MLS's Depth Problem

After watching the recent performance against SKC and reading Jerimiah's article on how many players we may lose for a match or two during the international "break", it started me thinking about the challenges faced by any team in the MLS under the current salary cap / financial system. This article is intended to see if I can highlight some of the drop-off in quality and prove to myself that such a drop-off actually exists.

There are certainly poor teams in the MLS (as with any league) but the good teams all have very respectable starting squads. I'd argue that the top teams with their starting 11's could possibly be competitive against many of Europe's second division teams and possibly some of the lower tier teams in the top divisions.

This, of course is up for debate, but the key phrase above is "starting 11's" assuming they are all healthy. I think the dramatic drop off in play within the MLS is not due to poor starters but due to low-quality, low-paid benches. With the propensity for injury and the MLS running games during international breaks, every team plays large stretches with less than their ideal squad.

To make the point, take a look at the Sounders squad. Our ideal starting 11 going into the season was:

-------------------- Ruidiaz ---------------------

VRod ------------ Lodeiro ----------- Morris

------- C. Roldan --------- Svensson ------

Smith - Kee-Hee - Marshall - Leerdam

--------------------- Frei -----------------------

If we lose everyone on Jerimiah's list for a game (or two) during early June, plus Marshall (retired) and Svensson either called up or injured, but somehow have Rodriguez healthy, we look like:

-------------------- Bruin ---------------------

VRod ------------ Shipp ---------- Bwana

------- Alex Roldan --------- Wingo ------

Abdul-Salaam- Kee-Hee - Campbell- Leerdam

--------------------- Frei -----------------------

This set-up results in a total squad size of 15 with 4 on the bench including 2 substitute GK's. With the current roster only (i.e. no call-ups) we'd be limited to 2 subs - Leyva and Ocampo-Chavez.

While this is a one-time thing, and every team has to deal with this, it does seem to almost reduce the overall quality of the league. It means that every team has portions of their season where they are playing poor soccer out of necessity. It certainly isn't a top-level fan experience.

So how big is the drop-off between starters and the rest of the team? Most teams around the world don't have the luxury of two full "starter" squads, so what is "reasonable"?

Here is my attempt to at least think through this issue. It isn't scientific and is open to huge holes, but hopefully it helps to show the point.

I took the squad and labeled each player as one of 4 categories: Quality Starters (Frei, Leerdam, Kee-Hee, Marshall, C. Roldan, Svensson, Lodeiro, Rodriguez, Ruidiaz); Quality Subs who are just a step below (Meridith, Smith, Nouhou, Torres, Morris, Shipp, Bruin), Future Potential (young players who might become starters like Abdul-Salaam, Campbell, Delem, Bwana, and A. Roldan, along with brand new additions Arreaga and Joevin Jones), then Spot Fillers (Muse, Ocampo-Chavez, Wingo, Leyva).

My ranking of players are likely different from yours and open for massive criticism, but work with me on this.

At the start of the season we had:

Quality Starters: 9

Quality Subs: 7

Future Potential: 5

Spot Fillers: 4

Injured/Out: 0

Giving Starters a 4 rating, Subs a 3 rating and down to zero for Injured/Out, then creating a weighted average the team at the start of the season was rated at 2.84. Mathematically this is just under a Quality Sub level overall. Not terrible on an overall squad basis.

In order to get a sense of scale, I composed an idealized team consisting of 15 starters (11 true starting quality plus 4 on the bench who have similar quality but perhaps different skill sets) then 9 sub quality players and 3 up-and-coming young players and no spot fillers. This is just my estimate of an ideal but realistic team without financial constraints, but, again, yours may differ. This ideal team averages a 3.44 rating - above the Sounder's "all healthy" average rating but not as much as I originally thought it would be.

Now, lets take a look at the impact of injuries. The same team when we lined up against Sporting KC:

Quality Starters: 6

Quality Subs: 6

Future Potential: 7

Spot Fillers: 4

Injured/Out: 4

The future potential count went up by 2 (Jones and Arreaga are new and even though we know JJ, I lumped them both into the future category since we don't know how they will integrate this year) and I accounted for all the injuries (including Marshall). As of the SKC match, the weighted average of the team was a 2.22, just barely over the ranking for a full team of Future Potential Players. The drop off in quality was clearly seen in that match.

Take the same "ideal" team and give them a rash of injuries -- 4 total injured (3 starter quality and 1 sub quality). This adjusted ideal team has a weighted average of 2.89. They can sustain such an injury blow and still field close to a Quality Substitute level (and roughly equivalent to the Sounders "best" weighted average). This hypothetical ideal team may not play as well with these type of injuries but it isn't crippled by them either.

Now, take the catastrophe scenario of injuries and international call-ups that appears to be looming for the Sounders. Under the worst case scenario the June 5th match could look like this:

Quality Starters: 4

Quality Subs: 3

Future Potential: 4

Spot Fillers: 4

Injured/Out: 12

This averages out to a lowly 1.37 -- essentially a team of Spot Filler's with one or two better quality players thrown in. If you were running a business and the quality of your product dropped off this much, you'd be very worried about the impact it will have on your customers and your reputation. Fortunately, for the MLS, there is no easy substitute for physically attending games, but I have to believe that viewership suffers due to poor quality of play.

In the end, the result of all of this isn't scientific (or even all that thoroughly thought out) but I hope it does serve to show the challenge that, in my opinion, every team in the MLS has. The salary cap and mathematics of the MLS allow for some very high quality players and, when everyone is healthy, a very high quality of play. But we are still in the "Beckham" era where teams have a few quality players that can show flashes of what the beautiful game can look like, but unfortunately, the depth is so shallow that injuries, suspensions and call-ups (which hit the top of the team almost exclusively) degrade performances quickly and often. In my mind, if the sport is to grow and gain ground against other sports here in the US, there needs to be more than just a few star players to watch - there needs to be good overall teams that play good overall soccer on a consistent basis.

I don't have an answer for any of this and I like the next new shiny DP just as much as everyone else, but as a whole I hope that MLS can find a way to lift the overall play of the league to where it can be consistently good (with periodic great matches) rather than consistently hampered by the need to use players who aren't quite up to prime-time yet while still billing the league as a "major" league.

Perhaps the next CBA will solve or improve some of these issues, but I'm not so sure that the owners are looking to take the league up a level as much as finding ways to market it better and bring in new teams (further diluting the player pool). I'd love to hear your thoughts on whether this is a legitimate issue or if I'm off-base here. I'd also love to learn more about how the MLS is trying to raise the overall level of play by all teams across the entire season if anyone has any info!