NEW RULE IDEA: Minimum Minutes Threshold - Free Agency Alternative

Erik Palmer-Brown spent last season getting experience, playing in Portugal. Before that he was in the academy while studying at high school. After he graduated he was called up to the first team squad. He's started 5 of the last 6 games.

Dillon Powers joined Orlando last week after 964 minutes at Colorado this season, where someone described him as "too slow with no vision".

Eric Ayuk is loan at Jönköpings Södra in Sweden after a year at Bethlehem Steel.

Anatola Abang is on loan in Romania.

Michael Salazar is 24. If he's not good enough to start regularly for Montreal then why would anyone else want him?

(Do you do any research?)

What about the dozens of academy products getting regular game time in MLS? Let's focus on those.

 

1. Promising young players having to earn playing time in MLS 3.0 is a feature not a bug. That way only the really talented, dedicated and smart players see the field.

2. My question is trying to find out if you have researched the young players that would have been hurt by this rule? For example, Alex Bono was drafted in the top 10 for my club and didn't play a minute in 2015 for TFC. He is now the starting keeper for the team with the most points in the league. If your rule was enacted he would have been ..... well you tell me. He wouldn't be with TFC. Bono wasn't ready in 2015 so he was loaned to the USL club. Forcing the MLS club to play him 500 or 1000 minutes when he wasn't ready wouldn't have help him, Toronto FC.or the USMNT.

The number of players you think you are helping with this rule there will be just as many (probably more) that you are going to hurt.

 

Julian Green's record at Stuttgart last season

Starting eleven: 7
Substituted out: 6
Substituted in: 3
Unused sub: 7

EPB also went out on loan when he wasn't starting. So what's the difference with JG (besides EPB has played more minutes)?

 

He also suffered from concussions and lost his confidence after missing a PK in 2015. Trust me, nobody in Colorado wanted him starting this year. From what I hear fans in Salt Lake and Orlando didn't want to see Luis Gil playing either. Its not like young players haven't been playing in Colorado. Watts, Ford, Sjoberg, Badji, Hairston, etc.

Sometimes young players just turn out to be bad.

 

Facts

• Young players are getting more minutes than ever.
• Young players who are not getting minutes are often loaned to other teams.
• Clubs do release players mid-season, Sebastian Le Toux for instance.
• There are only 3 American born players getting regular time in the BL.
• Julian Green 10 just ten appearances on loan last season, lasted the full 90 minutes once, and otherwise didn't get off the bench.
• Patrick Mullins has averaged over 1,000 minutes in each of his full MLS seasons and is hardly young at 25.
• Erik Palmer-Brown spent 2014 and 2015 in the academy. He spent the whole of last season and part of this season on loan. He's started 5 of SKC's last 6 games.
• Some players specialize in the substitutes role. (Patrick Vieira mentioned how important Khiry Shelton was coming off the bench (Vieira also practices team rotation to make sure as many payers as possible get minutes).

 

Funny, Marlon Hairston has started more games in the last two years at winger for the Rapids than DP Juan Ramirez...

 

He started last night, his 7th appearance for the first team this season and 11th overall including T2. Every time you complain about a player not getting minutes it seems like your forgetting that most of them are on loan, or have been on to a second division team, just like Julian Green.

The whole premise of your argument seems to be wrong!

 

I'm going to wade into this against better judgement, first there's absolutely no reason for MLS as a league to implement any of this nonsense. This is really a topic for the PU to collectively bargain. I think it will value other things.

I'll point out this, however, sometimes players don't play. The Union have had dozens of players come through that last a year, don't play and move on. Its rare that an MLS team will waste a roster spot on someone who doesn't play for multiple seasons. Additionally, many of the players who'd fit this mold are on one year deals with rolling options over two or three years. Every October we see a list of players by team where options are not exercised. Do you know what happens next? ...they go through the re-entry process. Any team in the league can claim these players and pick up the rest of the contract. Most slide all the way through which essentially makes them free-agents.

With the USL teams, we are seeing some kids get real minutes and I think that's great. It'll help this a great deal. However, may teams have different philosophies so yeah the DPs make things tough, but that's how you grow as a player. If we'd rather have a league for young Americans, completely different discussion.

 

You really must stop with the generalizations. The DP's do NOT start every match. This miss time due to NT call-ups, injuries etc. And there are plenty of opportunities for young players to make the best of a start and force their way into the lineup even when the DP's return. Again, look at Toronto FC over the past 2 years. Do all young players take their chance? No. But stating that they never or seldom get a chance is simply wrong.

 

John Stertzer at NYCFC is an example of a player signed on a one year agreement to provide depth but has barely had any playing time.

But he's probably better off completing the season at NYCFC than becoming a free agent and ending up unemployed..

NYCFC would actually benefit more than him as it would free up roster slot to bring up an academy player towards the end of the season.

 

The union wanted to bring up a player but apparently the rules are far more restrictive than many think. They ended up signing him to a pre-contract for next year. MLS is a strange beast.

 

Union is fairly rare though in that it looks like virtually the whole U18 academy is registered with Bethlehem Steel. I only see a couple of other teams that do that.

Maybe it's something Adam should bring up the next time he meets with DG.

 

I am fairly certain that's because of an MLS rule I do not understand. There could be NCAA implications as well since they have to leave that option open. A few academy players get regular minutes with steel, including the one they signed, so it could have something to do with this also.

 

Nery Castillo, Sherjill McDonald, Federico Puppo, Juan Luis Anangonó, Gilberto, Gabriel Torres, Andres Mendoza, Branko Bošković, Rafael, Hamdi Salihi, Denilson, Eric Hassli, Luis Ángel Landín, Alexander López, Lucas Ontivero, Milton Caraglio, Jerry Bengtson, Frank Rost, Omer Damari, Bryan Róchez, Freddy Adu, Kléberson, Sebastián Jaime, Geovanni, Innocent Emeghara, Christian Tiffert, Nelson Haedo Valdez, Jéferson, Diego Rubio, Mista, Mustapha Jarju, and Kenny Miller -- all past DPs who spent at least half a season (if not much more -- some for two years or longer) as substitutes or reserves while carrying the DP tag.

(Rubio is now a starter for Sporting KC, but he sat on the bench for his entire season as a DP and didn't become a starter until he was no longer a DP.)

And this season, Aníbal Chalá got loaned out without seeing the field, Cristian Colmán has been mostly a bench player, Gonzalo Verón is in his third season as a DP without ever being a starter for more than a month at a time, Yura Movsisyan has spent the last half of this season relegated to the bench, and Brek Shea is at best a part-time starter.

 

What the USMNT needs is a bunch of players who have forced their way to the top of the pecking order, young players who have made older players irrelevant. This is how the football world works everywhere. No one, anywhere, is handed playing time to develop. Instead, they steal it from older, established players.
EPB could have started on some MLS sides in 2017. But the players ahead of him in SKC were better in practice, and didn't give him an opening by screwing up in games.This means it was up to him to force the decision. Fidning him as easy path to the field is not the solution. Making him claw his way to the field is the solution.
His playing time situation isn't about to get easier. He will find that ManCity and the clubs to which he will head on loan have the same system. If he wants to play, he needs to force the issue. Be better than those above him in the pecking order day in and day out. When he's looking to replace a national team player, or a player who is putting in top 11 performances every couple weeks, he needs to be a lot better than they are.
Young players hoping to break into first 11s in MLS need to dominate the USL when that's where they're playing, They can't simply play well enough, but should take over games to the point that managers realize "I have got to get this guy some time."
Orange slices and everybody plays doesn't work in the big time.
Beyond that, MLS is younger than it was 10 years ago, isn't it? Younger players do play? There was a moment this season when SKC was starting a front line of 19, 20 and 23, and dumped one of the league's top scorers, who had just become a USMNT player, and pushed another USMNT player to right back, because the manager was convinced he was better served by youth.
Very rarely, a supreme talent gets screwed by a manager who doesn't like winning and plays lesser players because he likes getting severance checks, I suppose.
But the norm is managers play the players who give them the best chance to win, and that means their best players. Breaking into the team is never easy, and for the development of elite players, that's a good thing.

 

I would disagree a bit here. DPs are certainly benchable. SKC made a habit of bringing in high priced players Vermes didn't like and didn't play. He benched his highest paid player for a solid month this season. Colorado put Doyle on the bench.
Also, as far as chosing a club, don't young unsigned players have just as much leeway in the US as anywhere. And the elite level of player you are talking about can now and always could hold MLS feet to the fire, because they have options. EPB had options when he signed for SKC. But it is worth remembering that despite the sturm and drang over his time in MLS, he did become the player he is while in the SKC system.
You are correct that there is more movement possible elsewhere, but it isn't exactly free movement. Young players sign contracts, and are tied to the clubs with which they signed. as is the case in MLS, young players can get loans to other teams, but holding on to rights is a big deal everywhere (though with a goal of selling in europe, for many sides).
I do think MLS is trying to address the problem you're raising with B sides. For SKC ( I know a lot more about them than other MLS sides, so I use them), the addition of Swope Park Rangers means lot of field time for a lot of prospects, and SKC uses the team very much for development. SKC has already seen a couple players move up through the ranks, Salloi being quite noticeable among them.
In league loans might be an option. the problem with that is that young players on the edge of breaking into an 11 but not playing are often seen as emergency cover, and forcing clubs to move out emergency cover makes clubs weaker.
As MLS gets stronger, it gets younger. It used to be the average player age was over 28, now it's getting closer to the 24-26 sweet spot. A lot of 22 year olds play primary roles, and this year quite a few younger player made an impression.
As for Villareal at LAG (you're talking about the midfielder, right, not the forward?), I'm sorry, but if he's unable to break into that hot mess of a side, exactly where on Earth could he play? I've had the misfortune to watch them three weeks in a row, and I do not believe Sigi is a total idiot, but they are horrible. If Sigi had anyone who could help, in any fashion, they'd be playing. FFS, he had Zardes at an outside back this weekend. He's trying everything.

 

He hasn't impressed any coach he has had at first team level. Slow in both movement and decision making. It's just adam trying to create a "logical" argument out of "stats" without knowing the player, his abilities or history. When he is out of the game or playing in the USL or 2nd division of Mexico it will be MLS's fault for not developing him.

C'mon scho you know how this game is played. We've seen it hundreds upon hundreds of times.

 

Wait, Diego Rubio is a DP? He makes $200K a year? why is he tagged?
That said, your point is dead on. And add Claudio Bieler and Omar Bravo to the DPs benched.

 

More than a few were found.There haven't been that many. And. as DPs are brought in as top players at clubs, it isn't at all surprising that they tend to start whenever possible. Who in MLS plays ahead of Villa or Giovinco? It's not the tag that puts them in the game, it's a the talent.
Of course SKC can be proud of EPB. He's been with the club since he was 12. After being with SKC as a professional for a couple years he's been signed by ManCity.
Is your point that he was fully developed at 8? Or is it that players don't need to play for clubs to mature, that clubs don't matter? That mancity randomly signs players? That he's not better than we he arrived? (he is a ton better, btw).
Of course SKC developed EPB. Unless the belief is that players are not developed, at all. SKC is where he became the player he is today. SKc is where he learned, and where he trained. It's where he went from kid who plays a game to adult who works at it, day in and day out.
Players don't develop on the field during games, that's where they show off how much they've developed.