I thought I'd chime in with a few thoughts regarding the Moneyball question and where D.C. United went wrong. In MLS, it isn't about how much a team spends because each team has the same cap money to use in putting together their core group of 18 to 20 players. When it's done right, ""Moneyball" is about being smarter about how you spend the money. In 2015, DC United was not smart about how they made use of their cap money.
One could say there are two (or even 3) categories/levels of DPs (those making around half a million, those making around a million, and then the megastars. And yet, basically, what a team pays a DP is irrelevant to any thing other than the profit/loss statement. All DPs are created equal, unless a team uses TAM or other allocation to get a salary below the DP cap hit (which would be available only for the lowest paid DP-level deals) So, if a team is going to use up a DP slot on its cap budget, it might as well go big. At least from a competitive standpoint, there is no benefit from having a low-priced DP rather than a pricey one....unless one assumes the high-priced guy will be over-priced and either too old or less motivated. It's really only on the financial ledger that it matters. For "moneyball" purposes, it doesn't matter, because signing a lower-priced DP doesn't leave you more cap money to work with, as it might in other sports where the salary cap covers all salaries (except maybe a "franchise player").
However, "moneyball" becomes a real thing in MLS when it comes to deciding on DPs and roster construction, if a team decides not to use the full complement of DP (which is 3 for most teams, but LA Galaxy get 4). A number of teams use only 2 DP slots, though some of the names involved change during the season, presumably because of allocation money. Colorado came into 2015 with one DP, Gabriel Torres. He's still on the roster, but the team has 2 DPs now, and he's not one of them. The Fire had 3, but now have 2, with Maloney gone. Houston had 3, but Lopez is no longer listed as a DP. 3 teams had only one DP at season's end. Columbus has Higuain. The Revolution have (or had) Jermaine Jones. And, D.C. United has Fabian Espindola.
In theory, that allows United more cap room to spread around and get more talent. In practice, it hasn't worked that way, because United is really overpaying for a bunch of guys who don't contribute much. That sounds subjective, but it's not. One can look at production and results, and one can say the team must be overpaying. There's also another metric, though, for reaching this conclusion -- and it's why I can say that United is bad at 'moneyball,' and is overpaying t'ts core group of players.
Teams are required to spend their cap budget on between 18 and 20 players. That's a core group consisting of veterans making more than the minimum. It excludes Homegrown players, Gen Ad players, and relatively inexperienced players on league minimum deals. A team can fill out the rest of the roster - between 8 and 10 off-budget players -- with kids on their first homegrown deals maybe a Gen Ad player, and guys under a certain age who will work for league minimum.
Because DPs eat up a big chunk of the cap budget -- 12.5% each -- teams with 2 or 3 DPs will have less cap money available to spread around on the rest of their budget roster. A tam with 3 DPs will have used more than a third of their cap space on just those 3 guys. One can presume that they may even only be able to fit 18 or 19 guys under the cap. Teams with fewer DPs will have more cap space to work with to fill out the budget roster. They ought to be able to fill out a budget roster of 19 or 20 solid players all making more than the league minimum.
That's why discussions about DPs always juxtapose this as a choice between a roster that has 2 or 3 stars and a bunch of much less desirable players versus a more balanced roster that has perhaps 20 pretty good players.
Except, that's not how it has played out for United over the last few years. It's glaringly obvious this year, and I point you to Conor Doyle's salary info as confirmation of that sad truth. Doyle could be on a league minimum salary, based on his age and short time in the league. In fact, he has a abase salary of $60,000, which would be the league minimum for him. He could be part of the off-budget roster, leaving cap space and a slot for another, more impressive player on the capped budget roster. However, he's listed with a guaranteed compensation of $61k. That means the team has given him a small bonus. The reason is simple -- and a bit dispiriting. That bonus moves him to the budget roster. He's the team's 18th player on the budget roster. They did that, so the league wouldn't charge them a penalty for not having enough players on the budget roster.
Yet, United appears to have gone a bit above the salary cap, forcing them to use allocation money. That's a budget roster of 17 legitimate salary cap budget roster players + Conor Doyle. And, that's with only one listed DP. That means the median salary for DC's budget roster players is way above what it ought to be, especially for the non-DP players. I haven't bothered to figure out if other teams only have 18 budget roster players, but I would expect most if not all are taking advantage of the ability to include 19 or 20 veteran players. Even if they're only carrying 18 on the budget roster -- they must have a lower median salary for the budget roster players.
The easiest comparisons are with New England Revolution and Columbus Crew, because they have also only one DP, as does DCU. Columbus appears to be carrying 20 cap budget roster players. Those wages range from Frederico Higuain's DP cap hit to, at the bottom of the wage scale, former US U20 Romain Gall, who has a base wage of only $60k, and a guaranteed wage of $63+k. Based on the reported salaries, It seems that New England has 19 players on its 2015 budget roster -- though they may be freeing up a chunk of cap space with Jermaine Jones looking for a longer term deal than the Revolution will offer.
So, despite having only one DP, United used up its available cap space on a budget roster of only 18 players. Compared with the competition, that leaves DC United a little shorthanded in terms of the number of top and middle rank MLS players the team can call on.
Of course, a team could aim to put together an 18-man budget roster that is deeper in quality than other teams' 20-man budget rosters. I think that was, more or less, the strategy United employed when it retooled after the disastrous 2013 season. While it was successful in terms of turning around the team's fortunes, it was cast in a way to guarantee diminishing returns. The cap money wasn't doled out to 18 up-and-coming, hungry talents who were still bargain-priced compared to their potential.That kid of player may grow with the team and help the team improve from one year to the next.
Instead, United was clearly overpaying to bring in veterans who were all past their athletic prime. United paid for their reputations and experience, but they were getting guys who were already over the hill. Whatever United was able to get out of the that crew in 2014, it was not reasonable to expect the same group to match that when guys who were already on the downslope were another year older and farther along that downslope.
Bobby Boswell is the very definition of the experienced but too slow veteran defender. You take the bad with the good there, when you play a 32 year-old defender who was never fleet of foot to begin with. Franklin wasn't old by any means, but he was already showing signs of slippage in his last year in L.A.., before United signed him.
Moving up the field, Davy Arnaud was playing on guts alone. Chris Rolfe still had serious skills, but he didn't have the same afterburners that he had in his Chicago days, when he would regularly punish slower United defenders. Fabi has all the guile in the world, but he's slowing down, too.
What those guys accomplished in 2014 was almost miraculous, but they were all already past their peak. When Ben Olsen wondered Sunday night if the team had peaked, he was asking a question that should have been asked and answered in the affirmative a year earlier. And, for a team that was already long in the tooth, bringing in a 34-year old Alvaro Saborio really meant doubling down on the strategy of stockpiling over-priced, over-the-hill, formerly highly effective MLS players.
Sure, the front office had been counting on Eddie Johnson to contribute, but the signs of a team in decline were already apparent when they lost to the New York Red Bulls in the 2014 playoffs. Just looking at the ages of the core group of players should have been enough to convince the front office that this roster was already living on borrowed time. However, the team was in a bind because the cap space had already been committed to 17 guys, most of whom were over-the-hill veterans who had been overpaid in 2014.
In 2015, the roster was everything that "Moneyball" argues against. Don't pay guys for their past production and their reputation. "Moneyball" allows small-market teams to compete with better-resourced teams, but it requires judicious spending -- finding players who are great values, offering more bang for the buck than the bigger -- and usually older -- stars. The ultimate version of "Moneyball" in MLS is what NYRB and FC Dallas have done in mining their academies for strong contributions from off-budget Homegrown players. Going forward, if United is going to compete with teams like that -- and with the big spenders like NYCFC -- they're going to have to find homegrown players who can be called upon and can deliver the goods in MLS games. But, they're also going to have to be smarter about how they spread that cap money.
Other teams have been much smarter, thanks either to being near New York and LA and thus being really attractive to various internationals and returning US players -- or, if they're Portland TImbers or FC Dallas, in signing good internationals who still have a lot in the tank (Valeri) or are young players really just developing into top talents, like what Dallas has done in recent years with Castillo,, Diaz and now Barrios. Fabián Castillo came at a bargain price, as a young DP -- admittedly, DCU tired this route with Rafael, but this shows the gap between Dallas' scouting and United's scouting. Dallas also got Mauro Diaz, who is on a very cheap DP wage. Michael Barrios, though, might be the biggest steal of them all, as he's on a 60,000k contract (which is MLS minimum).
Of course, in this decade, United has brought in two players at that level (when it wasn't minimum) namely Carlos Castillo and Marco Sanchez, but those signings did not pan out well. Again -- United has to do better in finding international talent. Instead, Untied has been paying too much for proven MLS commodities who are no longer wanted by their prior MLS teams. That's not a recipe for success, because it involves bringing in players who are past their primes and because the team is overpaying for mediocre, declining players and limits the team's options in adding more talented foreigners.
Right now, it seems as if 2016 will be more of the same, which makes me think we may be headed for a year that will resemble 2008, or maybe even 2010/2013. Based on Goff's reporting the team is bringing back the Over-the-Hill Gang. I guess we don't know what will happen with Pontius, and we don't have any official word on what Arnaud will do, so there remains the possibility that a decent amount of cap space will be freed up. Perhaps, they were even able to talk Saborio into a good-sized pay cut (though that just doesn't seem likely). If the team is able to add a creative midfielder or two, it's possible we could see more effective production from the other attackers. Certainly, Fabi would really benefit from having a capable partner and a midfielder to get him the ball more often. Nick DeLeon and Saborio need much better players around them.
Really though, it seems the front office took the easy way out. Either they haven't taken a sufficiently critical look at the roster and they just don't get where they've gone wrong, or they're biding time and putting off a much-needed roster overhaul for another year.
I don't imagine that United will be able to develop the kind of Homegrown talent that has hit the books for LA, FCD and NYRB over the last few years. Dallas has had great contributions this year from Ulloa, Acosta, Hernandez and Zendejas, along with Craft and Garcia, who may contribute down the road. NYRB have Miazga, Davis, Lade and a good goalie prospect in Castaño. LA have Zardes, Villareal, Jamieson, and Mendiola.
Still, there are good players in this area. Some may interest United as Homegrown signings in coming years - maybe Ian Harkes or Eryk Williamson -- but they've missed out on local talent like Jake Rozhansky and Michael Gamble. However, United has also added the residential academy this year. That allows United to cast a wider net. We've seen the team bring in academy players from outside the region -- tow kids came over from the Pittsburgh Riverhounds' system last year -- but the residential academy will make it much more feasible to bring in players from farther afield. RSL have two Homegrowns who were brought into their residential academy coming from California and Rochester NY. They also poached an apparent prodigy from Chicago Magic named Elijah Rice, who scored a double hat-trick recently.
Right now, as I understand it, the United academy is granted only 4 exceptions to "sign" (I think this refers to bringing them into the Academy, rather than signing Homegrown deals) players from outside its 75-mile radius territory. The team should absolutely be sure to fully deploy that exception total, but I'd like to see them secure a bigger number from MLS, now that they have this residential program. Because, if United is going to compete against its wealthier Eastern Conference competition, the team is going to have to find cap-friendly talent in many corners, including local kids, other residential academy talent, and the team is going to have to find value in the international player market -- better values than they have now on a roster that is overstuffed with over-aged and over-paid MLS veterans.
