Offseason Outlook: Houston Dynamo

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The offseason in Houston once again brings more question marks for the Dynamo as they enter yet another period of rebuilding. Gone are head coach Wilmer Cabrera and captain DaMarcus Beasley, in is former United States U23 coach Tab Ramos and a roster with plenty of holes still to fill.

A new era brings a bit of a renewed hope in the fanbase, but the Dynamo still have a bit of work to do if they want to compete in an increasingly difficult Western Conference. If Ramos and general manager Matt Jordan can fill the remaining holes in the roster and get the team to buy-in to the new system, this team could perhaps make some noise in 2020.

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Offseason Outlook: New England Revolution

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Offseason Outlook: New England Revolution

Bruce Arena doesn’t believe in stats. 

Like, not the fact they exist. He’s actually been very vocal over the years as to how helpful and insightful he feels they are due to, well, the fact that there are a lot of circumstances that drive their results.

While his candid thoughts and hesitant approach concerning analytics have understandably rankled the analytics community, it’s Bruce Arena you know? He has a specific way he likes to do things, and he’s not going to change. 

The reality is he’s spent over 20 years crafting and refining his own personal processes for distilling information; an artful approach he trusts and has proven both in concept and reality over his tenure in Major League Soccer. It’s not that more information isn’t better or can’t be helpful but the lack of trust in what that information implies and how to alter decision making from it. 

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Offseason Outlook: Inter Miami

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Offseason Outlook: Inter Miami

For better or for worse, we now inevitably place modern MLS expansion teams in one of two camps. First is the Minnesota/Cincinnati Camp, which is really the “they chose poorly” category. Teams in that class mostly didn’t spend much money, wasted the cash they did spend, and found themselves among the worst teams in MLS history, expansion or otherwise. The second category of expansion side is the Atlanta/LAFC version, which consisted of wise strategic planning that led to their teams competing for trophies in their inaugural seasons.

It’s probably not fair to force each new team into one of those two boxes, but we do it anyway because it helps us frame our preconceptions of them. As the league continues to expand at a rapid rate, we will continue to get more chances to unfairly label expansion teams in one column or the other. The labels for the 2020 expansion teams are still unclear, but Nashville SC looks to be on the fast track to follow in Cincinnati’s footsteps. For Inter Miami CF, the trajectory is still unclear. Despite being linked to nearly every star player in Europe over 30, they still haven’t dropped the cash. No matter if reality ultimately meets expectation, it is clear is that Miami still has a lot of work to do before their season starts on March 1st.

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Offseason Outlook: Toronto FC

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After finishing the 2019 regular season on a hot streak Toronto FC were comprehensively dominated in every playoff game (except against DC United) but somehow found their way to MLS Cup. Losing the best two out of three to Seattle hurt, but making the final was a surprise for a team that didn’t quite look like putting it all together until the end of the season. Before the playoffs I think it would be fair to say most fans were fixated on the team being headed for a rebuild. However, with most of the departures being fringe players or squad reclassifications, Toronto looks ready to re-tool rather than rebuild for 2020.

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

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Offseason Outlook: Montreal Impact

Montreal head into the offseason with a lot of open questions. Does Ignacio Piatti stay? Does Orji Okwonkwo return? How will new head coach Thierry Henry try to play?

I don’t know what formation Montreal will play in 2020. Henry doesn’t have enough head coaching experience to be able to pick out his tactical preferences. And Montreal played seven different formations last season while trying to get their best roster on the field. So I don’t know how they’ll line up. I’ve fit them into a 4-3-3 for the purposes of this article, but, who knows?

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Offseason Outlook: Real Salt Lake

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Offseason Outlook: Real Salt Lake

In my SKC offseason article I wrote of Kansas City that “In MLS 3.0, lacking an elite striker up top is a little bit inexcusable.” Real Salt Lake over the last five seasons deserve at least as much criticism as Sporting. Since 2015, RSL has only three double digit goal scorers - Damir Kreilach in 2018, and Albert Rusnak in 2018 and 2019. Neither of those two are a true striker. Sam Johnson, RSL’s most likely candidate, registered just 0.41 xG per 90 last season, which is roughly 2019 BWP, Tesho Akindele, and Ola Kamara levels. That’s not great! And he led the team in that stat! The only three teams with a worse best forward last year were Dallas, Montreal, and Vancouver.

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Offseason Outlook: Chicago Fire

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Offseason Outlook: Chicago Fire

The only thing the Fire have handled worse than their rebrand this offseason is building their actual soccer team. Quick status update on the soccer side of things for the Chicago Fire: Sporting Director? Nope. Coach? Vacant. Designated players? Zero.

Here’s the thing that makes the least sense in all of this: if you look at underlying metrics, the Fire were really good in 2019. They probably should have made some minor adjustments heading into 2020, maybe a star signing to replace Bastian Schweinsteiger, and then rolled into Soldier Field as a really good soccer team.

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Offseason Outlook: Minnesota United

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Offseason Outlook: Minnesota United

Minnesota ended the season with 53 points and fourth place in the Western Conference. This represented the team’s best finish in MLS, and first playoff appearance since a 2015 NASL encounter against Ottawa. 

The team’s improvement was largely due to the dramatic improvement of the defense; conceding 28 fewer goals than 2018 (accounting for most of the +31 improvement in goal differential). And it’s worth noting the team evolved over the course of the season. Team captain Francisco Calvo was traded after seven games; midfielder Romario Ibarra was sent on a loan (his request as I understand it). And an influx of new faces over the summer meant the team entering the playoffs looked different than the team that started the season. At the start (first seven games), Minnesota conceded over 2 goals per game and scored over 2.4 goals per game. Since then, Minnesota conceded about 1 goal per game, and scored 1.4 goals per game. In short, the team transitioned from a high-risk, high-reward approach to a defense-first mindset. 

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Offseason Outlook: Sporting Kansas City

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Offseason Outlook: Sporting Kansas City

Since sending Dom Dwyer to Orlando halfway through 2017, Sporting Kansas City have been without an above average center forward. Dwyer’s 2016 season was the last year an SKC player finished in the top 10 in MLS in goals. Since then, Kansas City’s leading scorers have logged just 8, 11, and 12 goals. In MLS 3.0, lacking an elite striker up top is a little bit inexcusable.

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Offseason Outlook: DC United

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This was supposed to be The Year for DC United. After moving into a new stadium in 2018, signing Wayne Rooney, bringing Bill Hamid back, and managing to keep Luciano Acosta from leaving for PSG, most people had DC among the Eastern Conference favorites for the 2019 season.

Things didn’t quite go that way, though DC did manage to finish 5th in the East and make the playoffs.

There’s a lot of different things that went not quite according to plan for DC, but the biggest disappointment was the attack. After finishing 2018 in great form the attack looked positioned to lead DC to great things in 2019 and it simply fell flat.

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