The Revolution have typically passed on P-40 players. We know this. Why? I've been thinking that the Revolution are the most cost conscious team in the league and since P-40's are likely signed at a higher monetary rate than college seniors, plus they do not count against the roster or cap, might prompt our Revolution to bypass such players. Thus the team limits their expenses and roster at the same time. I know that P-40's are typically more developmental type of players and Nicol only has a 2 year contract, but it seems to me that this may be a plausible answer for the lack of P-40's on our roster each year.
Huge mistake. This is how other teams are getting emerging super-stars. I would take a P-40 guy with potential , like Ricardo Clark, for Nowak even up. Clark will be kicking ass when Rev fans won't even remember Nowak.
Re: Re: Lack of P-40's The problem is nobody else would make that deal. The Revs got Nowak for a conditional pick next year (not necessarily a 1st rounder. Usually those end up as 2nd or 3rd rounders). Thus, Peter Nowak, while a great talent in his prime, is not worth the player taken #2 overall in a deep draft.
I suspect that Steve Nicol has taken a long, careful look at the way talent is developed here in MLS and simply decided not to sign kids. There just isn't anywhere for them to go. No reserve teams, no A League working agreements, just training ground fodder and the odd (very odd) game. In his mind it just isn't worth the bother. And while I lament the situation and would love to have a couple of spry 17 year olds on the roster, I have to agree with him. We (MLS) sucks at developing kids. We do very well improving twenty somethings. But that is another story, ergo Noonan. JIM DOW
I don't know that it's fair to say MLS sucks at developing kids. We've only had them in the league since 2000 really. Convey was the first of the modern day USA youth international kids taken. He's turned out alright, but give the initial group more than 2 years before proclaiming them failures. I think, when all is said and done, players like Convey, Quaranta, Beasley, Vaca, Buddle, Johnson etc will be better pros for their experience in MLS.
I don't disagree that the P-40 kids will be better because they turned pro as opposed to stagnating in college. At the same time they aren't really getting what they need which is top level training PLUS playing every week as kids do everywhere else with reserve teams, etc. For maximizing the prospects we have the present setup in MLS isn't as good as it should be. JIM DOW
Pardon me, but I think this is patently ridiculous. For one, I don't think the ownership ever spares expense to improve the team on the field. Secondly, the difference in overall salary budget for adding a couple of P-40s is not a big deal (compared to signing Chacon last year, for instance). Thirdly, they've had P-40s in the past and had very poor results: Dunseth, Asad, Downing. P-40 may turn out to be a big success, but it just hasn't happened yet. Fourthly, do you think Nicol would continue to coach here if management wouldn't let him draft P-40 players because it would cost too much??? Fifthly, the real reason, IMO. Nicol wants players who will help this season. Period. He believes in the present, not the future. He's seen the Revs fill up roster space with young players (Downing!) who haven't been able to contribute when needed and haven't developed quickly enough to make it. Maybe Noonan wasn't the best choice. But with one pick last season (certainly the best selection in the whole draft, possibly the best draft selection in MLS HISTORY) the team deserves the benefit of the doubt!
It is true that, in the past, P40 players haven't worked out well for the Revs, but that probably tells you more about our previous judges of talent than whether or not it is a good idea to draft kids. Maybe Nicol did draft Noonan cause he thought he could contribute immediately, and maybe he (noonan) is more capable of stepping in and playing right away than Gaven or Thomas. But does anyone really believe that, this year, Noonan will be a significant upgrade over Ralston, Twellman, JMM, or even Wolde/Kamler/Cloutier? I don't, although I've only seen him play a few times. I do think Shavar Thomas could be a lot better than Heaps, Cullen or Cloutier, and I also think that Eddie Gaven (based only on his record w/ the youth national teams) could turn out to be a lot better than our current crop of reserve midfielders/forwards.
Re: Re: Lack of P-40's Thanks. I think you're missing the point. If P-40's don't count against the roster or cap, then our overall roster and payroll would be higher if we did draft P-40 players. Do you think that if we had say added 2 P-40's this year, that the team wouldn't have kept a full roster of non-exempt players? I'm not sure of that. How many maximum players have we ever had on our roster? When looking at the Krafts other team, did you know they were at least $3 million under the NFL cap? Twellman wasn't exactly getting paid a ton when we drafted him last year either. Look, I love the team that we are going to field this season. I just also realize that the orginaztion is cost conscious and thought that had an effect on the total roster and payroll strategy...something that could certainly change the number of players on the roster.
Regarding payroll... I was under the impression that paychecks were written by the league, and not the individual teams???
In the past, they had to help pick up the tab for league runned teams. Now that the Burn are the only one's left and will be taken over by The Hunt Group since their move to Southlake, each I/O is only responsible for their own. I've heard that The Krafts were the main push behind each team having an I/O.
OK, I'll bite. What is wrong with the Krafts pushing for something that should have been in place since year one? It doens't necessarily make them "cheap." I think the P40 decision is more along the lines of Nicol looking for a guy who can help now. Sometimes it means sacrificing the potential of what may or may not pan out in the future. We've got possibly 40-45 meaningful games to play this year, and if Nicol thinks that Noonan can start against the Vermont Voltage or Hampton Roads Mariners, not to mention be an adequate sub in league games, I tend to trust his judgement if he opted for him over a P40 kid who really ought to be playing in Ludlow or Rhode Island. Until we have a local de-facto reserve team that plays competitive games, P40 guys will rot on the bench like Jamar Beasley did. Metros and Chicago have youth/reserve teams where they can park these guys, but until we do, there isn't a lot of point to it. I believe these are set up with a local elite club in the area. What the Revs ought to do is work some kind of an agreement with a similar club in the area. I would imagine that being afilliated with an MLS club (and a good one at that!) would be a nice feather in the cap of some elite club. Oh, but the only people at the Revs who could ever make a deal like this work have all been fired. OK, I guess you're right, GPK, the Krafts are cheap bastards! Tom
It seems like a large percentage of the younger P-40 kids stay close to home, which would help explain why NE doesn't get any of them. By younger I mean kids that haven't had a year or two in college, or haven't gone overseas for a while. I haven't done the analysis to back this impression up with facts, but it certainly seems like a lot of "coincidences" occur where the young kid happens to be picked by the hometown team. Convey (Philly to DC), Quintanilla (Baltimore to DC), Gonzalez (Paramount to LA), Beasley (Indiana to Chicago), Trembly (CO to Denver), Eddie Gaven(NJ to NY/NJ)... Or in the case of Magee, they go with a coach who they are comfortable with. This might help explain NE's lack of the younger P-40's. I'm not sure this is a complete answer, just a piece of the puzzle, and it doesn't explain why the Revs don't get the P-40's who have a couple years of college under their belts. But I do get the impression that the SuperDraft isn't really a draft with some of the younger players. Which I think is ok, because it's good for a 16-17 year old kid to be around his parents while dealing with the lifestyle of a professional soccer player.
Good points Tom and gorilla. As I said I like the roster as is, but I'm surprised out of the 12 we got 0 and the MetroStars got 3 or 4. BTW, I never said the Krafts were cheap...just cost consious And I never said I was right either....just looking for discussion.
Let me start with a disclaimer - this is pure speculation. I have always been under the impression that the league takes great pains to avoid the appearance of what many of us take for granted; namely that the front office dictates where many individual players go, irrespective of the wishes of the teams. I suspect strongly that not only were the ultimate destinations of Gaven, Magee and Gonzalez known well ahead of time, but I imagine the order in which they were taken was known as well. Gorilla's nice summary speaks for itself - this can't happen randomly. To tell you the truth I don't have a problem with it. The league doesn't need any more Jamar Beasley debacles. If Nick Colavito or some other NE kid makes it to the pros early, I imagine he would become a Rev, no matter what.
I'll trust Nicol's judgement that Noonan is more likely to contribute to the Revs this year (and possibly next) than any of the P-40s available to us. But another question that you must ask is, how good a player will Noonan be? I'm as big a fan of the Revs as anyone else, so of course I hope Noonan is this year's Kelly Gray, filling in at both wings, attacking mid, and forward. I'd like to see him run away with the rookie of the year award. However, what I've heard about him doesn't lead me to believe that this will be the case. While I agree that it would be nice to rest Ralston some of the time, where else will Pat's minutes come from? Will he take left mid minutes from Kamler and Griffiths? Will he take attacking mid minutes from Nowak and Hernandez? Will he take backup forward minutes from Wolde? More importantly, will he play better than someone we could sign as a discovery pick? If we could sign a veteran who could be even a little less effective than Noonan this year, the price of the upgrade Noonan gives us in those reserve minutes is Eddie Gavin (or someone similar). That could really come back to haunt us. Developing P-40s isn't a sure thing, and it rarely pays off right away. However, it's a lot more important than some people claim. If you consider the P-40 class this year (players like Eskandrian, Clark, Stokes, Gavin, Gonzalez) and some of the P-40s last year (Davis, Gray, and Martino play now, Capano, Mapp, and Stone should play later), and consider some of the players who have recently come out of the program or are near the end of the pipe(DMB, Convey, Buddle, Rimando,Quaranta, Johnson) you coan see why some of us are concerned that other teams are grabbing this type of talent and we're not. I will completely agree that P-40s would develop more with consistant playing time. Couldn't teams loan players like that to A-league teams?
I agree, I would have liked to see us pick a P-40 or two or three. But, I just don't think the decision not to was one based on money. I also agree that the drafting of the high school kids is probably directed to local teams. It's probably in the form of some whispering/arm-twisting to remind teams that a 16/17 y.o. who is homesick, can't drive or manage his own apartment is not a great recipe for success.
here is ther problem: MLS doesn't have the money to buy big super-stars. The best chance of getting a GREAT player is to pick a very young one with huge talent. Noonan may or may not get ANY PT, but from what I have seen, there is just about ZERO chance of him being an important MLS player. So, where are we then? Beasley, Convey, Quaranta, Johnson, Gonzalez, Clark....if we load up our roster older, expensive guys, we have no room to maneuver. In some ways, the Nowak deal had nothing to do with this- but of course it does, our roster is locked in financially, so we wind of dumping LLamosa perhaps. Well, if we can DUMP LLamosa, we could have fashioned a trade to get a good draft pick for him. It all boils down to priorities. I was one of the lone nay-sayers about bringing on Nowak but this is why- to some extent this is a zero-sum game.One old war-horse really does mean one less talented young player. If you thnk we got something for nothing you are dreaming-it was bad judgement. They got foxed by Peter Wilt.
This whole discussion will be moot in a few yesr when every MLS team has a Reserve Squad that plays each other MLS Reserve squad and maybe in the A-League as well. For now, with small rosters and almost no real opportunity to give young players meaninful game experience I agree with SN's choice to go for "ready for prime time" players. George
I don't think that Nowak cost the Revs a talented young player because I don't think that they would have brought in a talented young player with the money if Nowak didn't get it. Also, the people that you listed (Convey, Beasley, Johnson, Gonzalez, Clark, etc) all came into the league roster-exempt, so they would have fit on the roster no matter who we signed. Here's kind of the crux of the problem. The league signs a number of P-40 players a year. A few of them are ready to go (relatively older and able to contribute earlier). Eskandarian and Clark and Stokes fit into that category this year. They all go early in the draft. There are also a few (Gaven and Gonzalez and Alvarez and others) who are very young and loaded with potential. For the most part they end up close to home, probably by design. Realistically, if a 16 year old from California is available when we draft we might not have a realistic shot at drafting him. What I would like to see is a slight change to the roster rules. If a team has less than 3 P-40s on the roster they should be able to fill up to 3 slots with draft picks. In other words, if the Revs have 1 P-40 (Downing) we could add 2 draft picks to non-roster slots even if you count their salaries against the cap. That still leaves 3 spots for the $1k per month guys, but it allows teams that can't get good P-40s to develop talent. If Westfield shows potential in camp, but Nicol isn't sure he's shown enough to displace Wolde, we could give him a chance to develop without killing our roster (like the Metros get to do with Gaven). It would also give a better shot to players like Ryan Mack, who injured his knee in his junior year (I think) and might need another year to fully come back.
George is right on....RESERVE TEAMS & YOUTH TEAMS. Until we have them this gaffer tape, patchwork apporach to development will be completely frustrating. It is particularly interesting that Steve Nicol who has considerable experience as a youth team coach with the Bulldogs setup would bypass P-40 by choice. I suspect he knows exactly what is required to have a serious youth and young player development program and sees the current situation as worthless. It is doubly too bad because I have seen him with kids and young players and he is precisely the kind of influence we so desperately need. The talent is there but at this juncture it makes much more sense to go to Europe, Latin America, wherever as a young player and not to an MLS team. Given the possibilities, that is tragic and outrageous! JIM DOW
Just FYI on P-40 stuff/history: Also, had a question about rosters. Given that this was written on MLSnet.com: As a result of the 2003 SuperDraft, MLS teams have until Tuesday, January 21 to cut their rosters to 29 players (23 senior, 6 developmental). Two days later, a waiver draft will be held (IF NECESSARY). The pool for this conditional draft will include those players waived on Tuesday, as well as any players submitted by the teams to the League player pool. Teams will have until Monday, March 17, before they must be in final compliance with the League’s 24-player roster limit. Does anyone know if this final "24-player roster limit" means 18 Senior roster spots (includes SI's and means cutting 5 senior roster spots) and 6 Developmental spots (P-40's, Dev's, and Transitional Int'ls) now? Or, are the SR spots getting bumped up 1, or even 2, due to all the extra-cirrucular happenings during this coming 2003 season? Help! I'm trying to figure out the the MLS roster guidelines....and I can't get up!