Interesting article at Canadian Soccer News about the amount of minutes the homegrown. I suspect Rollins is right about the need for the Canadian teams to build through the academies more than the US based squads.
I'm with him except for his discussion of the Galaxy's academy. The Galaxy won the development academy at the U15/16 level last season, won the MLS Sum Cup..............and their current DA team is absolutely stacked. And if the author bothers to look at that squad, he'll see a ton of hispanic names. The fact that the only player they've signed as a homegrown happens to be Scottish-American doesn't really mean anything. It's early days. McBean's a US U17 player, and a highly thought of prospect. The Gals will be signing plenty of hispanic homegrowns in the coming years. Hell, they could sign Jose Villarreal, Raul Mendiola, Javan Torre, Sebastian Velasquez, Mario Rodriguez, etc. a year from now if they aren't poached by Euro or Mexican clubs.
He also credits Tristain Bowen to Chivas when he came up through the Galaxy academy before being traded. Chivas might have two Hispanic last names, but they don't have a single homegrown player with actual playing time.
Related, here's Soccer America's list of individual HG player stats: http://www.socceramerica.com/article/44390/fourteen-players-make-mls-debut-in-2011.html
I thought this was the most important/provocative part of the article. I suspect that in time, teams that don't develop 4-5 of their top 18-20 players will have a hard time competing in MLS over the course of any season that they don't have good luck avoiding injuries.
Though from a Colorado perspective we're still living off the last developmental structure, when it was just the reserve league. Cummings, Kimura, and Wynne (gotten by trading LaBrocca) were products of that development path. They'll need to adapt to the new path very soon though or as you said, risk getting left behind. We've got Armstrong and Janniere already, and one kid in our youth programs who is playing for the U.S. youth squads that I expect will be signed to a full contract soon.
I don't necessarily expect to see a tight correlation between the clubs that spend on youth development and those that spend in other areas. I think youth development expenditure may boil down more to a calculation about how much talent is in a given area vs how much competition there is for it.
Jorge Flores, Chris Cortez, Gerson Mayen, Bryan de la Fuente, all spent time in the Chivas USA youth set-up, and all (except de la Fuente) have seen some pretty good time and the field. Cesar Zamora was also in the squad for a time, but didn't see much, if any, playing time before being waived.
You should first look at what MLS considers to be a homegrown player signing first. "All players must reside in a team's "Home Territory" for at least one year prior to being added to the team's Home Grown Player List." Chivas USA was 1 of the first clubs in MLS to sign a Academy player to a developmental contract. All players that Chivas USA have signed as Homegrown players have meet MLS's rule. DC united was the first team to sign a homegrown player to actually make an impact on the 1st team.
And yet Josh Janniere is considered a home-grown player for Colorado even though the Rapids traded for him from Toronto last offseason. Once a home-grown player always a home-grown player, regardless of team?
I know "homegrown" has a definition but it does look funny that 3 names near the top of that list are from Honduras, Tanzania and Mexico! One of the impressive things our new Dutch management did this year was show real confidence and commitment to some young Canucks. By the end of the season, Stinson and Morgan were looking like real pros and solid contributors. The rest were a bit less consistent but showed glimpses.......Lindsay (further down the list) missed the entire season after breaking through last year......result of an unfortunate snowmobile accident in the offseason!
Thought it best to resurrect this thread then start a new one. This month, Kellyn Acosta became the seventh teenage HGP to start this season. I know that is not a perfect measurement but I think it's an indicator of success. So far the following players have started an MLS game as a teenager DeAndre Yedlin Jack McBean Carlos Salcedo Diego Fagundez Shane O'Neill Jose Villareal Kellyn Acosta Has HGP turned a corner?
Your list pretty much answers your question: most--if not all--of those players have earned their spot on the roster, and some are right on the verge of becoming stars (as far as MLS goes.)
Well, for Columbus, in terms of MLS games only: 1. Chad Barson (RB/LB): MP 915, GP 12, GS 10, G 0, A 0 A. Starting RB with Glauber out & Williams at CB. 2. Ben Speas (LM): MP 791, GP 14, GS 9, G 1, A 1. Starter early, now in the 18. 3. Wil Trapp (DM): MP 540, GP 6, GS 6, G 0, A 1. Has taken over as the starting DM. 4. Matt Lampson (GK): MP 360, GP 4, GS 4, G 0, A 0. Starting GK with Gruenebaum injured. 5. Kyle Hyland (D) zero 6. Aaron Horton (F/M): On loan = zero And although they aren't technically homegrown players, the following Crew players are from/raised in central Ohio: 7. Josh Williams (D) (Copley/Akron): MP 1980, GP 22, GS 22, G 3, A 0 8. Danny O'Rourke (M/D) (Worthington/Columbus): MP 1508, GP 19, GS 17, G 0, A 0 9. Konrad Warzycha (M) (OSU/coaches son in Columbus since late 90s): MP 206, GP 10, GS 2, G 0, A 0 Pretty good contributions this year from the Ohio boys.
Here is the article, in case people are interested: http://www.canadiansoccernews.com/content.php?2368