MLS Carryover Minutes: Why Your Team May Not Have Enough

Last year I looked into the concept of 'Carryover Minutes' and their relationship to success in Major League Soccer. I define carryover minutes as minutes that come from a player that was on a team the previous year. For example, the Chicago Fire received carryover minutes last night from Sean Johnson, Jalil Anibaba, Gonzalo Segares, Logan Pause, Patrick Nyarko, Dominic Oduro, and Daniel Paladini. They did not get any carryover minutes from Arne Friedrich, Austin Berry, Alvaro Fernandez, Alex, Chris Rolfe, Guillermo Franco, or Sherjill MacDonald.

Kansas City on the other hand had carryover minutes from almost every player in Friday night's game. Jimmy Nielsen, Chance Myers, Matt Besler, Lawrence Olum, Seth Sinovic, Julio Cesar, Roger Espinoza, Graham Zsui, C.J. Sapong, and Kei Kamara all played for KC in 2011. Paolo Nagamura was the only newcomer in the starting lineup and KC head coach Peter Vermes did not use any substitutes last night.

Having a high percentage of carryover minutes over the course of a season appears to be a prerequisite in order to be a top team in MLS. I expanded on this theory in a post earlier this year and for those who want the short verison, take a look at the chart below. The numbers represent the percentage of each team's carryover minutes in the years between 2007-2011.

Team	2007	2008	2009	2010	2011
Chicago Fire	83	82	92	71	43
Chivas USA	68	65	62	63	49
Colorado Rapids	61	77	70	67*	82
Columbus Crew	61	77^*	83^	95	59
D.C. United	72^	51	56	45	44
FC Dallas	80	74	52	78	80
Houston Dynamo	79*	81	85	87	72
Los Angeles Galaxy	50	63	42	81^	80^*
New England Revolution	74	77	70	58	60
New York Red Bulls	47	76	65	52	64
Philadelphia Union	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	61
Real Salt Lake	44	57	94*	91	96
San Jose Earthquakes	N/A	N/A	51	66	82
Seattle Sounders	N/A	N/A	N/A	85	78
Sporting KC	72	65	81	60	63
Toronto FC	N/A	52	51	51	35

bold = top 5 finish * = MLS Cup ^ = Supporters' Shield - Montreal, Portland & Vancouver have no data in this period and were thus excluded - A list of season by season in order of PPG is located at the link.

The winners of Supporters' Shields and MLS Cups is composed primarily of teams that have right around 80% in carryover minutes. The two exceptions are a 2009 Real Salt Lake MLS Cup victory that had an even higher mark at 92% and a low mark from the 2010 Colorado Rapids with 67%. Top 5 teams in the MLS Regular Season standings between 2007-2011 also tend to have percentages that are around 75%-80%. The extreme exceptions are the expansion 2009 Seattle Sounders, the 2009 Los Angeles Galaxy, and the 2010 New York Red Bulls. As highlighted in previous posts, all three of these squads enjoyed multiple designated players. This is a point I'll revisit.

For a condensed view with a larger data set, I have added up the average number of points between 2007-2011 and the average carryover minutes percentage. Teams with less than 5 season have been listed in their own following chart.

Team	Avg Pts	Avg CM%
Columbus Crew	48	75
Los Angeles Galaxy	48	63
Houston Dynamo	47	81
FC Dallas	44	73
Real Salt Lake	43	76
Chicago Fire	42	74
Colorado Rapids	42	71
Chivas USA	41	61
Sporting KC	41	68
New York Red Bulls	40	61
D.C. United	39	54
New England Revolution	39	68

Team	Avg Pts	Avg CM%
Seattle Sounders (2)	56	82
Philadelphia Union (1)	48	61
San Jose Earthquakes (3)	37	66
Toronto FC (4)	36	47

(#) = number of seasons included; expansion seasons thrown out as they posses 0% carryover minutes

There isn't a defined ratio between average points and average number of carryover minutes but there is a general order. The expansion teams without a full five years tend to follow this order as well. The one exception is the Union. As we'll see later, the odds might be evening out for them this year.

Theories & Relevance

Does this mean that Major League Soccer's end game should be keeping the same players on your squad year after year? Not exactly. In what I refer to as the 'Beer League' effect, you can't take just any 30 individuals from your local park district and expect to climb up the MLS table. Proper talent evaluation must be made. Teams have to work around MLS' salary cap. Front offices have to pick up the phone when foreign teams call for their best players and when those players want to leave for grander stages.

My main take away from these numbers is that your typical MLS player needs time to gel with their teammates and learn the league. It may sound dullingly commonsense but this is not how your typical player analysis takes place. Players are expected to have immediate impacts. Analysts often give more weight to individual talent than they do team cohesion. The fact of the matter is there's nothing like trial and error. Two teammates that have found they can't beat Opposing Player A with Move/Pass A won't waste possession trying to accomplish Move/Pass A. The same two teammates will try something else and have a better chance at succeeding. Over time, the two teammates discover what works for them in any kind of situation... as long as a coach lets a promising pairing blossom. At higher levels of soccer you have smarter, faster players with fewer flaws. Transitions are easier to make. In MLS, it takes more time to work around flaws and find winning combinations.

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Related: What's in a Name: Chicago Fire - Follow Hot Time In Old Town on Twitter

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Elite Talent

Here is where I believe the super elite players in MLS come into play. Super elite players tend to be designated players but that's not always the case. Conversely designated players are not necessarily elite players. With that said, let's go back to the three outliers to the MLS Carryover Minutes theory: 2009 Los Angeles Galaxy, 2009 Seattle Sounders, and the 2010 New York Red Bulls. The Galaxy had David Beckham and Landon Donovan. The Sounders had Fredy Montero and Freddie Ljungberg. The 2010 New York Red Bulls had Juan Pablo Angel, Thierry Henry, and Rafael Marquez. I believe these teams over performed the general MLS Carryover Minutes order because they had these elite players. Elite players provide several advantages. For one, there's a permanent spot in the lineup. Few MLS players that aren't at 100% can't be equally replaced by another squad player that is completely healthy. That's not true for a guy like Henry. A team isn't just deeper, the competition for starting spots is much harder when one is completely off the board. You also have the obvious effect of an elite player's execution. New York's mid-day game against Chicago earlier this year is the perfect example. Without Henry's skill, that's a 0-0 draw instead of a 1-0 New York win.

However, these players can only take you so far. It's true that those three teams outperformed the numbers but it's also true LA and Seattle went on to greater continued success as more of their squad came back the following years. New York's carryover minutes percentage was 64% in 2011 and they just barely scratched in the playoffs. All three teams fell short of bringing home the MLS Cup or the Supporters' Shield in their respective year of outperforming.

2012 Regular Season

Now let's take a took at how the teams are doing this season. The first table is sorted by current points and the second table is sorted by carryover minutes percentage.

Team	Pts	CM %
San Jose Earthquakes	60	81
Sporting Kansas City	58	87
Chicago Fire	53	71
D.C. United	50	67
New York Red Bulls	50	47
LA Galaxy	49	80
Real Salt Lake	49	90
Seattle Sounders	48	64
Houston Dynamo	46	85
Columbus Crew	45	59
Vancouver Whitecaps	38	46
FC Dallas	36	70
Colorado Rapids	30	60
Philadelphia Union	30	70
New England Revolution	29	60
Portland Timbers	29	62
Chivas USA	28	47
Toronto FC	22	67

Team	Pts	%
Real Salt Lake	49	90
Sporting Kansas City	58	87
Houston Dynamo	46	85
San Jose Earthquakes	60	81
LA Galaxy	49	80
Chicago Fire	53	71
FC Dallas	36	70
Philadelphia Union	30	70
D.C. United	50	67
Toronto FC	22	67
Seattle Sounders	48	64
Portland Timbers	29	62
Colorado Rapids	30	60
New England Revolution	29	60
Columbus Crew	45	59
New York Red Bulls	50	47
Chivas USA	28	47
Vancouver Whitecaps	38	46

The top of the 2012 MLS Regular Season numbers are lining up just about identically to previous years. Teams with at least 80% carryover minutes are enjoying great seasons. San Jose and Kansas City are fighting for the Supporters' Shield. Real Salt Lake and LA Galaxy are fighting for 2nd place in the West. Houston only has 46 points but 3 of their 4 remaining games are at home and their remaining opponents have PPG of 0.97, 1.29, 1.07, and 1.00.

Chicago, D.C., Seattle, Dallas, and Columbus are on the edge of outperforming. New York is drastically outperforming. In a similar matter to the 2010 squad, the Red Bulls are stacked with Thierry Henry, Tim Cahill, and Rafael Marquez as DPs. Seattle and Chicago have multiple DPs too (Christian Tiffert, Fredy Montero, and Mauro Rosales for Seattle; Alvaro Fernandez and Sherjill MacDonald for Chicago). Columbus' rise in the standings corresponded with the signing of DP Federico Higuain. D.C. only has Hamdi Salihi on the books as DP right now but teammates Dwayne De Rosario and Branko Boskovic have been DPs in the past.

Playoff Barometer & Hope for the Bottom of the League

As the 2012 MLS Regular Season comes to a close, history suggests Real Salt Lake, Sporting KC, Houston Dynamo, San Jose Earthquakes or LA Galaxy will win the MLS Cup. The 2010 Colorado Rapids give some hope to the teams on the outside like Chicago, D.C., Seattle, Columbus, New York, and Dallas but it seems to be a puncher's chance. There does seem to be a major advantage for 'teams' that are in fact teams. Low carryover minutes clubs should be proud of what they do this year but it probably isn't your year this time around.

Fans of teams on the bottom who like their team and want to see a good portion of the core play next year can take comfort in something I wrote back in March:

[Teams] hit their ceiling at some point... and that ceiling may not be very high. Three examples of this are the 2009 Kansas City Wizards (1.10 pts per game and 81% carryover minutes), the 2010 Houston Dynamo (1.10 pts per game and 87% carryover minutes), and the 2011 San Jose Earthquakes (1.12 pts per game and 82% carryover minutes). It's curious to look at Kansas City and Houston because they were confident enough to put out their teams and keep their leadership in place despite the failure on the field. Both teams cut the part of their rosters that weren't working and seem to have replaced the parts that were 'broken'. It will be interesting to see if San Jose is able to do the same thing this year.

I'd say San Jose has made it a quite interesting year for their fans. Perhaps your team is down right now but the right parts are in place for a rise to the top in 2013.

Final Thoughts

MLS carryover minutes continue to show that building a powerhouse in the league takes at least two seasons. The instruments of single-entity parity and splashy DPs can only boost a team up so much. The long trek up to the top of the table and to consistent competitiveness requires a steady hand in the front office that can not only identify talent but identify talent that will stick around. If you've got a good coach and at least eight or nine players returning, you could have a great season ahead. If you've got a major turnover taking place, buckle in for a bumpy season. There's no such thing as a quick fix for elite play in Major League Soccer.