players for fairly long periods (years) to evaluate them and see how they fit into the system. there is much less pressure on the club and the player. As JoeW noted "most young players don't work out" with strong consequences to club and player. i'd say a proper youth system and not a reliance on college would eliminate some of that. not to mention create relatistic expectations for the players--many guys have some success in college soccer and cannot make the transition to professional. they just don't have the frame of reference to realize they have peaked. this realization comes earlier and faster in a traditonal player development programs. at this point with the salary cap, MLS teams pretty much need to find a player who can play right away out of the drafts. some--gray or martino--can step right up and play but most aren't quite ready yet. i'd feel worse about the "miss" on Kante if he were a forward and frankly he'd probably not gotten off of United bench much and wouldn't have developed as he did in NE.
Actually, I don't understand why we released Kante for no compensation. I believe that we could have held on to his MLS rights for a year (or maybe two years) for nothing. It would have cost us nothing. Not a roster spot. No salary cap. So, I don't know what the deal was with that.
Not this year. I got it straight from Sunil Gulati--by early June, players needed to be on the roster or you lost the rights to them. I assume that means that Cory Gibbs (who LA drafted) no longer is tied to LA for instance. The deal here is that Kante just wouldn't sign. He was made an offer, wouldn't come into camp and wouldn't play for the kind of money discussed. When DC talked about him going to Richmond (we pay, he plays for someone else), that too was a nonstarter.
"Who's your daddy, Who's your daddy, Ben Olsen!" To be chanted as Beninho blows by another flat footed defender, such as Steve Shak.
Just a small quibble, but Namoff never was really out, right? He played in the last two games of the season.
Am I to understand this is a defense of Jamar Beasley? While he is much better than I was, I am or ever will be, he still couldn't cut it in MLS. As for youth development translating to quality first team players, look at the Youth FA Cup in 1994 (IIRC). Leeds United's youth beat Manchester United's youth soundly. A lot of predictions were made about how great Leeds would be as these kids made the first team squad. Instead the Man Utd kids made out very well - Giggs and Beckham being two of the stars. Seems in hindsight the Leeds kids won because they were bigger and stronger than Man Utds kids not because they were better players. At youth level speed, size, and strength matter a heck of a lot. Once players get a bit older their vision and skills take the driver's seat.
He was loaned to Richmond and played in their games (might still be playing for them if they advanced in the playoffs, which I don't know). At one point, he played a game for them one day and came back and played a game for us the next day.
It just seemed like all those other guys on that list were traded away or cut. We retained the rights to Namoff, even though he was playing for our A-League affiliate. Although, I guess we never really got rid of Amman, either.
So that begs the question of why rights had to be given up this year? I realise that MLS hides all it's rules from us poor uneducated fans but this one makes less sense than most. What advantage does the league gain ($$$$$$$$) by having teams give up the rights of an unsigned player?
Well, several reasons about why you can't hold on to the rights (all of them probably having to do with legal issues and suits). I believe you can draft players (who then go overseas, sign) and retain the rights for a year or so. See the Stephen Armstrong case. However, the college draftees haven't signed with MLS. I don't think you'd want to have to justify why you weren't limited the freedom (and get sued more for antitrust violations) by drafting them and then hanging on to them. For instance, we draft Vicar and he never reports to camp (let's say we don't even invite him). Chicago suffers injuries and invites him to play during the season. He'd love to but can't--b/c we own the rights and we deny Chicago (and Vicar) the chance to replace Stoichkov. I think Vicar would sue MLS under those circumstances. So, everyone had a couple of "cut-down" dates to reduce rosters and then declare who was with the team and who wasn't. We had to cut Kante lose in early June (June 2 or 3 as I recall but my memory may be wrong). That way teams don't have groups of players who are "off the roster" yet the property of the team, others are denied access to them. Bottom line--Kante can play and is a good choice. But he just doesn't want to play for Hudson. He had 2 choices and turned him down both times. To add another rookie defender probably would have been at the expense of Namoff or Alegria. That's our misfortune (Kante said "no") but that's how the cookie crumbles sometimes.
The bottom line with Kante was money.. He wanted to sign for a regular contract and United could only afford to sign him to a developmental contract and said either sign or we'll release you.. It's too bad Hudson and Kasper didn't do their homework enough to realize this as we could have at least had an opportunity to draft another player..