Rarely is the question asked, 'Is our children getting playing time?': Supplemental players and how they fit in MLS

Soccer By Ives reported yesterday that the Chicago Fire will announce next week that they have signed 17-year old Kellen Gulley as a Home Grown Player.  Gulley will become the second Home Grown Player in the history of the organization.  The first Home Grown Player was Victor Pineda who signed with Chicago on August 17, 2010.  Despite being on the team for over a year, Pineda remains unknown to most Fire fans because he has failed to even make a MLS Regular Season gameday 18 let alone sub or start in a match.  Gabriel Ferrari is a Fire player who has the same notoriety as Pineda and while Ferrari is not a Home Grown Player, he does sit on the Supplemental Roster with Victor.  Will Gulley play almost exclusively or only with the Reserves League team like Ferrari and Pineda?  How are other teams using their younger players now that the Major League Soccer rosters have expanded to 30 spots?  I've crunched the numbers and sorted them in several different ways after the break.

1. What are Supplemental Roster Players?

First things first, let's get the definition out of the way. Supplemental Roster Players are the players that take up roster spots No. 21 through No. 30 on MLS teams.  The 2011 MLS Roster Rules provide few specifics for these spots but HTIOT has recently obtained the list of Senior Rosters and Supplemental Rosters. This helps us break down some figures, speculate on some more rules about Supplemental Rosters and give a picture of how different MLS teams are utilizing these roster spots.  

2. Players Sorted by Team

The following is a chart of every player on a Supplemental Roster in Major League Soccer.  It is sorted by MLS team.  There might be a signing or a release gone missing but this is more or less the list. 

There you have it.  That's the whole list.  Columbus, Colorado, Kansas City, New York, Vancouver, and soon to be Chicago have 10 players, Dallas, Los Angeles, New England, Portland, Seattle and Toronto have 9, Chivas USA, Salt Lake City, San Jose have 8, and D.C., Houston and Philadelphia have 7 players on their Supplemental Roster.  Does this mean anything?  No, except to suggest teams might have to have at least 7 players on their Supplemental Roster at any given time.  I think Fire legend and current Philadelphia Union head coach Peter Nowak just doesn't like people under the age of 25 and would cut the roster even lower if he could.  Which brings me to my next sorted list, what does it look like if we sort these guys by age?

3. Sorted by Age

Please note that the players that are the same age are not listed according to their birthday.  For example, Victor Pineda was born on March 15, 1993.  He is not the youngest 18 year-old in MLS.  Players are sorted by age number first, and then club second for practicality.

At 17 years old, Kellen Gulley would be among the top ten youngest players in the league.  In fact, only 37 of the 158 supplemental roster players are under the age of 20.  Team wise Dallas and Toronto lead the pack by each having 6 players under the age of 20.  This website is called Hot Time In Old Town though so excuse me for going old for a second and pointing out the outliers of Steve Purdy (26), Stephen Keel (28), and Zach Scott (31).  All 158 players on Supplemental Rosters are 25 or younger except for this curious trio.  Purdy, Keel and Scott each played in a non-MLS domestic soccer league before signing with their team.  There could be a rule that dictates that a player must be 25 or younger to be on the Supplemental Roster except for players coming from a lower tier of U.S. Soccer or it simply could be that most teams would rather stockpile young talent that could help out later on than hold on to a 30+ player who doesn’t contribute much.  That brings me to the next question, how much do Supplemental Roster players actually play in MLS Regular Season games?

4. Sorted by Minutes Played

This list stops at No. 94 because every other player doesn’t have a single minute recorded in Major League Soccer this year.  Each player No. 61 through No. 94 doesn’t have enough minutes to amount to two full games.  Only 15 supplemental roster players have played over 1,000 minutes in a league where every team has played at least 1,620 minutes so far and some teams have played 2,070 minutes.  Clearly the majority of players of this roster type are not making a large overall impact.  In fact the argument could be made that supplemental players only get minutes when they are on bad teams.

5. Teams Sorted by Supplemental Roster Minutes

If you take a look at the chart above, you will see there is a fairly strong correlation between the amount of minutes a team gives to its supplemental roster players and their total points in the standings. Toronto FC is the only team that has less than 2,000 minutes but doesn't have 30 points or more. No team that has over 2,000 minutes has more than 26 points. There are all sorts of different debates to have over this chart but I think it shows more clubs understand that MLS rebuilding periods are here to stay. You could trip into the playoffs before and come out smelling like a rose with a streak of good games. Now teams realize it's a long uphill battle and they are giving time to their younger players whereas before they might have moved in a veteran or signed someone in the off-season for that very purpose.

The counter to that argument is a team like FC Dallas is stockpiling young Home Grown Players on their Supplemental Roster and letting them develop to eventually take over from the senior squad. It's a lucky time for them to have Home Grown Players and the roster expansion. Imagine how much the 2007-2009 Chicago Fire would have benefited from 2011 style rules. The team would not have been nearly the mess it was in 2010 as long as there were smart managers in charge... another debate for another day. While on the topic of Home Grown Players, I thought I would cap this piece by putting the spotlight on them.

6. Spotlight on Home Grown Players

Right now D.C. United is dominating in minutes given to Home Grown Players. Their top three players (Bill Hamid, Andy Najar, and Ethan White) combine for almost half of all minutes given to Home Grown Players across the league. Perhaps that and the fact that 27 Home Grown Players haven't entered a MLS game yet show that the chapter is just starting on this category of player. One player's history takes up too much of the book at this point to say any book should be out. As Fire fans consider the signing of Kellen Gulley, they should keep in mind there are encouraging examples like Bill Hamid, Andy Najar, Ethan White, and Juan Agudelo to take inspiration from but the majority of Supplemental Roster Players and especially Home Grown players are work in progress.