Unlike last season where Columbus returned 96% of team minutes played, this offseason has seen more turnover for the Crew than has been seen in years but has also resulted in impressive depth throughout the squad. After a disappointing and injury-filled 2019 season, Caleb Porter will be looking to bring his team to the playoffs for the first time under his watch.
Read MoreThe Columbus Crew had a disappointing season in 2019, finishing 3rd to last in the East. Unlike the stability of last season, the roster is showing more turnover than the club has seen in many years. While most positions have starters already in place, the Crew lack depth in most positional groups.
Here’s how the Crew’s roster stands with a projected depth chart in the Crew’s traditional 4-2-3-1 formation…
Read MoreThe year 2019 brought a new Crew. Anthony Precourt got his wish and slithered away to Austin, while head coach and sporting director Gregg Berhalter began his rehabilitation of the US national team, leaving behind five years of solid results in Columbus. Replacing them was a new ownership group and front office led by the Haslam and Edwards families. Toronto FC’s Tim Bezbatchenko came in to lead the Crew’s soccer operations and former MLS Champion Caleb Porter took over as the head coach. With the smallest offseason turnover of a perennial playoff team, expectations were that Porter would provide a steady hand for continued success this season. However, that hasn’t happened and Columbus remains third to last in the Eastern Conference with only a game left in the season. Did the transition fail to succeed because Porter couldn’t implement his vision, or because that vision just didn’t work?
Read MoreInspired by recent NFL draft analytics articles, I wrote an article developing an expected value curve for the MLS SuperDraft. Using that curve as a baseline for how well draftees in a given slot should do, we can compare that to how well they actually do, across the picks for a given coach or team. This then tells us which coaches and teams have done an especially good or an especially poor job evaluating NCAA prospects over the last few years, by looking at who exceeds and who underperforms expectations.
Here’s how things look at the team level from 2007 to 2015. (I should note that I’m only going up to 2015 because the metric I’m using to measure value is the total number of minutes played by a player in his first two seasons.)
Read MoreLike a hot new boy band busting onto the music scene, the Portland Timbers came out of nowhere last season to improve more than any other MLS team, jumping from an eighth-place Western Conference finish and 34 points in 2012 to first place and 57 points in 2013. Expectations are high for 2013 Coach-of-the-Year Caleb Porter, and we will soon see which member of the band the Timbers are; a legitimate talent with true staying power like RSL, the Galaxy and JT, or the goofy one that is just along for the ride, like 2007 ChivasUSA, 2010 FC Dallas, and Chris Kirkpatrick. Do the Timbers have a model that will let them hang with the big boys, or will they regress to the mean with a vengeance? ASA readers see them as Nick Carter material, with a majority of voters picking the Timbers to win the Western Conference for a second season in a row.
| Players In | Players Out | ||||
| Name | Pos | Name | Pos | ||
| Jorge Villafana | D | Trade from Chivas USA | David Horst | D | Traded to Houston |
| Norberto Paparatto | D | Transfer from Tigre | Ryan Miller | D | Option declined |
| Bryan Gallego | D | Homegrown player | Dylan Tucker-Gangnes | D | Waived |
| Taylor Peay | D | SuperDraft | Andrew Jean-Baptiste | D | Traded to Chivas USA |
| Steve Zakuani | M | Re-Entry Stage 1 | Mikael Silvestre | D | Contract terminated |
| Schillo Tschuma | M/F | SuperDraft | Sal Zizzo | M | Traded to Sporting KC |
| George Fochive | M | SuperDraft | Brent Richards | F | Waived |
| Aaron Long | M | SuperDraft | Sebastian Rincon | F | Loan expired |
| Andrew Weber | GK | Free Transfer | Jose Valencia | F | Loaned to Club Olimpo |
| Milos Kocic | GK | Retired |
Roster Churn: Portland returns 82.31% of their minutes played in 2013, 6th most in MLS.
Coming off their first place Western Conference finish in 2013, the Timbers’ theme for the 2014 offseason has been “more of the same”. Led by new coach Caleb Porter and MLS Newcomer-Of-The-Year Diego Valeri, the Timbers were a surprise contender in 2013. Porter's 4-5-1/4-3-3 hybrid system was a 180% turn from their philosophy under former coach John Spencer, and it brought the team immediate success. By controlling possession and maintaining the defensive pressure even in the opposition end, the Timbers brought a unique style that was both entertaining and effective. This attack based system saw them finish with the third most goals in the league last year, despite being only 9th in attempts. Not only were their attacks fruitful, they were dangerously efficient. Unlike last season’s roster overhaul, Portland made few big changes in the offseason for 2014, instead solidifying their depth and bringing in two Argentine veterans to shore up the back-line and attacking corps. Clearly, the Timbers are willing to ride Goalkeeper-of-the-Year Donovan Ricketts and playmakers Diego Valeri and Darlington Nagbe in the upcoming season.
The Attack
As in 2013, Valeri and Nagbe will be relied on to be the catalysts for the Portland offense. Led by their 12 and 10 goals respectively, the Timbers finished with the fourth best finishing rate (goals divided by attempts) in MLS last season. Being two of the most fouled players in MLS last season, and due to Valeri’s somewhat slow recovery from off-season hernia surgery, their health could determine if Portland can continue to finish with similar efficacy this season. Still, the additions of Gaston Fernandez and Steve Zakuani will alleviate some of the dependence on Portland’s playmakers. If injury isn’t an issue, the Timbers can expect to score lots of goals in 2014.
The biggest (and perhaps the only) major offseason subtraction was the loss of Jamaican international and Oregon State alum Ryan Johnson’s nine goals (third on the team last year), as he pursues a career in China. The departure of Johnson will certainly be felt, but late-season acquisition Maxi Urruti had taken over the starting striker position before an injury last year, and he looks to fit perfectly into Porter’s high-pressure defensive scheme. Also significant has been the addition of “La Gata” Fernandez. Besides having the best tribute video on the internet, Fernandez will fill some of the holes left by both Johnson and Rodney Wallace, who tore his ACL in the playoffs and isn’t expected to return until late summer. Fernandez is versatile as an attacking midfielder/forward, and seems likely to assume a utility role on the Left side of Midfield to start the season. Zakuani is an unknown quantity after excelling for the Sounders before enduring two years of injury and disappointment. Few things would be more welcome to Timbers fans than seeing a former Seattle player return to form in Portland, so any significant contribution from Zakuani will be considered a bonus. Couple those additions with first-round SuperDraft pick Schillo Tshuma, who has impressed in preseason, and the Timbers will expect to continue with their high-scoring output last year.
Still, requisite warnings about reading too much into the preseason aside, a lack of scoring (only 6 goals in 7 preseason games) in the lead-up to this MLS season is cause for some concern. For the Timbers system to work they'll need to score goals in bunches.
The Real Bash Brothers
2012 Timbers Army’s player of the year Diego Chara and captain Will Johnson, who saw his career revitalized by a move to Portland last season, will again anchor a high-energy midfield that is likely to be among the league leading duos in minutes and fouls (Chara has finished in the top three in fouls committed in all three of his MLS seasons). While not as flashy as their attacking counterparts, Chara and Johnson are just as important to the Timbers’ success. Their hard-tackling, box-to-box styles are exemplary of Porter’s possession philosophy. The Timbers will expect to win the midfield battle in nearly every game they play this season, with Chara and Johnson expected to neutralize the opposition’s playmakers as a way to free up and start Portland’s multi-faced attack.
Defensive Questions
Despite a conference best 33 goals against last season, center back was a position in flux last year with six different players all getting starts there (Futty Danso, Pa-Moudu Kah, Andrew Jean-Baptiste, Mikel Silvestre, Rauwshan Mckenzie, and David Horst). Jean-Baptiste started the most games next to Kah, but lost his starting spot to Danso in the last couple months of the season. Still, Danso’s limitations were exposed in the playoffs last season, and priority number one for the offseason was to find a consistent starter to pair with Kah. Portland ultimately ended up bringing in contender for best-named signing of the MLS offseason, Argentine Norberto Paparatto. While little besides some YouTube highlight videos (especially dubious when judging a CB) is known about Paparatto, judging by his solid if mostly unremarkable preseason the starting spot next to Kah appears his to lose. The outside backs are likely to stay the same as they were for nearly every game in 2013, with Jack Jewsbury and Michael Harrington (fresh off a USMNT summer call-up) being active both as wing-defenders and initiators of the attack.
Ricketts silenced his doubters and skeptics last year by earning his second Goalkeeper of the Year award at age 36. While not getting any younger, the Jamaican did a lot to cover up for the mistakes of Portland's defenders last year, having allowed only 83.2% of the goals a replacement MLS keeper would have, according to our goalkeeper ratings. Along with Nick Rimando, Ricketts was a head above the rest of MLS keepers, having prevented 6.27 goals more than the average MLS goalkeeper last season. Still, the Timbers appear to be grooming young New Zealander Jake Gleeson (who they have sent on loan to Sacramento Republic FC) to fill Rickett's shoes, so there will be a smooth transition when Ricketts ultimately retires.
2014 Predictions
The 2014 MLS All-Star game will be in Portland, but the Timbers’ organization and fans expect MLS Cup to be held there, too. Under the guidance and leadership of Caleb Porter and Diego Valeri, year two is primed for success. With the Timbers figuring to compete in all three major competitions – MLS, the US Open Cup, and CONCACAF Champions League – this is a team that expects success. Outside of the Cascadia Cup, the Timbers have never brought any silverware back to the Rose City, but this could be the year things change.
Our data suggest the Timbers drastically over performed compared their expected goals for and against last season. Did they just get lucky a season ago, or has the organization finally built a model for success? They return their three best players from 2013 in Ricketts, Valeri, and Nagbe, and hope the added experience and chemistry between these players continues to flourish. A lot is expected of the Timbers this season, and only time will tell if 2013 was a sign of things to come, or in the words of N’SYNC, it will be “Bye, Bye, Bye” for their championship hopes in 2014.
1st place in the Western Conference; 204 of 404 (50.4%) readers projected the Timbers to win the Western Conference, and 386 (95.5%) projected them to make the playoffs in some capacity.
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