So, I was looking at the 1996 and 1997 college drafts, and was struck by the difference in quality between them - 1996 produced several players still in MLS, and not a few national teamers, 1997 produced Steve Jolley and Kevin Hartman. If you look at 1998, you see another explosion of talented, national team players - Clint Mathis, Pablo Mastroeni, Chris Klein; 1999 yielded Richard Mulrooney, but was overall far weaker. I don't know what caused these differences, but I think a large part of it was probably opportunity - the 1996 players got to play because nobody knew what was going on, the 1998 players got to play because of expansion, the others just didn't. It may be that talented players entered the league early because they saw these opportunities, but I don't think that was a particularly big push. Certainly not enough to create the difference the numbers indicate (first two columns are minutes, second two caps, separated by year drafted): Code: Career Rookie Caps #capped 1996 166568 18267 203 9 1997 80875 9259 4 2 1998 183679 22433 103 8 1999 82842 14682 16 2 That's right, the 1996 and 1998 classes have played twice the number of minutes in their careers as the 1997 and 1999 classes, and both 1996 and 1998 got significantly more minutes as rookies than their competitors. What's particularly interesting, I think, is the number of players capped - this isn't just the product of a few star players distorting things - a lot more players in 1996 and 1998 had quality MLS careers. (And, considering that there were only 30 players in a college draft, those #capped percentages are huge.)
interesting, not sure what to make of this not sure if expansion could possibly cause this, if so, how really? more playing time? any way the 2 year youth national team cycles might have "developed" players better every other year? it's more like a 2 year cycle over 4 years from my view. does this carry through the next 5 years?
It's worth adding that the 1998 Project-40 class also added four cap recipients, including some good ones: Howard, Olsen, West and Wolff. None of the '97 P-40's earned a cap, and Albright was the only '99 P-40 to do so. (Technically, Damarcus Beasley also joined the league in 1999, but he didn't debut until 2000, his first season as a full-time player.) I'm sure that the available playing time in 1998 did make a difference; here are some thoughts on other possible factors: Absence of P-40 attrition This was the year that Project-40 really got off the ground. As a result, the 1998 draft included a full class of college seniors, some of whom might otherwise have gone P-40 earlier. Roster Places Prior to the introduction of development players, roster places were much harder to come by, especially in non-expansion years. Looking at the draft, however, this didn't seem to make a difference. Only two of the collegians who stuck around were picked after #18. Youth National Teams The 1998 seniors were born in 1975 and 1976. They were the least successful U-20 team in memeroy, failing to qualify for the World Youth Cup. I don't remember any of them being U-17 internationals, either. This seems like a non-factor. Better Scouting In an expansion year, teams knew they needed to add college talent. This might have led them to search more thoroughly. Random Fluctuation In dealing with small numbers of players, random fluctuation can play a large role. The (2,8,2) pattern is borderline significant (p-value 0.05), though. One possibility is that a small effect has been dramatically inflated by chance variation.
Just a question, but is Steve Ralston tipping the scales at all on this thing? His 'streak' of games and minutes played I think is one of the most underappreciated in MLS. Jamie Moreno, Marco Etchevery, Peter Novack and some others may have been the best players this league has ever seen. But the level of consistency that Ralston has had in this league is amazing.
I would say no. Ralston accounts for 23008 of the career minutes played for 1996 - 14% of the total - and about 18% of the rookie minutes. There's clearly something going on here beside that. But yeah, he's a pretty amazing workhorse, that Ralston. It's very possible that, given a few more good years, he'll hold the MLS career minutes record for a long, long time.
He probably wouldn't tip the scales any more than a regular Rookie of the Year. You showed that the amount of minutes taken up was proportunate. At first I was thinking you were taking into account '96 guys who were playing in years after, my mistake.