MLS - March 22 - Columbus (Away)
- Thread starter LionNYC
- Start date
The problem with this is Lee's success rate when waiting for the right guy has not been good.
Now, I've been looking at the MLS success rate for DPs, U22 and TAM players, especially on offense, and honestly, it's not good either. As much as I want to kill Lee for his acquisitions he's probably not far from league average. But if it's that much of a crapshoot you might as well have a full roster. That you can control. Waiting has costs and there's no evidence it helps.
Excluding Santi and Maxi who both left and returned, NYCFC lost 4 offensive players from summer 2022 to preseason 2023, plus Andrade just after the season began. They added Segal in the draft and Ledezma in March. And waited until summer to add Bakrar, Fernandez and Martinez. That's 1 success out of 5. Pereira and Talles left summer 2022 and Ledezma and Segal end of season, and we added Ojeda, Jovan, and Wolf. Wolf is not amazing but contributes so with Martinez I score 2 for 8 on offensive acquisitions since Preseason 2023.
Now we're waiting on replacements for Jovan and Santi (at least, I've lost track of the coming and goings total). If waiting raised the odds of better replacements, I'd want to wait. But we've had 2 decent or better offensive acquisitions in 2+ years and 1 came in winter and the other in summer. Has waiting helped?
Finally, Ojeda and Fernandez might come good. But this team's offense has been poor for 2+ years now, and Fernandez has been here 1.5 years and Ojeda slightly more than 1. That's enough for a fair grade. As of now I call them Fs who might trend up. You want to say D? Fine. D-.
ETA: I overlooked poor Malachi. Definitely a success and came in the offseason, though you don't really have timing discretion with the draft.
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Adding onto this another way to look at how poor Lee's additions have been is to compare position by position between the current team and the peak years around the championship team. Is there a single position where we are stronger now than then? GK maybe? Parks and Maxi are holdovers across eras but other than that as it stands:
Defense
Tinnerholm > Illenic
Chanot > Martins
Callens > Risa
Lb has been meh the entire history of the club
Midfield
Maxi
Parks
Sands > Haak
Wingers
Medina, Santi, LW Magno > Any current wingers
ST
Taty > Martinez
Comparing to the peak years of the club is a high bar but its pretty terrible that post rebuild not one position on the roster has been upgraded or even replaced with equal talent.
This is, unfortunately, fair. With the caveat we've gone younger.
But there's no way to put the 2021 club against the current squad in a theoretical match and not come away believing the 2021 squad would win easily.
I think this match showed off just how bad our last two opponents were.
I'd argue those additions, especially the #10, no offense to Maxi, make a lot of other players look a lot better.
How good do Ilenic and KOT look charging down the line when a mobile, aggressive DP10 is feeding balls into those seams? How much better does Haak look at the 6 when the opposing team is actually afraid we might be able to score? How much better do Wolf and Alonzo look when paired with a DP10 and a DP LW?
I'm not sure the signings Lee has made are as bad as they appear. I'm pretty sure the gaping wholes he has left make them all look much worse.
I guess the question I would have is what happens to the players we do have when you add let's say a boss #10 and a 3rd DP anywhere?
I'd argue those additions, especially the #10, no offense to Maxi, make a lot of other players look a lot better.
How good do Ilenic and KOT look charging down the line when a mobile, aggressive DP10 is feeding balls into those seams? How much better does Haak look at the 6 when the opposing team is actually afraid we might be able to score? How much better do Wolf and Alonzo look when paired with a DP10 and a DP LW?
I'm not sure the signings Lee has made are as bad as they appear. I'm pretty sure the gaping wholes he has left make them all look much worse.
“A rising tide lifts all boats”
I agree a prime DP 10 could be what this team needs. But I still think Ojeda, wolf, and Fernandez need to to give more and a new 10 won’t automatically fix that. But I am so far a strong believer of Pascal and he will be able to help those three (and others) improve into steady starters.
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I'm not sure I fully agree. Maxi has shown, in short bursts, that he's still capable of being one of the league’s best creators. Yet, our wingers still look terrible. Ojeda, Fernández, and Wolf rarely beat defenders 1v1 or get off quality shots. Sure, an elite No. 10 would draw more attention and create more 1v1 opportunities for them, but if they can’t capitalize consistently, it won’t make much difference.
If this were a Magno situation—where teams used to double him on the wing—I’d be more optimistic. A more attack-minded No. 10 than Maxi could force defensive choices that free up other attackers. But the reality is, our wingers don’t scare anyone. Opposing teams park an outside back on them and shut them down 1v1 all game.
I do appreciate Pascal’s aggressiveness in compensating for this by pushing the outside backs and midfielders higher up the pitch. But that’s just a bandaid until we get wingers who are actually a threat. Given that we’ve invested more transfer money into wingers than any other position—by orders of magnitude—it’s a colossal failure by Lee in player selection. And based on Lee's track record why should we expect that whatever player he eventually picks to be a DP 10 will even be good?
Revfugee
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This still doesn't contradict what I said and thats a lot of energy repeating like a thousand posts on this thread that we have all read and digested. Our problems are a lack of offensive production from our most expensive players, and being slow to replace our stars when they leave (way fewer words there).
I still would rather see Jonny Shore and Nico Cavallo as depth than retreads like Nick Lima or the version of Richie Ledezma that we got (congrats to Richie for finding his groove at another position, but he was useless for us). Teams like The Revs and DCU and San Jose and Chicago have been doing this for years. That is my point.
Why are the options Acedemy Kids or Ledezma when we just made $17M on Santi and have over $4M in GAM? I'm not sure what the point of this argument you have created is when no one here is proposing that we sign Nick Lima, Richie Ledezma, or Andrew Jacobsen/Ned Grabavoy (players like that aren't even in MLS anymore).
I think we're having 2 related but different conversations at cross purposes, both here and on other threads like the Roster thread discussion.
One group is saying given the current situation with so little available on the market we should wait until summer. The implicit assumption is that relitigating the past is now pointless.
The other group is saying waiting until summer is stupid because the record shows we're not likely to have better success acquiring players in the summer. The implicit assumption is that though the decision to wait until summer was made 2-3 months ago it's worth criticizing that even now.
For the record, I doubt we're getting anyone significant this window and at this point that might be the right call. But it's stupid we're in this position now, almost exactly as we were in 2023.
One group is saying given the current situation with so little available on the market we should wait until summer. The implicit assumption is that relitigating the past is now pointless.
The other group is saying waiting until summer is stupid because the record shows we're not likely to have better success acquiring players in the summer. The implicit assumption is that though the decision to wait until summer was made 2-3 months ago it's worth criticizing that even now.
For the record, I doubt we're getting anyone significant this window and at this point that might be the right call. But it's stupid we're in this position now, almost exactly as we were in 2023.
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ZYanksRule
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The only reason the roster is in better position now than in 2023 is that we have a striker who's actually scoring goals right now. But I think in other areas of the roster, we are just as thin -- if not thinner -- than we were to start 2023.
You're 100% right -- to do this a second time in three years means there is a fundamental problem within our soccer operations department. We've played this game before, and it didn't go well. Why are we making the same mistakes again?
Marito
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To say we started the 2023 season as thin as this one is almost a technicality, because both Sands and Santi returned in March 2023. Santi had been holding out for a DP contract, and Sands loan got cut short, but for all intents and purposes they were part of the team almost at the start of 2023. And those are our 2 biggest holes right now. Also, Maxi was younger and had not torn his ACL yet. Keaton was also just back from his blood clots surgery. Compared to right now, we were flush with established talent. Now, one long-term injury to either Freese, Maxi or Parks would put us in Wooden spoon territory IMHO. Alonso is great, but without some useful help he won't score.
Revfugee
Registered
They have their 2025 equivalents. Players like Jackson Yueill and Wil Trapp and yes, Nick Lima who are established mediocre MLS depth players of no particular distinction. The league is full of them and thankfully we seldom sign them, while other teams (the truly feckless ones) seem to do so all the time. I’d much rather see our young academy players get minutes than these retreads. You seem to be deliberately ignoring my point. I didn’t suggest that anyone on this forum wants them. But plenty of MLS sides seem to. I am pointing out that one of the positives of our setup is that we don’t fill our roster with career MLS warm bodies. And As I’ve said many times now our real issue is the key attacking positions and we need to spend our incoming funds. I’m just as impatient about spending our funds well and soon as anyone is, but at least by using our youngsters early in the season we aren’t adding dead weight to the senior roster just to fill it out, which would be worse. And which is pretty common practice around the league.
