Having reached the half-way point of the regular season, I thought it would be interesting to look at the MLS leaders in goals, assists, and (goals+assists) per 90 minutes (minimum 450 min played): Goals per 90 min: Code: 1 Jeff Cunningham 0.812 2 Carlos Ruiz 0.706 3 Pat Noonan 0.615 4 Brian Ching 0.610 5 Eddie Johnson 0.566 6 Taylor Twellman 0.559 7 Landon Donovan 0.547 8 Sergio Galvan Rey 0.535 9 Nate Jaqua 0.528 10 Clint Dempsey 0.500 Assists per 90 min: Code: 1 Freddy Adu 0.659 2 Brad Davis 0.585 3 Clint Dempsey 0.583 4 Dwayne De Rosario 0.483 5 Ronnie O'Brien 0.468 6 John Wolyniec 0.461 7 Amado Guevara 0.429 8 James Riley 0.417 9 Josh Wolff 0.411 10 Thiago 0.409 (Goals + Assists) per 90 min: Code: 1 Clint Dempsey 1.083 2 Taylor Twellman 0.932 3 Brian Ching 0.915 4 Jeff Cunningham 0.913 5 Landon Donovan 0.912 6 Carlos Ruiz 0.908 7 Freddy Adu 0.824 8 Josh Wolff 0.822 9 Ronnie O'Brien 0.803 10 Amado Guevara 0.786 Some random thoughts: Clint Dempsey for MVP? He's certainly got my vote at this point. Jeff Cunningham doesn't get much credit (on these boards, at least), but he's having an excellent year. The battle for billing as "top strike force" continues to rage, as Ruiz and Johnson lead in the G/90 rankings, while Twellman and Noonan lead in the (G+A)/90 rankings (Noonan is #15, Johnson #18). Don't look now, but it's the "king of goals" himself, Sergio Galvan Rey, sneaking into the top 10 G/90 rankings at #8. Given DC United's scoring woes, and Adu's position at the top of the assist chart, it's real hard for me understand what Nowak is thinking. David Stokes?! If lack of defense is the problem, put Adu up top with Moreno - no way he wouldn't be an improvement over Nana Kuffour. Am I the only one that wonders if Columbus didn't get the better of the Razov (31, #14 in (G+A)/90) for Wolyniec (28, #16) + cash trade? Young players to watch: Abbe Ibrahim of the Metrostars (2G, 3A in 361 min), Abe Thompson of FC Dallas (3G in 211 min), Ramon Nunez of FC Dallas (2A in 178 min), and Chad Barrett of Chicago Fire (1G, 1A in 148 minutes). And, no, I haven't done anything silly like removing goals scored on penalty kicks.
Yes, but at some point doing goals-per-minute inflates the stats of substitutes over guys doing all the hard work. Chad Barret has 1G and 1A, but since he's only played 148 minutes that looks great, eh (I'm not saying he's bad, but he scored a late late goal against an already beaten RSL). Michael Enfield now has 1 goal in 17 minutes, but that doesn't mean that if he had played 1170 like Noonan that he'd have 69 goals.