Minutes Lost: A look at Major League Soccer Roster Changes

Now that they rosters have settled down and all MLS teams are in preseason training camps, it's a good time to look at how the changes might affect all the teams. One way to do so is to look at the number of minutes each player who has left the team actually played during the previous regular season. I call these minutes the "minutes lost" for each team, and it is pretty straightforward. I used Big Soccer's off season movement thread to compile the list of players, and then Kejsare and I filled in the minutes each of those players played.

Here is what we found:

For the visual learners here is a bar graph for comparison (Click on the image to see the actual size):

Notes:

Chicago: Chicago lost only two players with significant minutes in Joel Lindpere and Jalil Anibaba. Anibaba was tied in minutes played with Austin Berry.

Chivas USA: Lost quite a few players including the players with the second and third most minutes played in Mario de Luna and Edgar Mejia. Tristan Bowen and Jorge Villafana also earned played over 1000 minutes last year.

Colorado Rapids: Two players they no longer have on the team with over 2000 minutes are Atiba Harris and Anthony Wallace. Surprisingly neither were among the top 5 in terms of minutes played for Colorado.

Columbus Crew: Chad Marshall was second on their team in minutes played and Andy Grunenbaum logged 1800+ minutes between the pipes.

FC Dallas: FC Dallas have two players in their top five in terms of minutes played no longer on the team with the trade of Jackson (4th) and David Ferreira (3rd) being let go.

DC United: They really overhauled their roster by parting ways with 6 players who had played in over 1000 minutes for the club. Daniel Woolard had the most with 2235 minutes and was fourth on the team in minutes played.

Houston: Not a lot of minutes played amongst those Houston parted ways with but one player. Bobby Boswell, did earn enough minutes to be third on the team in minutes played with 2830 minutes.

LA Galaxy: Sean Franklin earned 2736 minutes of playing time for the Galaxy which was good enough for third most minutes on the team.

Montreal Impact: Montreal parted ways with 3 players playing over 1500 minutes with Alessandro Nesta leading the way with 1939 minutes. However, none of the three players cracked the top 5 for minutes played.

New England Revolution: Juan Agudelo earned the most minutes of those New England parted ways with and he only earned 1021 minutes. Chad Barrett, who moved to the fishing village up north, only logged 622 minutes all season.

New York Red Bulls: Two players who are no longer with NYRB earned over 2000 minutes last year. Fabian Espindola earned 2054, while Marcus Holgersson earned 2866 minutes which was good enough for 2nd on the team.

Philadelphia Union: Michael Farfan (1991) and Jeff Parke (2744) were the only two players with significant minutes and Parke was 4th in minutes played.

Portland Timbers: Andrew Jean Baptiste, who earned the 8th most minutes on the team, had the most minutes out of those who left the Timbers with 2142 minutes. Ryan Johnson had 1770 minutes and the rest had less than 700. Brad Ring as we all know had only 1 minute of playing time.

Real Salt Lake: RSL parted ways with only one player who had more than 500 minutes of playing time and that was Yordany Alvarez with 981 minutes.

San Jose Earthquakes: San Jose parted ways with 12 players during the off season and four of them played over 1000 minutes for the team. Steven Beitashour and Rafael Baca were 4th and 5th respectively with 2426 and 2379 minutes played last season.

Seattle Sounders: Four of the players they parted ways with had played over 1700 minutes for the team. Michael Gspurning (2475 and first in minutes), Jhon Hurtado (2243 and fourth in minutes), Mauro Rosales (2175) and Eddie Johnson (1725) were all significant contributors to the team.

Sporting Kansas City: Sporting parted ways with exactly 1 player who played minutes during the 2013 season and he played in 3060 minutes and was first on the team in minutes played. His name is Jimmy Nielsen.

Toronto: Toronto surprisingly did not change a lot of their roster and only had two players who contributed 1500+ minutes with whom they parted ways with. The two players are Robert Earnshaw, who earned 1883 minutes, and Bobby Convey, who earned 1786 minutes.

Vancouver: What a crazy off-season they have had. They easily lost the most minutes of all the teams because 5 of the players who left earned over 1000 minutes and 2 more earned 900 or more. Camilo was third on the team with 2418 minutes played and Lee Young-Pyo was second with 2747.

What do you think about these numbers? Will the teams who had the most minutes struggle at the start of the season? Or do the numbers mean nothing?