Please make corrections/additions to this. 5 started, all of whom played well enough to merit further consideration, IMHO. Think your VERY early leader for ROY would be Metro's Parke. DC: Carrol starts. Plays pretty well. Gros comes in as sub. Stokes comes in even laters as sub. some guy named Adu. Comes in at 60th, inconclusive. Ara dnp Perkins dnp. San Jose: Levensque dnp Cronin injured Cochrane injured Dombrowsi dnp Dallas: Nunez dnp Goodson dnp Thompson dnp Wagenfuhr dnp Maurin dnp Colorado: Sullivan goes pretty close to 90. Plays pretty well. Peguero ('Pedro'). Looks good early. Beats Gibbs for pace a couple times. Sets up Spencers's goal. Didn't do much in second half. Talent is there, but he's rough and unpolished. Cilia dnp Fire: Buete dnp Griffin dnp KC: Taylor dnp Hesmer dnp LA: Ngwenya dnp Grabavoy dnp NE Dempsey comes in at 83rd. CBus: Marshall(injured) Wingert dnp Testo starts plays about 75. Didn't combine well with Cunnigham from what I saw, but then again, who does? Looked ok to me. Sutton came on late. Ritch comes on for about 15. Metros: Parke shuts down Cunningham. Pretty impressive debut for 'Mr. Irrelevant'. Taylor comes in at 65'. Bradley dnp. Glenn not arrived yet.
Technically, neither Carroll nor Stokes are rookies, it just seems that way because they look like they won a contest to spend a year on the United bench. Sachin
I'm going with a more traditional definition. If you haven't played, you're a rookie. What's MLS official policy?
That's not the traditional definition. A rookie is someone in his first season of professional play. So Stokes, Carroll, Testo, Fabian Taylor, and Glenn do not qualify.
On the "what is a rookie" front: how are you treating LA's Saragosa, the loaned player from Sao Paulo? I guess he is a rookie in the sense of not playing in MLS before. He played about 30 minutes in the second half of the game v. NER.
What about San Jose's Roger Levesque and Dallas' Jason Thompson? They missed their entire first years with injuries. I think both should be eligible for the ROY. Anyone know what MLS' policy on 'medical redshirts' are?
A Rookie is someone who is under contract with MLS to play their first season as a paid professional. The key points are: under contract paid professional first season
what if they don't play? if a baseball player only pinch hits in 2 games and is shipped back to the minors, then comes back next season and plays 150 games he is eligible for rookie of the year. why not mls where most of the players listed have never played a professional game or only a few minutes in one game?
Well,in baseball you are a rookie if you've played 10 years in Japan. By that standard, both Gibbs and Kirovski are rookies. Let's not rely on baseball for a reference....
Simple. First season being paid to play as a professional. Therefore, in LA: Herzog, Kirovski and Saragosa are not rookies, although it is their first season in MLS. Ngwenya, Grabavoy, Gardner and Aloisi are rookies. I know Ngwenya played in a PDL team off-season during college, but wasn't paid- keeping his college eligibility. Therefore, this is his rookie season. I don't know if Saragosa has gotten any playing time with the full Sao Paolo (sp?) team or just the reserves, but he was getting paid- so he's not a rookie. So in LA, none of the rookies have played yet.