2014 NWSL Draft

Great interview, thanks for posting it.

PilotPoser wrote:Hope to see some of my old Pilot friends in Seattle this season supporting the Pilot Pro team!!

I hope they have the good sense to stagger Reign and Thorns home dates.

Any word on where they will play their home dates? I'm rooting for Memorial field, which just got a bit of a remodel.

One thing for sure. rivalry dates will have a dynamic you won't see anywhere else.

PurpleGeezer wrote:

PilotPoser wrote:Hope to see some of my old Pilot friends in Seattle this season supporting the Pilot Pro team!!

I hope they have the good sense to stagger Reign and Thorns home dates.

Any word on where they will play their home dates? I'm rooting for Memorial field, which just got a bit of a remodel.

One thing for sure. rivalry dates will have a dynamic you won't see anywhere else.

I saw a tweet from Paulson saying they've been trying to work out a way to do a paired Timbers-Sounders and Thorns-Reign event. He said it's made more difficult by having to coordinate with two management groups on the other side so that it's a three-way rather than a two-way negotiation.

Two other names of note that I didn't see mention of with Portland connections: Courtney Verloo and Chloe Colohan to Western NY. Congrats to both of them. While Verloo doesn't have a UP connection, and Chloe's may be a strained one, it would be interesting to see how many players in the NWSL have a UP/Oregon/Washington connection.

Nice review from Chris Henderson:


NWSL – 2014 Draft Review – Seattle Reign – Defensive Reinforcement At Last
by Chris Henderson

The running joke about the Seattle Reign this offseason has generally centered on boss Laura Harvey's transformation into wheeler-dealer, remaking a roster which proved deficient for most of last season. While the turnover for the roster has been both dramatic and aggressive, the changes have largely been centered on the offensive side of the ball. Four offensive additions have come in, including Sydney Leroux and Kim Little, while the defense has gotten a fraction of the attention. Mariah Nogueira counts to an extent as a defensive midfielder, but the only other defensively oriented move coming into the draft was swapping out Kaylyn Kyle for Carmelina Moscato, a move that most would argue doesn't do enough to rectify last season's woeful defensive issues.

It was hardly a surprise then that the Reign cast their eye towards picking up some defensive help from this year's stacked draft class. Harvey and co. were likely holding their breath through the first six picks, as Amanda Frisbie looked like the last sure thing at center-back, though given her technical skill and athleticism, she might end up at full-back. Megan Brigman's far less of a sure thing and was a surprise in the second round but has pace and a little bit of size, so she'll at least get a chance to stick.

Local player Ellen Parker was another from the Portland Pilots but may face an uphill battle to stick on the final roster given the glut in numbers in the midfield. Parker does offer more of a playmaking perspective from midfield though, as opposed to the directness of many of Seattle's veteran midfielders. Regardless, Harvey and Reign fans have to be hoping for a better return from this year's class, with zero of last year's picks set to begin the season on the club's roster.

7 - Amanda Frisbie - D - Portland

Frisbie was this season's big mover in terms of draft stock after a star turn at center-back for Portland as a senior. She had already impressed with the Pilots a year earlier in an attacking role but took to her new role in defense like a glove despite having not specialized as a defender previously. She won WCC Defensive Player of the Year honors and generally looked like one of the nation's very best defenders. I don't think her usage stats from her junior season, her best as an attacker, indicate a move back into the attack is necessarily in the cards. She's still got tons of upside as a defender after having played just a season there, and the Reign need a ton of help defensively. I think the biggest question may be whether Frisbie features as a center-back or makes the shift to full-back. She's certainly got the attacking instincts for the latter. Either way, I think she becomes this team's defensive anchor sooner rather than later.
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Chris Henderson | January 20, 2014 at 5:22 pm | URL: http://wp.me/p17F0w-3jg

When Frisbee was moved to D and there was a lot of discussion here about how that would effect her future, I pointed out that she was proving that she could be coached, and learn any position where the team needed her. I suggested this would be an asset that would far out weigh giving up her position as a star forward. I had no idea that she would end up defender of the year at that time. Even with out the honors I think she impressed pro coaches with versatility by making the switch. As CH points out, Seattle may use her in a position she has never played. That kind of versatility will guarantee her a long pro career. IMO.

Chris Henderson wrote yesterday about the reign...he now jumps into the Thorns preview:

http://wp.me/p17F0w-3ji

purple passion wrote:Chris Henderson wrote yesterday about the reign...he now jumps into the Thorns preview:

http://wp.me/p17F0w-3ji

Curious analysis on Sullivan. I don't know anything about her, but it looked to me like he just picked stuff out of the air. 2 goals against top 50 teams, 6.63 SPG IN the SEC playing on a pretty bad team. I'm guessing she took more shots from less than ideal places because she had little help. And he denigrates her goals in a blowout against MSU.

I'll be interested to see what he says about Julie Johnson only scoring one goal against top 50 teams, or that Marlborough also only scored two despite both players playing more top 50 competition and that several of their goals were in multiple 9 goal and a six goal blowout against less than stellar opponents.

He also didn't mention  that Her SEC  6.35 shots per goal isn't her overall number (5.49) and looks pretty good compared to   Crystal Dunn's 5.57 and Kealia Ohai's 8.36 SPG. Dunn was #1 in the draft and  Ohai went #2 .

I don't know if Sullivan is any good or not, but his statistical cherry picking  sure doesn't help.

Thanks for the follow-up analysis, it makes Sullivan sound like a more reasonable pick.

I don't remember about Johnston, but I remember when CH was doing his draft projections, he mentioned Marlborough's "deficient" scoring against stronger teams.  He's done that with a couple of other players.

On looking at the Thorns roster, they now have 22 on it and ultimately will have to get it down to 20. In addition, Riley has mentioned bringing in 3 or 4 new players. I think we're going to see a bunch of changes in the bench since that would mean 5 or 6 players currently on the roster won't be there when the season begins. I think, however, that the salary cap may temper what Riley is able to do in terms of the ultimate roster.

Here are the figures he compiled for players who scored 10 or more goals, supposedly.

So in my quest for total stat overload, I went in and calculated goals scored against RPI Top 50 Teams (50), goals scored against RPI Top 100 Teams (100), shots per goal (SPG), and shot on target % (OTS) for every player in DI that scored ten or more goals.

I'll note Sullivan scored 16 goals in D1 for Mississippi State and is missing.

And I presume Amanda didn't make the cut because she scored 8, but she had 2 goals against top 50 opponents playing center back. Santa Clara was one of those teams.

PurpleGeezer wrote:Here are the figures he compiled for players who scored 10 or more goals, supposedly.

So in my quest for total stat overload, I went in and calculated goals scored against RPI Top 50 Teams (50), goals scored against RPI Top 100 Teams (100), shots per goal (SPG), and shot on target % (OTS) for every player in DI that scored ten or more goals.

I'll note Sullivan scored 16 goals in D1 for Mississippi State and is missing.

And I presume Amanda didn't make the cut because she scored 8, but she had 2 goals against top 50 opponents playing center back. Santa Clara was one of those teams.

Sullivan being absent from that graphic was a goof on my part, as I tried to take a screen capture, and it cut off her stat line, which happened to be the final senior being listed. She's listed on the full PDF file featuring non-seniors as well that I posted just a bit above that.

But if we're talking about cherry-picking, I find it curious that you neglected to mention in that same profile of Sullivan that I also mentioned she had a great shot on goal ratio, both overall and in SEC play.

PurpleGeezer wrote:Here are the figures he compiled for players who scored 10 or more goals, supposedly.

So in my quest for total stat overload, I went in and calculated goals scored against RPI Top 50 Teams (50), goals scored against RPI Top 100 Teams (100), shots per goal (SPG), and shot on target % (OTS) for every player in DI that scored ten or more goals.

I'll note Sullivan scored 16 goals in D1 for Mississippi State and is missing.

And I presume Amanda didn't make the cut because she scored 8, but she had 2 goals against top 50 opponents playing center back. Santa Clara was one of those teams.

Oops!

I think a better metric would be goals scored against Top 50/Top 100 teams per Top 50/Top 100 teams played. It would take out of the measurement the fact that some players have a lot more opportunities to score goals against Top teams than others. I bet that using that metric, Denver's Hamilton would come out very well. Probably the sleeper of the draft.

I could never be a coach. The Thorns won last year...admittedly with a lot of luck...until the end, but shouldn't it be "if it ain't broke, don't fix it?" In order to try to win without resorting to luck, a tweak is OK with me, but this looks like a bowling strike. The only one I would have traded is Alex.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:

PurpleGeezer wrote:Here are the figures he compiled for players who scored 10 or more goals, supposedly.

So in my quest for total stat overload, I went in and calculated goals scored against RPI Top 50 Teams (50), goals scored against RPI Top 100 Teams (100), shots per goal (SPG), and shot on target % (OTS) for every player in DI that scored ten or more goals.

I'll note Sullivan scored 16 goals in D1 for Mississippi State and is missing.

And I presume Amanda didn't make the cut because she scored 8, but she had 2 goals against top 50 opponents playing center back. Santa Clara was one of those teams.

Oops!

I think a better metric would be goals scored against Top 50/Top 100 teams per Top 50/Top 100 teams played.  It would take out of the measurement the fact that some players have a lot more opportunities to score goals against Top teams than others.  I bet that using that metric, Denver's Hamilton would come out very well.  Probably the sleeper of the draft.

That's actually a pretty good idea. Wish there was some way to automate things, as calculating just those four stats above was incredibly time consuming.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:

Oops!

I think a better metric would be goals scored against Top 50/Top 100 teams per Top 50/Top 100 teams played.  It would take out of the measurement the fact that some players have a lot more opportunities to score goals against Top teams than others.  I bet that using that metric, Denver's Hamilton would come out very well.  Probably the sleeper of the draft.

And, which suggests to me that I might want to think about changing one of my metrics for evaluating teams for NCAA Tournament seeding and selection purposes -- results against top 60 teams. If I were do results against top 60 teams per game played against top 60 teams, I might do better.

[quote="ChrisAWK"]

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:

That's actually a pretty good idea. Wish there was some way to automate things, as calculating just those four stats above was incredibly time consuming.

I'll download your stats and, with my database, should be able to do that, just for fun. When I get a chance in the next few days, I'll do it

PS, ChrisAWK, as a disinterested person, would you comment on whether it turned out that Frisbie playing defender this year was a good thing or a not good thing for her prospects with the NWSL?

ChrisAWK wrote:
But if we're talking about cherry-picking, I find it curious that you neglected to mention in that same profile of Sullivan that I also mentioned she had a great shot on goal ratio, both overall and in SEC play.

Haha. Maybe you now have a better appreciation for the accuracy in how you presented her stats.
I was pointing out where you erred. But OK, congrats on representing one stat right  

I still look forward to seeing how you treat the top picks using those same stats.

PurpleGeezer wrote:

ChrisAWK wrote:
But if we're talking about cherry-picking, I find it curious that you neglected to mention in that same profile of Sullivan that I also mentioned she had a great shot on goal ratio, both overall and in SEC play.

Haha. Maybe you now have a better appreciation for the accuracy in how you presented her stats.
I was pointing out where you erred. But OK, congrats on representing  one stat right  

I still look forward to seeing how you treat the top picks using those same stats.

Well, I didn't mention Johnston's goal scoring/usage in particular, because I don't envision her playing as offensive a role with Chicago as she did for Santa Clara. There's no doubt her stats were inflated though, for the reasons you mentioned. At any rate, if Chicago is depending on her as a main source of goals, they're in trouble.

And trust me, I hammer Marlborough for her lack of production against top teams.

UPSoccerFanatic wrote:PS, ChrisAWK, as a disinterested person, would you comment on whether it turned out that Frisbie playing defender this year was a good thing or a not good thing for her prospects with the NWSL?

I think it was critical. Coaches got to see that she could adapt to a new position very quickly, playing it at an elite level. That speaks to coachability, and I think it reveals she has massive upside at the position since she's only played there for one season. It also revealed extra layers of versatility. With the roster rules and the large amount of games in a short period of time, having players that can fill spots in multiple positions has to be a huge consideration for any coaching staff.

In short, I probably had her as a middle round pick after her junior season. With her senior season performance in mind, I think she was the last "elite" prospect from this class, and the picks dropped a tier in talent after she was chosen.

ChrisAWK wrote:

Well, I didn't mention Johnston's goal scoring/usage in particular, because I don't envision her playing as offensive a role with Chicago as she did for Santa Clara. There's no doubt her stats were inflated though, for the reasons you mentioned. At any rate, if Chicago is depending on her as a main source of goals, they're in trouble.

And trust me, I hammer Marlborough for her lack of production against top teams.

Johnston was mostly a forward, and it is where she prefers to play, according to her old club mates. She was entirely playing the most forward position in whatever SCU played against Portland (4-5-1?it didn't look much like a 4-3-3. She was often the only burgundy in the offensive end)  I think it would only be fair to mention that if you are judging performance. Where she played in college had little to do with the u20's.
They didn't call the group the three headed monster for nothing.

And yes, I do recall you hit Marlborough a bit during the season. I'll give you that. Johnson was half as good against the same top teams..