What the Numbers Tell Us About the Rapids in 2020

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Written by Mark Goodman with pretty pictures by Eliot McKinley

New numbers are supposed to reveal new understandings of teams and players - to find a better way to quantify the things we see on the field into useful, descriptive data that truly reflects a player’s genuine contribution to a team’s performance.

You’re at this website probably because you distrust the traditional numbers that a television broadcast might use to describe a player’s performance. ‘Assists’ are valuable, but less so if a player is a tremendous passer with lousy finishers on the end of his passes. ‘Pass completion percentage’ isn’t particularly valuable if a player makes lots of safe lateral and backwards passes.

The newish metric of Expected Goals was a great leap forward a few years ago for soccer data nerds because it was useful in discerning the difference between players that scored a lot of goals because they were given a bazillion chances and ‘even a blind squirrel finds a nut’ versus the guys who really put away the hard chances and make something out of nothing. That’s a valuable number for your forwards and attacking midfielders, but less so for your assist guys and fullbacks.

Enter: G+. ‘Goals Plus’ is an attempt to quantify the value of six of the most important things a player does on a soccer field: shooting, interrupting, receiving, passing, dribbling, and fouling. Moreover, G+ understands that an interruption inside the box is more valuable than one at midfield; a 40-yard through-ball leading to a goal is better than a back pass; and so on. It’s a damn good stat.

Is it the perfect number that describes the complete value of a soccer player? No. It can’t account for important off-the-ball things like making a run that pulls a guy out of position, leading to a team goal in which the given player doesn’t touch the ball. It also doesn’t address a player that is effective at defensive positioning, forcing opposing teams to find a way around a player that clogs up key spots. Still: it’ll tell us a lot about what a player adds to the game; or doesn’t add.

Also, a big caveat here: it’s still early. Eliot wanted me to remind you all that this data set is a little small and “typically we set a minimum of 1000 minutes”. Some specific and weird game events throw off the numbers. Like for instance, in the first Rapids MLS is Back Tournament (MiB) match against Real Salt Lake, Jeremy Kelly slid an ill-advised backpass towards goal. Lalas Abubakar wasn’t expecting it and doesn’t receive it. Clint Irwin tried to slap at it but instead fouled Douglas Martinez, resulting in a PK. It’s all pretty Yakkety Sax / sad trombone / @MLSist ‘We’ll be right back’ stuff from the ‘Pids, and specifically Kelly, and that one play it resulted in a -0.27 G+ on ‘Receiving G+’ knock on his numbers. He’s been great other than that, but the overall drag on his numbers from that one bonehead play makes him look worse than he probably is.

Note: I’m often going to use ‘raw G+ per 96 minutes’, while the cool data viz wheels Eliot McKinley is providing are ‘above-average G+ per 96 minutes’. The raw numbers create a little more space between players to show the degree difference from one guy to the next regardless of position, while the ‘above average’ allows you to see in a glance how a player does specifically against players who play the same position as him. Having both numbers is better, I think, than just one.

Things we’ve learned:

1)     Younes Namli has been the Most Valuable Player

Seven matches into what is supposed to be a 23-game season, no player on the Rapids has been as valuable as Younes Namli.

His overall G+/96 of 0.241 (averaged: 0.09) leads the team among starters, and is primarily the result of how he advances the ball with his dribbles - I mean look at that big yellow pie piece up above. He holds onto the ball in those situations, too, and the numbers take that into account. His passing is also a huge addition to the ball club - he finds seams and delivers the ball into the box well.

However, both the raw and the averaged numbers indicate that his overall production is pretty average for midfielders around the league. He ranks 15th amongs MLS midfielders in G+: his 0.241 is well below the overall per/96 contribution of of his much more productive and league leading counterparts Luis Diaz (0.382 G+/96), Alejandro Pozuelo (0.356) and Michael Barrios (0.339).

We’ve also learned that the numbers bear up what the eyes tell you: Namli can dribble.

This video is him against SKC last week sucking in three defenders and then feeding the ball to Cole Bassett who’s made the perfect back post run.

Among all MLS players, he ranks eighth in Dribbling G+ with 0.123 G+/96; the league leader is the LA Galaxy’s Cristian Pavon with an outrageous .193 DG+/96. In other words, the Rapids are at their most dangerous when they can get the ball to the feet of Namli; ideally in a position when he can open up to facing forward.

This data gives us a pretty clear answer: Namli’s dribbles create goal-scoring opportunities at a rate far outstripping his teammates or similar players on other teams. The offense should be primarily focused around getting the rock to Younes.

2)     The strikers haven’t been getting it done

Colorado has primarily used Diego Rubio and Kei Kamara as the central strikers for the attack, with Andre Shinyashiki doing some additional work. None of those three has been particularly productive.

Kei Kamara’s shooting is a G+/96 0.040 (averaged: 0.0), meaning he scores about at what you’d expect for every other MLS striker, no more, no less. Which would be fine - if everything else were equal. Alas, everything else he does is not equal. His Dribbling G+ is the anti-Namli: the raw number is -0.092, the averaged is -0.08, and the data viz wheel above shows that his dribbling is amongs the worst in the league at his position. Dribbling G+ is a weighted aggregate of a player’s Carries, Take-Ons, Miscontrols, and Dispossessions. In other words, Kamara’s been a turnover-in-waiting for the first seven games this year.

Among MLS players with more than 245 minutes, only seven players have a worse dribbling G+. Obnoxious sidebar comment: the LA Galaxy’s Chicharito is one of those guys that’ve been worse.

Player Mins Team Dribbling Interrupting Receiving Passing Shooting Fouling Goals Added
Donovan Pines 296 DCU -0.19 0.21 0.08 0.06 0.02 0.00 0.16
Julián Carranza 335 MIA -0.17 0.04 0.17 -0.02 0.07 0.02 0.11
Douglas Martínez 250 RSL -0.16 0.14 0.24 -0.06 0.07 0.10 0.33
Lucas Cavallini 475 VAN -0.13 0.02 0.21 -0.03 0.06 0.01 0.14
Mauro Manotas 482 HOU -0.12 0.03 0.18 -0.09 0.01 0.00 0.01
Luis Amarilla 413 MIN -0.12 0.01 0.30 -0.08 0.05 0.00 0.17
Chicharito 294 LAG -0.12 -0.05 0.24 0.00 0.07 0.00 0.14
Kei Kamara 464 COL -0.09 -0.02 0.15 -0.04 0.04 0.00 0.04

Diego Rubio hasn’t been the solution either: his overall G+/96 of 0.183 translates to an averaged G+ of -0.07. Again, his average Shooting G+ of 0.0 is just fine, but the offsetting weaknesses in his game of just a .121 Receiving G+ averages out as  -0.07 when adjusted for his position. There are 54 forwards in MLS better with opening up to the ball, taking a first touch and making a turn than Diego Rubio, including the much-maligned Gyasi Zardes (raw SG+ .313) and Rapids castoff Dominique Badji (0.182). And I’m gonna nit-pick a little bit: the gif to the right of Benezet’s lovely pass to Rubio shows that he makes good runs, and in that instance he received the ball just fine. But he took his first touch right in front of goal, and his second touch took the ball away and left, requiring a very difficult angled shot which toinks off the bar. He had a good shot lined up, but passed it up to take a tougher chance, which he missed. That’s not gonna get it done.

As you can tell from the data viz wheel, second-year forward Andre Shinyashiki has been fine at everything… except shooting. He has 12 shots and 5 Shots on Target. For those of us who have been able to watch the Rapids play*, we’ve seen him miss at least two “Oh you gotta hit that!” shots this season, and his -0.94 Goals minus Expected Goals reinforces that view. It all accounts for his well-below-average -0.05 Average SG+ on the data viz above. I think Shinya’s just a little miscalibrated; he hasn’t had a ton of opportunities yet, so give him a few more games and maybe he’ll start bangin’ em in.

But right now the Rapids are third-worst in the Western Conference in Goals Scored with 10, and those three strikers listed above account for just two of them. You can do a lot of things in MLS with incisive tactics and solid defense and brilliant passing. But if you can’t put the final ball into the net, you’re gonna lose a lot more often than you win. Either the strikers need to fix it, or the coaches need to fix the strikers, or the front office needs to bring a real finisher to Commerce City.

3)     You guys, I’m worried about Jack Price

Whatever’s going on with Jack Price, it isn’t good.

MLS’ three best defensive midfielders in terms of Interrupting G+/96 would not surprise anyone who watches MLS: they’re the same guys that’ve been scooping up recoveries, breaking up play, and stepping into the passing lane at juuuust the right moment for the last decade. It’s Michael Bradley (raw IntG+/96 0.169), Diego Chara (0.150), and Osvaldo Alonso (0.134).

All three give you around-average passing and dribbling and receiving. But they change the flow of the game considerably with their interrupting, a metric which consists of Tackles, Interceptions, Blocks, Clearances, Recoveries, and Contested Headers.

Jack Price’s raw Int G+/96 is 0.023, lower than all but three players on the Rapids. The only central midfielders with lower Int G+/96 numbers are Damir Kreilach, Kevin Molino, and Jonathan Osorio; guys known for being forward, attacking midfielders. Overall, Price’s Int G+ ranks 287 out of 329 qualifying MLS players. It’s bad.

Look, it’s possible to be a deep-lying midfielder who doesn’t break up plays like the other guys in the league: Andrea Pirlo and David Beckham are two of the most highly respected deep-lying midfielders in the history of the game. But if you’re gonna do that, you’ve got to be dropping laser-guided bombs all over the field with your passing, not generating a barely-interesting 0.02 Passing G+/96. Among the guys I mentioned, Price’s Passing G+ of 0.046 is better than Diego Chara’s 0.044 and Michael Bradley’s 0.027, but is behind Alonso’s 0.061. And moreover, what he gives up defensively doesn’t make up for that. That’s evident in the -0.06 average Overall G+.

He’s a guy. He’s on the field. But he’s not creating, and he’s not stopping the opposition from creating. Either the system he’s in isn’t productive, or he’s been a faulty cog in the system. And he plays (in my humble and well-documented opinion) the most crucial position on the team.

…

Look, the season is far from irretrievably broken for Colorado. Once again, they look like a ‘below-the-playoff-line’ side in MLS, their perennial position for the better part of a decade. There are still 16 games to go, and there are certainly good signs - the aforementioned play of Namli; the emergence of Jonathan Lewis as a game-changing winger; the steady and reliable play in the back of Lalas Abubakar, Keegan Rosenberry, and Sam Vines.

But Colorado are letting the sand slip through their fingers. They’ve got holes. They don’t have long to plug them or sew them up before they begin yet another year of promising their fans ‘no, really, next year is going to be different. We promise.’ 

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* KSE’s TV company Altitude Sports has been locked in a carrier dispute with both Comcast and Dish Network, the TV services that cover a majority of viewers in Colorado. Most Colorado Rapids fans or soccer fans in Colorado can not watch the games due to a persisting blackout that has been going on for over a year now.