As MLS grows, it needs more than just national team pool players. It also needs home-grown pro soccer players whose primary goal is to win championships, not call-ups. What follows is a register of the league's domestic help: US-eligible players with at least 50 starts but not a single international appearance to their names. Players are listed with their MLS regular-season starts, (total regular-season appearances), and the teams they've appeared for. Currently inactive players are in italics. Mike Clark 216 (221) clb 96-03 Steve Jolley 184 (198) la 97-00, met 00-03, dal 04 Scott Garlick 176 (178) dc 97-98, tb 99-01, col 01-03, dal 04 Ross Paule 155 (192) col 97-01, met 01-02, clb 03-04 Richie Kotschau 154 (170) chi 98-99, tb 99-01, col 01-04 Jay Heaps 154 (169) mia 99-01, ne 01-04 Brian Kamler 146 (186) dc 96-99, 01 mia 99-00, met 02, ne 02-04 Richard Farrer 141 (158) dal 96-02 Carey Talley 134 (176) dc 98-01, kc 02-03, dal 04 David Vaudreuil 134 (151) dc 96-97, mia 98, col 98-00, chi 01-02 Brandon Prideaux 130 (147) kc 99-01, dc 02-04 Jimmy Conrad 129 (143) sj 99-02, kc 03-04 Brian Dunseth 125 (147) ne 97-01, mia 01, clb 02-03, dal 03 Mike Ammann 124 (125) kc 96-98, met 99-00, dc 00-01 Mark Dougherty 120 (122) tb 96-97, clb 98-01 Matt Jordan 115 (115) dal 98-02, clb 04 Todd Yeagley 113 (138) clb 96-02 Eric Quill 106 (141) tb 97-01, kc 02-03, dal 04 Jim Rooney 104 (116) met 98-99, mia 99-01, ne 02 Sean Bowers 104 (111) kc 96-99 Mike Duhaney 103 (121) tb 97-98, met 98-99, clb 00-01 Danny Peña 103 (109) la 97-01, tb 01 Mark Semioli 102 (121) la 96-97, met 97-01 Eric Dade 98 (111) dal 97-01 David Kramer 98 (106) la 96-97 sj 97-99 col 00-02 Rusty Pierce 98 (101) ne 00-04 Eric Denton 96 (107) dc 00-01, tb 01, clb 02-04 John Maessner 95 (151) dc 96-97, 99-00, mia 98-99, tb 00-01 Chris Martinez 95 (108) col 97-01 Jim Curtin 94 (102) chi 01-04 Brandon Pollard 91 (106) dal 96-00 Ian Russell 89 (118) sj 00-04 Chad McCarty 87 (97) tb 98-01, clb 02-03 Scott Vermillion 87 (95) kc 98-99, col 00-01, dc 01 Paul Broome 86 (111) dal 99-03, la 03-04 Chris Brown 85 (137) kc 99-03, ne 03, sj 04 Ryan Tinsley 85 (99) kc 97-98, chi 99, sj 99-00 Josh Keller 83 (89) chi 98, tb 98-01 Adin Brown 83 (83) col 00-01, tb 01, ne 02-04 Evan Whitfield 78 (103) chi 00-04 Wes Hart 73 (86) col 00-03, sj 04 Braeden Cloutier 72 (97) met 97, sj 98-99, ne 01-02 Jeff Cassar 72 (74) dal 96, 03-04, mia 98-01 Daniel Hernandez 71 (101) la 98-99, tb 99-00, met 00-02, ne 02-03 Francisco Gomez 68 (114) kc 99-04 Jason Farrell 67 (98) clb 97-00 Brian Kelly 67 (98) met 97-00, la 00, tb 01 Orlando Perez 67 (98) met 00-02, dc 02, chi 02-04 Jeff Causey 67 (89) dc 96-97, ne 97-01 Jon Busch 66 (67) clb 02-04 Bobby Rhine 66 (125) dal 99-04 Joey DiGiamarino 64 (93) col 98-00, 04, met 03 AJ Wood 63 (124) met 96-97, clb 97, dc 98-01 Sam George 63 (87) ne 97, tb 97-99, chi 99-00 Tom Soehn 63 (87) dal 97-98, chi 98-00 Kelly Gray 63 (78) chi 02-04 Matt Reis 63 (68) la 98-02, ne 03-04 Rhett Harty 63 (64) met 96-98 Jason Moore 62 (91) dc 99, col 00-01, chi 02, ne 03 Bryan Namoff 62 (75) dc 01-04 Billy Thompson 61 (75) clb 96-99 Brad Davis 57 (79) met 02, dal 03-04 Adam Frye 56 (94) tb 96-98, sj 99, la 00-02 Chris Carrieri 56 (75) sj 01, col 01-03, chi 04 Craig Waibel 56 (70) col 00, la 01-02, sj 03-04 Johnny Torres 55 (92) ne 98-01, mia 01, chi 02 Kyle Beckerman 55 (74) mia 00-01, col 02-04 Mark Lisi 54 (83) dc 01-02, met 02-04 Paul Dougherty 53 (72) met 98, tb 98-99, chi 99, col 00 Paul Wright 51 (83) kc 96-99 Wade Webber 51 (53) dal 97, mia 98-99 Nat Borchers 51 (52) col 03-04 Chris Leitch 50 (57) clb 02 met 03-04 Among the active players in this list, I'm struck by how few of them are likely to earn a cap. At least a couple of them probably will, but not many.
So this gives the league 35 active players in this group, 3.5 per team. Of these, 21 (roughly) are regular starters for their teams. In terms of when they joined the league, the players break down like: Code: # minutes age 2003 1 2610 23.0 2002 4 2319 24.5 2001 3 1926 25.4 2000 9 1370 26.2 1999 7 1513 27.2 1998 5 1331 28.1 1997 4 1733 28.6 1996 2 1643 31.2 Total 35 1641.8 26.9 Their minutes average, for the record, is significantly better than the league average, not too surprising, considering these guys are all veterans. However, I'm not really sure I understand what your point is here, numerista. Obviously, as the league grows, more Americans will be unable to make it onto the national team, but it's not like the league needs to cultivate them. They should emerge naturally. I'm not sure why you bothered listing the inactive players with the actives, either. What's the significance of a Paul Wright or a Wade Webber or a John Maessner?
Perhaps I'm not following, but isn't the success of development players a sign that MLS cultivation is needed? By and large, DP's aren't harboring serious World Cup aspirations, but as you've shown in other threads, they are very useful in MLS. After only three years of DP existence, Namoff, Leitch, and Borchers have already cracked the list above.* Perhaps they're not much more than trivia, but they do provide a reference point for looking at today's players. That said, one topic that interests me is player attrition. It's often hard to pinpoint why players leave soccer, but we do know one thing: a fair number of MLSers walk away voluntarily in their 20's. That's very uncommon in most other first divisions. To a fan like myself, it's disappointing that the Leo Cullens and Imad Babas drop out a year or two after they fall out of the national team pool. So without getting into an involved discussion, I like this particular leaderboard because it rewards the players who think that MLS itself is worth their dedication. *This comment isn't meant to dismiss the blossoming national team contention by Borchers and Arnaud, just to acknowledge that such cases are unlikely to be common.
Obviously it's important for MLS to develop more talented players. But it just seems strange to focus on cultivating this kind of player - you want to do your best to develop good players, and these marginal players should naturally be byproducts of that. But your opening statement that "[MLS] also needs home-grown pro soccer players whose primary goal is to win championships, not call-ups" doesn't make sense as a goal - how could the league possibly set out to develop these kinds of players? And, for the record, I'm not sure that developing developmental players would necessarily increase the ranks of these players. A lot of them, Ross Paule, Jay Heaps, Eric Denton, Chris Brown, Orlando Perez, (etc.) are guys who I'd hope that developmental players would push out of the league. By shortening careers, improving the talent base may actually shrink the number of these guys active at any time. You may be struck by how many of these guys will never make the national team, but are still capable of contributing to a team - while I admit I undervalue veteran contributions, I'm more struck by how many of these guys are mediocre, and how the league would be better served giving their time to players with potential to actually be good. I certainly see your point, although I prefer a league where Richard Farrer and Garth Lagerway may quit their jobs to become lawyers any minute.
... by implementing the Development Player program as it exists. If you're trying to improve the national team, you do what Bradenton does -- start putting players into a serious environment at age 15. You're not much bothered by 23-year-olds who still aren't good enough for an MLS roster. From looking at other countries, we know what elite youth programs like Bradenton produce: a small number of standouts and a bunch of players who fall behind. The latter group are not generally first-division quality players. To the extent that such players do stick in MLS, it's because our league doesn't have enough decent alternatives. (To put this more strongly, MLS won't find quality role players among the dregs of the youth national teams.) That is a possible interpretation. Perhaps it's why the 2004 MLS Cup finalists don't rely much on domestic help. An average pair of teams would combine to have seven of these players, with four of them on the field at any given moment. DC and KC have only four between them -- starters Namoff and Conrad, and reserves Prideaux and Gomez. Conrad many not stay on this list for long, either. In general, though, the points you raise are the kind of question that make this group of players interesting. Current list members played 20% of all MLS minutes in 2004, and future list members added another sizeable portion. With expansion, that percentage will grow even further. The evolution of the domestic help will clearly have more than a marginal impact on the league.
Updating through 8/30/05 A reminder of the rules: to qualify, a player must be US-eligible but uncapped and have made at least 50 regular season starts in MLS. In my comments to begin this thread last year, I said that I didn't expect many of the players who had been on the list to be capped. To my surprise, no less than six of them already have been: Conrad, Borchers, B.Davis, Kotschau, Reis, and Busch. In addition, several of the new entries are almost certain to be capped, as well. One of them (Mapp) is in camp right now. So, it may be fair to suggest that the gap between capped and uncapped players is smaller than I had imagined. (In my defense, I did mention Conrad and Borchers as national team possibilities.) Looking at the update below, every team has at least one of the “domestic helpers,” although they seem to play a particularly big role on the expansion teams, who haven’t had much success. At the opposite end of the spectrum, the San Jose Earthquakes have quite a few of them, too, as well as several players who are similar (e.g. Barrett, Cerritos, Ale Moreno). The fact that the Quakes are very good and the expansion teams very bad may suggest that there is a wide difference in the ability level of players who are outside of the national team picture. Players are listed with their career (regular-season) starts and total appearances, with 2005 numbers if applicable, as well as the teams they've appeared for. Inactive players are italicized. Rankings are given for the top ten active players. MLS Domestic Help Register Mike Clark 216 (221) clb 96-03 1. Scott Garlick 195 (198), 19 (20) dc 97-98, tb 99-01, col 01-03, dal 04-05 2. Steve Jolley 190 (205), 6 (7), la 97-00, met 00-03, dal 04-05 3. Jay Heaps 177 (192), 23 (23) mia 99-01, ne 01-05 4. Brian Kamler 163 (207), 17 (21) dc 96-99, 01 mia 99-00, met 02, ne 02-04, rsl 05 Ross Paule 155 (192) col 97-01, met 01-02, clb 03-04 5. Brandon Prideaux 151 (168), 21 (21) kc 99-01, dc 02-05 6. Carey Talley 145 (190), 11 (14) dc 98-01, kc 02-03, dal 04-05 7. Brian Dunseth 142 (164), 17 (17) ne 97-01, mia 01, clb 02-03, dal 03, rsl 05 Richard Farrer 141 (158) dal 96-02 David Vaudreuil 134 (151) dc 96-97, mia 98, col 98-00, chi 01-02 Mike Ammann 124 (125) kc 96-98, met 99-00, dc 00-01 Mark Dougherty 120 (122) tb 96-97, clb 98-01 8. Eric Denton 117 (129), 21 (22) dc 00-01, tb 01, clb 02-04, col 05 9. Matt Jordan 115 (115), 0 (0) dal 98-02, clb 04-05 10T. Jim Curtin 113 (124), 19 (22) chi 01-05 10T. Rusty Pierce 113 (116), 15 (15) ne 00-04, rsl 05 Todd Yeagley 113 (138) clb 96-02 Eric Quill 106 (143), 0 (2) tb 97-01, kc 02-03, dal 04, met 05 Chris Brown 105 (139), 20 (22) kc 99-03, ne 03, sj 04, rsl 05 Jim Rooney 104 (116) met 98-99, mia 99-01, ne 02 Sean Bowers 104 (111) kc 96-99 Mike Duhaney 103 (121) tb 97-98, met 98-99, clb 00-01 Danny Peña 103 (109) la 97-01, tb 01 Mark Semioli 102 (121) la 96-97, met 97-01 Eric Dade 98 (111) dal 97-01 David Kramer 98 (106) la 96-97 sj 97-99 col 00-02 John Maessner 95 (151) dc 96-97, 99-00, mia 98-99, tb 00-01 Chris Martinez 95 (108) col 97-01 Paul Broome 92 (120), 5(6),1(3) dal 99-03, la 03-05, rsl 05 Brandon Pollard 91 (106) dal 96-00 Ian Russell 90 (128), 1 (10) sj 00-05 Chad McCarty 87 (97) tb 98-01, clb 02-03 Scott Vermillion 87 (95) kc 98-99, col 00-01, dc 01 Bobby Rhine 85 (144), 19 (19) dal 99-05 Ryan Tinsley 85 (99) kc 97-98, chi 99, sj 99-00 Orlando Perez 84 (118), 17 (20) met 00-02, dc 02, chi 02-04, chv 05 Josh Keller 83 (89) chi 98, tb 98-01 Adin Brown 83 (83) col 00-01, tb 01, ne 02-04 Kelly Gray 80 (97), 12 (12), 5 (6) chi 02-05, sj 05 Evan Whitfield 78 (108), 0 (5) chi 00-04, rsl 05 Francisco Gomez 76 (126), 8 (12) kc 99-04, chv 05 Jeff Cassar 76 (78), 4 (4) dal 96, 03-05, mia 98-01 Wes Hart 74 (93), 1 (7) col 00-03, sj 04-05 Braeden Cloutier 72 (97) met 97, sj 98-99, ne 01-02 Mark Lisi 73 (103), 19 (20) dc 01-02, met 02-05 Daniel Hernandez 73 (103), 2 (2) la 98-99, tb 99-00, met 00-02, ne 02-03, 05 Chris Leitch 72 (80), 22 (23) clb 02, met 03-05 Kyle Beckerman 71 (95), 16 (21) mia 00-01, col 02-05 Bryan Namoff 69 (84), 7 (9) dc 01-05 Bo Oshoniyi 69 (73), 25 (25) clb 96, kc 00-05 Ricardo Clark 68 (77), 21 (23), met 03-04, sj 05 Todd Dunivant 68 (71), 25 (25), sj 03-04, la 05 Jason Farrell 67 (98) clb 97-00 Brian Kelly 67 (98) met 97-00, la 00, tb 01 Jeff Causey 67 (89) dc 96-97, ne 97-01 Joey DiGiamarino 64 (93) col 98-00, 04, met 03 AJ Wood 63 (124) met 96-97, clb 97, dc 98-01 Sam George 63 (87) ne 97, tb 97-99, chi 99-00 Tom Soehn 63 (87) dal 97-98, chi 98-00 Rhett Harty 63 (64) met 96-98 Craig Waibel 62 (76), 6 (6) col 00, la 01-02, sj 03-05 Jason Moore 62 (91) dc 99, col 00-01, chi 02, ne 03 Billy Thompson 61 (75) clb 96-99 Davy Arnaud 60 (76), 23 (25) kc 02-05 Justin Mapp 59 (70), 22 (22) dc 02, chi 03-05 Eddie Robinson 59 (64), 23 (23) sj 01-05 Adam Frye 56 (94) tb 96-98, sj 99, la 00-02 Chris Carrieri 56 (75) sj 01, col 01-03, chi 04 Johnny Torres 55 (92) ne 98-01, mia 01, chi 02 Paul Dougherty 53 (72) met 98, tb 98-99, chi 99, col 00 Antonio Martinez 52 (91), 17 (19) dal 00-03, la 03, chv 05 Logan Pause 51 (74), 17 (20) chi 03-05 Mike Magee 51 (73), 14 (22) met 03-05 Jose Luis Burciaga 51 (55), 24 (24) kc 01-05 Paul Wright 51 (83) kc 96-99 Wade Webber 51 (53) dal 97, mia 98-99
To make the list easier to read and potentially more useful for looking at national team possibilities, I stripped away the inactive players and previous season statistics, and reformatted a bit. I also took out players who have started less than 15 games this year, which reduces the list to 24 players. I also added players' ages, grouped by positions (as listed on the MLS website), and sorted by number of starts this year. Goalkeepers: Bo Oshoniyi - 25/25 KC - 33 Scott Garlick - 19/20 DAL - 33 Defenders: Todd Dunivant - 25/25 LA - 24 Jose Burciaga - 24/24 KC - 23 Eddie Robinson - 23/23 SJ - 27 Jay Heaps - 23/23 NE - 29 Chris Leitch - 22/23 MET - 26 Eric Denton - 21/22 COL - 27 Brandon Prideaux - 21/21 DC - 29 Jim Curtin - 19/22 CHI - 26 Bobby Rhine - 19/19 DAL - 29 Logan Pause - 17/20 CHI - 24 Orlando Perez - 17/20 CHV - 28 Kelly Gray - 17/18 CHI/SJ - 24 Brian Dunseth - 17/17 RSL - 28 Rusty Pierce - 15/15 RSL - 26 Midfielders: Justin Mapp - 22/22 CHI - 20 Ricardo Clark - 21/23 SJ - 22 Chris Brown - 20/22 RSL - 28 Mark Lisi - 19/20 MET - 27 Brian Kamler - 17/21 RSL - 33 Kyle Beckerman - 16/21 COL - 23 Forwards: Davy Arnaud - 23/25 KC - 25 Antonio Martinez - 17/19 CHV - 28 To my eye, the players most likely to get called up now rise to the top of the list for their position - I can easily see Dunivant, Burciaga, Robinson, Mapp, Clark, and Arnaud getting capped at some point.
Thanks ... that's very interesting. Even though I put the list together myself, I hadn't noticed how few attacking players there were. The only ones who never play a defensive or holding role are Mapp, Arnaud, and Martinez. As you imply, Mapp is very likely to earn a cap, and Arnaud has a chance. Martinez might also have done so if he had become a US citizen sooner. By the way, Brian Carroll recently made his 50th start ... another holding player. For me, he and Beckerman are hard ones in terms of guessing whether they might have national team appearances their future.
Updating through the end of the 2005 season and trying a different format... Domestic Help by Year of Birth 1965 1966 Vaudreuil 134, Soehn 63, P.Daugherty 53 1967 M.Dougherty 120, Webber 51 1968 S.Bowers 104, Rooney 104, Pena 103, Semioli 91, B.Thompson 61 1969 Maessner 95, P.Wright 51 1970 Dade 98, C.Martinez 95, Farrell 77, Sa.George 63, Harty 63 1971 Farrer 141, Ammann 124, Tinsley 85, Oshoniyi 76, Causey 67 1972 Clark 216, Garlick 203, Kamler 170, T.Yeagley 113, D.Kramer 98 1973 Pollard 91, AJ.Wood 63 1974 Duhaney 103, Cassar 76, Cloutier 72, B.Kelly 67, Frye 56 1975 Jolley 196, Jordan 117,Reis 94, Russell 91, J.Keller 83, Waibel 62 1976 Heaps 185, Prideaux 158, Paule 155, Talley 148, Broome 97, Rhine 93, Vermillion 87, D.Hernandez 78, J.Torres 55 1977 Dunseth 149, C.Brown 110,O.Perez 91, Whitfield 78, Lisi 76, Hart 74, DiGiamarino 64, A.Martinez 56 1978 Denton 128, Quill 106, A.Brown 83, E.Robinson 65, Jas.Moore 62 1979 Curtin 118, Pierce 113, Namoff 77, F.Gomez 76, Leitch 76 1980 Dunivant 75, Arnaud 65, Carrieri 56, Leonard 52 1981 K.Gray 88, Burciaga 58, Pause 58 1982 Beckerman 80, Countess 54, Gros 50 1983 1984 Magee 58
I find it interesting that there is a deep crop of players born in 1976, most of whom finished college around the time of the 1998 MLS expansion. By contrast, most players from the thin 1973 crop finished college in 1995, before there was MLS to go to. Since playing opportunities seem to make a difference, I suspect that the 1978-80 generation will remain on the lean side. They came out of college when it was hard to win a roster place, before the recent focus on developmental rosters and around the time of the 2002 contraction.
Two years ago when I started this thread, I was wondering mostly about player dropout ... elsewhere in BS, there has been continued discussion about whether MLS offers enough rewards to keep its useful veterans around. The answer seems to be a clear "yes." One of my two initial examples was Leo Cullen, who later attempted a comeback, and there hasn't really been anyone else of note who's voluntarily left the league. Ian Russell would be the best example, although he spent the 2005 season riding the bench. As a result, I won't bother maintaining this list any longer, although I will mention that Todd Dunivant and Matt Reis earned their first caps earlier this year, and that Scott Garlick is only three starts and five appearances away from catching Mike Clark as #1 among uncapped players.