No player profile this month as I'm pushing to finish my GSAR before the Goalkeeper of the Year award goes to the wrong guy. And hopefully I'll get around to compiling a Steve Clark highlight video just in case he needs to find a new team next season. (Try to catch the finale this Saturday, 9-ish CT, not exactly sure when.) I tweaked my formula so a lot of college guys dropped out and lower tier veterans sneaked back in. But of note, Bendik jumps to number 7 from 10 and Dykstra rises from 40 to 26. Also Blake Hylen (senior at San Diego St) represents the collegiate class at number 100. I'm still not completely sold on Hylen so I'm just penciling his name in for now. Also Patrick Wall hasn't been on great form lately so he slipped out of the 100. (He'll be back, I'm sure.)
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Here's a bit of a sneak preview for my 2013 MLS GSAR stat. I haven't finished it (as you'll see) but just in case anyone had any doubt it shouldn't be Rimando...
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(web page here)
As you can see, Rimando has a +10.75 goals saved above replacement. Second is Joe Bendik at +10.47 although Rimando has played four less games than Bendik.
"Okay but what are these stats based on? How is that number calculated." Uh, well I wasn't really thinking ahead to save my work (sorry all middle school math teachers) to show it to the public but coming from someone who has probably seen 100 times more highlight videos on these goalkeepers, please trust me. DO NOT VOTE JIMMY NIELSEN PLEASE. He is a fine enough goalkeeper but not deserving of this award. His GAA hides behind a great defense. DO NOT VOTE FOR TALLY HALL. It's great that he's been called into the national team but he has not performed as well as Rimando. Save percentage and goals allowed are not accurate assessments of a goalkeeper's ability.
If that does not convince you, here is American Soccer Analysis' expected goals allowed compared to real:
(These stats are based off of ASA's shot location stats which you can see here.)
Portland tops the list with only giving up 33 goals while they were expected to give up 40.1 this year. But RSL has a lower dGA (difference in GA, colored column) than Portland because, I think, of the defense. Who is the Timbers' best defender? Michael Harrington? RSL has Borchers, McDonald, Wingert and Beltran. If you did vote for Ricketts over Rimando, eh, but okay. But please some of these other selections are not appropriate.
Look, SKC has a -0.2 dGA to RSL's 5.1. If you voted for Nielsen over Rimando you're essentially saying that the SKC defense was so miserable than they negated all of Nielsen's efforts and RSL's defense, on the other hand, was even better than SKC's and that Rimando had very little to do with it. DO NOT SAY THIS.
Whew. Okay, looking forward, I have interviews with Alan Mayer and Brad Stuver coming in the next week, a re-visiting of the 1989 win in Trinidad and Tobago to celebrate the 25-(minus one)-th anniversary, and an MLS end of the year write up of what goalkeepers should be going and coming. It should be an exciting month [for people who care about goalkeepers].