Well, it's been days since there was a new post here. I think there's a lot of interesting possibilities to research from the superdraft; unfortunately, nothing I've done has really seemed interesting enough to put up here. So I'm going to start by simply trying to compile a list of the P-40's drafted, but will try to use this thread for a number of things. Code: [size=1] 2004 Club Number Round Age Min. Adu, Freddy F P-40 D.C. 1 1 14.62 Marshall, Chad D Stanford Columbus 2 1 19.40 Cochrane, Ryan D S. Clara San Jose 5 1 20.44 Nunez, Ramon M SMU Dallas 6 1 18.17 Goodson, Clarence D Maryland Dallas 7 1 21.66 Dempsey, Clint M Furman New Eng. 8 1 20.85 Cronin, Steve GK S. Clara San Jose 10 1 20.63 Gardner, Josh M Cincinnati L.A. 13 2 21.34 Grabavoy, Ned M Indiana L.A. 14 2 20.54 Bradley, Michael M P-40 Metrostars 36 4 16.46 2003 Eskandarian, Alecko F Virginia D.C. 1 1 20.52 728 Clark, Ricardo M Furman Metrostars 2 1 19.93 2590 Jaqua, Nate F Portland Chicago 3 1 21.22 712 Magee, Mike F P-40 Metrostars 4 1 18.37 1709 Stokes, David D UNC D.C. 5 1 20.63 0 Gonzalez, Guillermo M P-40 L.A. 8 1 17.03 129 Carroll, Brian M Wake D.C. 11 2 21.49 0 Gaven, Eddie M P-40 Metrostars 12 2 16.23 691 Alvarez, Arturo M P-40 San Jose 13 2 17.55 655 Thompson, Jason F E. Ill. Dallas 15 2 21.15 0 Lewis, Ricky D Clemson L.A. 20 2 20.63 798 Pause, Logan M UNC Chicago 24 3 21.40 1354 LeBlanc, Jacob M Virginia Metrostars 42 5 21.96 225 2002 Davis, Brad M St. Louis Metrostars 3 1 20.19 1246 Mapp, Justin M P-40 D.C. 4 1 17.24 28 Gray, Kelly M Portland Chicago 5 1 20.77 1780 Martino, Kyle M Virginia Columbus 8 1 20.91 1455 Stone, Jordan M P-40 Dallas 15 2 17.83 91 Capano, Craig M P-40 Chicago 17 2 16.52 92 2001 Carrieri, Chris F UNC San Jose 1 1 20.72 1081 Quaranta, Santino F P-40 D.C. 8 1 16.26 949 Bardales, Isaias F S.J. St. L.A. 11 1 21.41 270 Burciaga, Jose D P-40 K.C. 12 1 19.17 93 Barclay, Devin F P-40 Tampa Bay 14 2 17.77 1324 Johnson, Edward F P-40 Dallas 19 2 16.79 263 Downing, Nick D Maryland New Eng. 21 2 20.98 279 Buddle, Edson F L. Island Columbus 27 3 19.65 556 Saavedra, Miguel M P-40 Dallas 67 6 17.54 0 2000 Garcia, Nick D Indiana K.C. 2 1 20.77 2916 Bocanegra, Carlos D UCLA Chicago 4 1 20.64 2402 Califf, Danny D Maryland L.A. 6 1 19.83 1518 Convey, Bobby M P-40 D.C. 12 1 16.64 1614 Pierce, Rusty D UNC-G'b. New Eng. 14 2 20.48 2600 Salas, Sergio F P-40 D.C. 27 3 18.82 18 Asad, Shaker M N.C. State New Eng. 31 3 20.41 246 Cooks, Micah M P-40 D.C. 60 5 18.54 165 [/b][/size] (Age refers to their age as of 1/16, whatever year they were drafted; minutes refers to minutes played as a rookie) (P.S. Is this chart legible to everyone? I did my best to line up the rows, but I'm always suspicious.)
Chart looks good to me. By the way, do you have a list of P-40's by year of birth handy? There seem to have been few born in 1980, and I'm wondering how pronounced that pattern is. Thx.
Here's what I came up with. From 2000 on, there really were very few P-40's born in 1980. I don't think there were many '80s who came into the league before 2000, either ... maybe one from Trinidad? Code: [size=1] Year Drafted Name 89 1-04 Adu, Freddy 87 36-04 Bradley, Michael 86 8-03 Gonzalez, Memo 12-03 Gaven, Eddie 85 6-04 Nunez, Ramon 13-03 Alvarez, Arturo 17-02 Capano, Craig 84 2-04 Marshall, Chad 4-03 Magee, Mike 4-02 Mapp, Justin 15-02 Stone, Jordan 8-01 Quaranta, Santino 19-01 Johnson, Eddie 83 5-04 Cochrane, Ryan 8-04 Dempsey, Clint 10-04 Cronin, Steve 14-04 Grabavoy, Ned 2-03 Clark, Ricardo ND-03 Baumstark, Clint? 14-01 Barclay, Devin 67-01 Saavedra, Miguel 12-00 Convey, Bobby 82 7-04 Goodson, Clarence 13-04 Gardner, Josh 1-03 Eskandarian, Alecko 5-03 Stokes, David 20-03 Lewis, Ricky ND-02 Akwari, Nelson ND-01 Countess, D.J. ND-99 Trembly, Seth ND-99 Beckerman, Kyle ND-99 Beasley, Damarcus 81 3-03 Jaqua, Nate 11-03 Carroll, Brian 15-03 Thompson, Jason 24-03 Pause, Logan 42-03 LeBlanc, Jacob 3-02 Davis, Brad 5-02 Gray, Kelly 8-02 Martino, Kyle 12-01 Burciaga, Jose 27-01 Buddle, Edson 27-01 Salas, Sergio 60-00 Cooks, Micah 80 1-01 Carrieri, Chris 21-01 Downing, Nick 6-00 Califf, Dan 79 11-01 Bardales, Isaias 2-00 Garcia, Nick 4-00 Bocanegra, Carlos 14-00 Pierce, Rusty 31-00 Asad, Shaker [/b][/size]
Re: Re: Superdraft Thread With some help from ussoccer.com, this should be a full list. Prior to Bradenton, there wasn't much even-year P-40 talent ... this is probably because the U-20 and U-23 youth events both have odd-year cut-off dates. Code: [size=1] Year Drafted Name 89 1-04 Adu, Freddy 87 36-04 Bradley, Michael 86 8-03 Gonzalez, Memo 12-03 Gaven, Eddie 85 6-04 Nunez, Ramon 13-03 Alvarez, Arturo 17-02 Capano, Craig 84 2-04 Marshall, Chad 4-03 Magee, Mike 4-02 Mapp, Justin 15-02 Stone, Jordan 8-01 Quaranta, Santino 19-01 Johnson, Eddie 83 5-04 Cochrane, Ryan 8-04 Dempsey, Clint 10-04 Cronin, Steve 14-04 Grabavoy, Ned 2-03 Clark, Ricardo ND-03 Baumstark, Clint? 14-01 Barclay, Devin 67-01 Saavedra, Miguel 12-00 Convey, Bobby 82 7-04 Goodson, Clarence 13-04 Gardner, Josh 1-03 Eskandarian, Alecko 5-03 Stokes, David 20-03 Lewis, Ricky ND-02 Akwari, Nelson ND-01 Countess, D.J. ND-99 Trembly, Seth ND-99 Beckerman, Kyle ND-99 Beasley, Damarcus 81 3-03 Jaqua, Nate 11-03 Carroll, Brian 15-03 Thompson, Jason 24-03 Pause, Logan 42-03 LeBlanc, Jacob 3-02 Davis, Brad 5-02 Gray, Kelly 8-02 Martino, Kyle 12-01 Burciaga, Jose 27-01 Buddle, Edson 27-01 Salas, Sergio 60-00 Cooks, Micah 80 1-01 Carrieri, Chris 21-01 Downing, Nick 6-00 Califf, Dan ND Klinger, Martin ND Longo, Mario 79 11-01 Bardales, Isaias 2-00 Garcia, Nick 4-00 Bocanegra, Carlos 14-00 Pierce, Rusty 31-00 Asad, Shaker ND Albright, Chris ND Beasley, Jamar ND Da Silva, Nino ND Gomez, Francisco ND Howard, Tim ND Quijano, Marvin ND Rimando, Nick 78 ND Bower, Scott Green, Michael Quill, Eric West, Brian 77 ND Abukusumo, Ubusuku DiGiamarino, Joey Dunseth, Brian Kirk, Andy Kovalenko, Dema McCarty, Chad Napoleon, Matt Olsen, Ben Otero, Antonio Parra, Carlos Rodriguez, Esmundo Sahaydak, Tim Sastoque, Juan Vallow, Scott Wolff, Josh 76 ND Botello, Jose ND Cooks, Judah ND Kozic, Alen ND Nyman, Matt ND Rocha, Maurizio ND Swift, Barry ND Vermillion, Scott 75 ND Daniv, Sergi [/b][/size]
Great job, beineke, thanks a lot. What would be interesting to look at, I think, would be the players that could potentially have been P-40's but were overlooked because of this odd year bias (if possible). On a different note, I'm interested in where and how different positions get drafted in the Superdraft. To begin with, here is how the various positions broke down, by year: Code: [size=1] 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total Average F 18 22 15 17 9 81 0.25 M 24 26 25 22 27 124 0.38 D 22 16 20 13 19 90 0.28 GK 6 7 4 6 5 28 0.09 Total 70 71 64 58 60 323 [/b][/size] I don't think the various years are particularly important. Most interesting, here, is that forwards seem to be a little bit overrepresented, and defenders a little bit underrepresented (if you assume most teams play a 4-4-2 or a 3-5-2). This may, however, simply be a result of the players being listed by their college positions, which would presumably be more offensively-oriented...
Now, positions broken down by round: Code: [size=1] 1 2 3 4 5 6 F 15 10 18 17 12 9 M 20 25 19 18 26 16 D 19 15 13 17 12 14 GK 2 6 6 4 2 8 Total 56 56 56 56 52 47 [/b][/size] And broken down proportionally: Code: [size=1] Round 1 2 3 4 5 6 F 0.27 0.18 0.32 0.30 0.23 0.19 M 0.36 0.45 0.34 0.32 0.50 0.34 D 0.34 0.27 0.23 0.30 0.23 0.30 GK 0.04 0.11 0.11 0.07 0.04 0.17 [/b][/size] What I found most surprising here is the fact that there doesn't seem to be much of a bias by position. I would have suspected that the 'glamour' players, forwards and midfielders, would have been picked more often in early rounds, while defenders went heavily in the later rounds. This doesn't seem to be the case, though; forwards are picked slightly more often in later rounds than in earlier, defenders slightly more early than late, and midfielders very much constant. The only hard and fast rule seems to be don't pick goalies in the first round.
Unfortunately, any sort of analysis of the superdraft is seriously hampered by the fact that it's only existed for five years now, and we've only got four years worth of information from it. Nevertheless, I tried to come up with a little bit of an analysis based on what we've seen. First, a lit of rookie minutes by position by round, from 2000 to 2003: Code: [size=1] R. Minutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total F 13028 5760 2219 1304 2323 0 24634 M 18245 10156 1711 2368 513 1719 34712 D 17540 8742 5921 4207 149 0 36559 GK 1146 1640 2561 90 0 0 5437 [/b][/size] And Sophomore minutes, 2000-2002: Code: [size=1] S minutes 1 2 3 4 5 6 Total F 7458 2932 3258 422 3034 0 17104 M 15391 10818 2917 1948 28 0 31102 D 12787 6832 7090 2902 0 729 30340 GK 2018 2194 2480 938 0 0 7630 [/b][/size] More useful are the minutes per draftee numbers, so first, rookie minutes/draftee, through 2003: Code: [size=1] R m/ind. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Average F 1086 576 139 82 211 0 342 M 1073 484 132 182 26 132 358 D 1096 795 493 324 17 0 515 GK 1146 410 512 23 0 0 236 [/b][/size] And sophomore minutes per draftee: Code: [size=1] S m/ind. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Average F 932 367 272 35 303 0 311 M 1099 636 265 195 2 0 415 D 984 854 709 264 0 81 523 GK 2018 731 827 313 0 0 449 [/b][/size] Not much to say here, really. Regardless of what position you play, you seem to get about the same amount of minutes if you're drafted in the first round. However, as you get further into the draft, especially into the 3rd and 4th rounds, defenders (and, to a lesser extent, goalkeepers) are getting a much larger proportion of minutes than are forwards and midfielders. So it seems, although my feelings about where players are getting drafted may have been wrong, they may have been informed by the fact that late-round defenders tend to do a good deal better than late-round attacking players.
Beineke brought up the fact that not a lot of P-40's in the early years were from even year numbers; the other side of this argument is that players born early in the year, particularly January and February, are advantaged in the P-40 setup and talent identification, etc. I thought I'd take a look to see how this bled over into college; I broke things down by month, but since those are extremely small samples, I'm just going to present this in quarters, by year: Code: [size=1] 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 Total 1Q 0.333 0.279 0.381 0.224 0.183 0.282 2Q 0.242 0.230 0.190 0.276 0.300 0.247 3Q 0.227 0.246 0.222 0.276 0.250 0.244 4Q 0.197 0.246 0.206 0.224 0.267 0.227 [/b][/size] And the totals, by month are: Code: [size=1] 1 0.107 2 0.084 3 0.091 4 0.078 5 0.075 6 0.094 7 0.094 8 0.084 9 0.065 10 0.104 11 0.062 12 0.062 [/b][/size] Where expected would have been .0825. So, clearly, we're seeing a little bit of a bias here towards the first quarter, and a little bit of a disadvantage toward the last; I was a little bit surprised, because I thought that the fact that college runs on a fall to spring schedule would (thus breaking up previous age groups, e.g. 82's) get rid of the advantage. Nevertheless, this doesn't seem to be a serious problem when it comes to college age players. Equally surprisingly, the P-40's drafted didn't exhibit any kind of earlier-birthdate trend. Dividided into quarters, they were: Code: Q # % 1 10 0.217 2 13 0.283 3 15 0.326 4 8 0.174 [/b][/size]
If we break the P-40's down by Bradenton alumni and others, we get: Bradenton Q1-6 Q2-5 Q3-5 Q4-2 Other Q1-4 Q2-8 Q3-10 Q4-6 The Bradenton kids do seem to exhibit a bit of a trend. BTW, at least in some regions, club soccer uses an August 1 cutoff date. That may help to favor Q3 players. (I'd also be interested in seeing data split out for the players who join P-40 after their junior year in college.)
Dredging up another old thread, I thought, with the season approaching, it was time for some predictions. I don't purport to know how well any individual rookie is going to do, but I think it should be possible to discern some trends. There are some pretty clear trends that arise from the first four years of the superdraft. Among the simplest, first round picks play about twice as many minutes as second round picks, who play about twice as much as third round picks, down on the line. In the four years of the draft, rookies have always accounted for under 10% of available league minutes, but above 5%. By year: Code: [size=1] Year Av. Min Min. Proportion 2000 387215 36483 9.4 2001 318993 26098 8.2 2002 282540 17089 6.0 2003 306758 21672 7.1 [/size] The drop between 2001 and 2002 was almost certainly caused by contraction, but several sophomores got their first meaningful minutes in 2003, so I think we can expect a bit more recovery and rookies to play somewhere between 7 and 8% of available minutes this year. Since MLS has eliminated overtime, we can say that they'll play 7-8% of 30*90*10*11, or somewhere between 20790 and 23760 minutes. Here's how minutes have been distributed by round (I readjusted 2002's rounds into groups of 10): Code: [size=1] Round 2000 2001 2002 2003 Total 1 3.92 4.34 2.82 3.96 3.76 2 2.45 2.32 1.05 1.83 1.91 3 1.51 1.07 1.20 0.47 1.06 4 0.97 0.44 0.08 0.52 0.50 5 0.53 0.02 0.38 0.21 0.29 6 0.05 0.00 0.52 0.07 0.16 Total 9.42 8.18 6.05 7.06 7.68 [/size] If we take expect them to play 7.5% of minutes, using those distributions, that means we're looking at about 10903 minutes for 1st rounders, 5542 for 2nds, 3075 for 3rds, 1452 for 4ths, 834 for 5ths, and 466 for 6ths. You obviously can't just average out those numbers to get individual expectations, but I'm going to do that anyway. In reverse order: 2 6th rounders, Jeff Parke and Chris Aloisi, made the opening day rosters. 4 5th rounders (Dombrowski, Pilarski, Detter, Sullivan) made it. 5 4th rounders (Clanton, Bradley, Gros, Sutton, Wagenfuhr) 3 3rd rounders (Maurin, Ara, Wells; White and Occean poached) 9 2nd rounders (Gregorio to Wigan) 10 1st rounders I guess that's about it. I'd expect the high expectations for Wagenfuhr, Gros, Sutton, Dombrowski, Detter, and Parke are going to be at least largely unsatisfied, as in the last three years, all players from the 4th round onwards have totalled 6724 minutes, 2241 per season, although there should be more room than usual since the third round crop was terrible. If any of the late round picks are to succeed, I'd bet on Parke and Wagenfuhr continuing the tradition of late-round defenders doing disproportionately well.
I think that both the drop in 2002 and the recovery in 2003 were caused by the large disparity in talent between the two classes. Both groups of players were entering a ten-team league, and IMO, the quality of established talent rose from 2002 to 2003, so it was even harder for a rookie to get minutes. As for this season's draftees, I'm betting that they'll be well under 7% again. The number of openings in this league continues to get smaller. Last season's draftees who debuted on opening day: Starters (7): Clark, Magee, LeBlanc, Dunivant, Crawford, Schmidt, Pause Sub appearances (3): Noonan, Ralph, Jaqua Will any 2004 draftees start tomorrow? (Marshall would, but I think he's hurt.)
You make good points, beineke, you can't ignore the difference in talent between years (like I did), and looking at opening-day players is about the best way to do it we have. 8% is probably too ambitious, I admit (even when trying to be smart and statistical, I can't resist being overly optimistic about all the new talent). However, I think your point, that (possibly) no rookies will start doesn't really hold up. Last year's first and second best rookies didn't start. The starters you listed ended up ranked 2nd, 4th, 1st, 9th, 19th, and 6th in minutes; the subs were 5th, 3rd, and 12th (averages of 6.8 and 6.7, respectively). I'd say what's more important than playing on opening day is having the opportunity to get on the field at all. I don't know who's starting Saturday, but I think you're a little pessimistic. Marshall will be starting when he gets back (which is really the point), Jeff Parke looks like a possibility for the Metrostars, some guy on the Metrostars board says Gary Sullivan (I believe) will be starting for Colorado, and a lot of D.C. fans think Josh Gros will be starting. Likely subs include: Adu, Ngwenya, Taylor, and Dempsey, with others certainly as possibilities. It's clearly not as good as last year (none of the starters are as promising as Clark was), but it's not a whole lot worse either.
Thx for all the info ... something tells me you're going to have some powerhouse fantasy teams this year. Anyway, I agree with the point above, though I'll be (pleasantly) surprised if close to 10 rookies do get onto the field tomorrow.
Just for reference, numerista, I looked up who played on opening day in 2002; just six guys. Code: Gray, Kelly sub 15 Martino, Kyle sub 3 Twellman, T. sub 33 Forko, Sam start 90 Glinton, Gavin sub 2 Stewart, Jeff start 100 Using rookie minutes played for 2003 and 2002, there was a .46 correlation between minutes played total and minutes played opening day. I also tried a different tack: guys got a 1 if they played, a 0 if they didn't, and got a correlation of .62. I also tried giving players a 2 for starting, a 1 for coming on as a sub, and a 0 for not playing; correlation .55. You'll have to tell me if that means anything or not.
The 2004 draft doesn't look as thin on talent as the lacklustre 2002 crop, but the opening day presence was very similar... Starters: Parke, Sullivan (both due to injury) Subs: Dempsey, Gros, Sutton, and Adu On the positive side, the class of 2003 continues to impress ... -- High-quality goals from Noonan, Magee, and Eskandarian -- Assists from Arturo Torres and Eddie Gaven (who looks ready for the national team) -- MLS debuts for Carroll (started to good reviews), Stokes, and Ritch In addition, David Testo started for Columbus, and his shot created Hejduk's rebound goal. Like Colorado starter Nat Borchers, he was undrafted last season. There's a cliche that the new players get better every year, but in practice, it's very sporadic. (This holds true with NBA drafts, as well.)
Yeah, last year's draft looked particularly good. Of the top 20 players selected, 10 started, and 4 others came on as subs. As for this year's class, I don't think you can make that 'due to injury' caveat unless you want to count Chad Marshall (and possibly Ryan Cochrane or others). A little bit disappointing, but certainly not terrible (although I'll harbor a grudge against Bob Gansler for a while for not substituting a forward in a 0-0 tie). I think what's encouraging for this class is that of the six guys who played, only two were from the first two rounds. That at least implies to me that the problem may be guys not being able to break into the lineup, not a simple lack of talent. (I think a significant factor in the difference in talent between last year and this might be the fact that MLS signed 13 P-40's last year, vs. 9 this year; specifically, in 2003 there were 8 juniors in the draft [in 2002 there was 1 sophomore], who would have been in 2004's draft otherwise.)
Agreed. In addition, there were only 6 P-40's in 2002, because players like Dunivant, Noonan, and Walsh all turned MLS down. That trio added to the 2003 group. (Also turning down MLS in 2002 were Akwari, Countess, Yi, and Onyewu; although the first two joined the league later that season.) Incidentally, I was surprised to count that the 2002 draft actually had 12 starters on Saturday, more than the 2003 crop. That list includes... 4 P-40's (Gray, Martino, Davis, and Mapp) 3 Players who went to Germany prior to MLS (Twellman, Gibbs, Joseph) 1 A-Leaguer (Jon Busch) 1 Player who had gone back to college for a year (Kante) 3 Development Players (Leitch, Arnaud, and Behncke) That's a complete starting line-up of 2002 draftees, plus a sub, and none of them went through four years of college, then straight into an MLS playing rotation.
Update: Code: 2002 Gray, Kelly sta Mapp, Justin sub Selolwane, Dipsy sub 2003 Jaqua, Nate sta Ralph, Damani sta Carroll, Brian sta Eskandarian, Alecko sta Torres, Arturo sta 2004 Griffin, Leonard sta Gros, Josh sta Adu, Freddy sub Ngwenya, Joseph sub Quite good for 2004.
Another; players in parentheses were subs: Code: 2002 Gray Mapp Behncke Davis Martino Leonard Joseph Twellman Leitch (Selolwane) (Moreno) (Gbandi) (Capano) (Arnaud) 2003 Ralph Jaqua Pause Alecko Carroll Thomas Walsh Borchers Noonan Clark Gaven (Testo) (Torres) (Walker) 2004 Marshall Grabavoy Ngwenya Dempsey Parke (Gros) (Adu) (Taylor) (Sullivan)
Last season, my opinion was that Nat Borchers was an exception, a strong player with an excellent track record who had simply been overlooked. This year, it's getting harder to deny that draft depth has improved. It's remarkable how many late-round picks have earned appearances, and with more qualifiers up ahead, their minutes may increase further. The flipside is that minutes are way down for players picked in rounds 2 and 3. 2004 Minutes by round (so far) 1 -- 3325 Adu 541, Marshall 810, Ngwenya 536, Taylor 148, Cochrane 360, Nunez 5, Dempsey 907, Buete 18 2 -- 500 Griffin 155, Wingert 43, Grabavoy 302 3 -- 105 Wells 90, Ara 15 4 -- 706 Sutton 5, Gros 699, Clanton 2 5 -- 222 Vercollone 1, Sullivan 212, Dombrowski 9 6 -- 1130 Brilliant 308, Aloisi 90, Dorman 123, Parke 609 Und - Cila 13, Perkins 360
I did a thing for the Emerald City Gazette before the 2003 draft grading each team on their drafting over time, and picking the steals and busts from each year, but I only based it on games, not minutes (general audience - didn't want to get too technical). I have it somewhere, if anyone thinks it might add to the discussion in any way.
I'm tempted to make the argument that this is a product of developmental rosters, but I think it's impossible to deny the fact that the draft's depth is significantly improved. I'm not sure there's a whole lot to be said about this - the second and third rounds are obviously down, but I think this is just a little bad luck combined with the fact that some guys haven't managed to break into their lineups yet - at the midpoint last year, Damani Ralph was the only 2nd rounder who was a consistent starter. These mid-round picks may be being drafted more for potential than for immediate ability to produce, while the more mature guys may be sliding. I don't think we've seen enough to make conclusions about these classes.
I would definitely like to see that, Kenn - what I think would be a good companion to that, though, would be if we did a regression so that we could estimate the 'expected minutes' that a team should have gotten from draft picks x, y, and z. I'm not exactly sure what to include, though - draft position and year, presumably, but what about position, or age-when-drafted, etc. And what numbers to look at? Rookie minutes, career minutes, goals, etc.? So if you or anyone else has ideas... (sorry to hijack your suggestion)