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Mailbag: When will starting spots REALLY be on the line?
98 Plays1 year ago
We're back with another full mailbag episode. This week we address questions about Brian Schmetzer's willingness to change his preferred lineup, speculate on the impact of new fatherhood on Jordan Morris' performance, and dig into some of the stats to determine how worried we should really be about the Sounders' performance.
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Transcript
Introductions and Sponsorship
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, this is Christian Roldan. And Jordan Morris from the Seattle Sounders Football Club. And you're listening to NOS Arietes. This episode of NOS Arietes is sponsored by Full Pull Wines, a Seattle-based wine retailer and proud sponsor of NOS Arietes since 2011. Full Pull was founded in 2009, is based in Seattle, and is owned and operated by longtime Sounders supporters. They offer the best boutique wines of the world to members of their mailing list, with special focus on their home, the Pacific Northwest.
00:00:28
Speaker
A.O. Shen! Let's go! What a save by Fry! The Seattle Sounders have done it! MLS Cup win! Here come three years through the middle to crown it the vehicle! And now they truly can't stop the celebrations. It's the Sounders' MLS Cup! Niko Liddo leaves out!
Jordan Morris's Form: New Dad Factor?
00:01:27
Speaker
Welcome back to Nos Adietes. This is the mailbag episode for ahead of week seven. I think that's
00:01:38
Speaker
Or yeah, like match day seven in MLS. Aaron, I'm Jeremiah Shan, joining me today is Aaron Campo, my co-host.
00:01:46
Speaker
We are, we're going to talk. We have a lot of questions that all came as a, I will remind listeners from the discord. If you want to get involved in discord, you just gotta be a supporter or above on sounder heart and get in there. And we've very lively conversations lately. Uh, say that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, say what you will about the state of the team, but the state of the discord is very active. That's right.
00:02:15
Speaker
So, uh, why don't we just get started? Let's do it. Um, this first one is from D underscore height. Uh, after Jamo missed that, uh, I'm putting this in air quotes. The ask her did not, but I'm going to sit her. I mentioned something about how he hasn't been stellar this year to my very pregnant wife. Her response was like, yeah, duh, he's a new dad and has a baby at home. That makes sense, right? I mean, it does make sense. I'm.
00:02:42
Speaker
I'm not necessarily inclined to use that as a excuse. I mean, he's now been a dad for like, you know, six months, actually in six months. That's pretty tough period of being a dad. It's possible. I don't know what it like. I don't know if that means he deserves more grace. It's a plausible explanation, but he doesn't look tired to me. He just isn't sharp. Yeah, I think so. I think
00:03:12
Speaker
I think if I were a psychologist, which I'm not, so I'm just going to try to make guess at what I think a psychologist would say. It seems like the ways in which that would affect him would be the opposite, right? Maybe he's a little physically tired and mentally tired, but he's got peace of mind and purpose in life. In front of goal, maybe you'd expect him to be a little sharper. I don't know.
00:03:41
Speaker
I definitely think that there's all sorts of off-field things that can impact player performance, but I just like the degree to which it impacts players performance is so completely unknowable that I think it's fun to speculate about. I mean, you know, it is, there's nothing wrong with that, but I think ultimately it's, it's kind of a fruit fruitless exercise. Yeah. But since you wanted to put sitter in air quotes, what did you make of the chance that he missed? Go ahead.
00:04:11
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's a chance that you want him to finish. Yes. I think that the extent to which it was a gimme has been dramatically overstated. I think that's a chance that elite strikers miss too. I won't say more often than not, obviously, that's not true, but I think the highest probability of that being a finish that I've seen is 54%
00:04:37
Speaker
Well, that's 46% of the time that that's not finished, right? And there is debate over whether or not the 54% is accurate. That's an interesting one because the XG value is all over the map, I feel like on that one, which I guess kind of speaks to...
00:04:56
Speaker
You know, we've had this discussion a lot about not getting too wrapped up in single game XG or single, you get, you really can't get wrapped up in like single shot XG. Yeah. In part because there's a lot of.
00:05:11
Speaker
disagreement over like what any one shot is worth. It's just in the aggregate, you sort of like get a collective value of this stuff. I thought it was interesting. Albert Rusnak at training on Tuesday, he said that's something that Jordan finishes 10 times out of 10 in training. I don't think he's maybe being a little hyperbolic there. Yeah. But point being, it would have been good to finish it. I think if he misses that,
00:05:39
Speaker
in the 15th minute and he has a couple other goals this year, no one's really getting hyper focused on it. I'll also note, Rui Diaz missed a very similar chance off of a Jordan Morris pass earlier in the game and no one seems to be too worked up over that one. I don't know.
00:06:02
Speaker
We talked about this a little bit in the main show this week, so I don't want to get too deep into it, but it is always amazing to me the discourse around Jordan, and I'm not even blaming D. Height here. He asked a totally fair question. I just kind of got on my hobby or a sitter, so I apologize. Fair. To me, a sitter is you've rounded the keeper.
00:06:23
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You've just got to tap it in. That's a sitter to me. This was a very good chance, but not my definition of a sitter. Yeah, I would agree with you there. All right, this is from Bill Jones
MLS Infrastructure Challenges
00:06:37
Speaker
Trumpet. He says, I understand why LA wouldn't invest in the infrastructure to drain a pitch.
00:06:42
Speaker
I'm curious, how many MOs fields have the technologies that ours does to both heat and drain precipitation? Well, I'll tell you how many should have them, and that is every single one of them. It is unconscionable at this level in the sport.
00:06:58
Speaker
in a league with a lot of money, more money than ever flowing into this league, that we could have one game that was so dramatically impacted by the rain. And, you know, I don't think it impacted the Sounders anymore than the Galaxy.
00:07:16
Speaker
But both teams had to play on it. So it's not an excuse, but it made the game worse. I think it's, it's fair to say, especially early on. And then also to have a game have to be rescheduled because of it. It's just, it's unacceptable to me. I don't understand how it's possible. And, and apparently the scientists think this kind of thing is going to become more normal. So we might want to invest in rain and heat.
00:07:45
Speaker
heated pitch technology around MLS because it's probably not going to get more temperate. Yeah, that seems like a fair assessment. I think is the scientific consensus on that. All right, this next one is from Nexus.
Sounders' Player Position Risks
00:08:07
Speaker
The first five games of the season have obviously been rough, and a lot of hats have been hung on the injuries for lack of performance, especially in the first four games. But it is still undeniable that the team has played poorly. With Schmetz finally saying some spots are on the line in the coming weeks, is anyone particularly in danger? The main question is, have any of the presumed starters at the start of the season played themselves out of their spot if the whole team is healthy? For me, Alex, Nuhu, and maybe Regan have all had the worst performances for the healthy starter players, but haven't played themselves out of the lineup yet.
00:08:37
Speaker
Uh, I, yeah, I mean, I think that's a fair assessment. I, I mean, I think, but I'm trying to think who I think are the most secure starters. Like Yamar is probably pretty secure. Christian is probably pretty secure.
00:08:59
Speaker
And I mean, a lot of guys might like, I think this week, for instance, I think they're all relatively secure. But if, if, you know, at some point you would think that if, if the, if the season really doesn't turn around and he's going to have to start changing the lineup. And I, and I guess maybe in the, in the spirit of this question, who is the most insecure spot? Hmm.
00:09:24
Speaker
I mean, I, who's got, who's, who's the player who has the most competition, I guess is really the issue. And I think, you know, I think that number nine spot is going to be really interesting to watch because, you know, whether it's Jordan Raul or frankly, Danny Masovsky, I could see even getting in there. I mean, if you have a whole healthy roster, you have Pedro de la Vega.
00:09:50
Speaker
Uh, you don't necessarily, and like, if, if Jordan still isn't scoring in a, you know, if we're a month from now and De La Vega's back and Rui Diaz is, uh, you know, I don't know. I think the number nine spot to me is the one that might be the most up for grabs in a sense.
00:10:10
Speaker
Yeah, that makes sense. I think Alex also has some competition. I mean, he did get he was on the pitch against the galaxy, but he wasn't playing right back. But I don't know that Cody Baker, I think Cody Baker did enough things right that I said I'd like to see more of him. I don't think he did enough right that I would want to be like throwing. Yeah, he needs to be starting the next game and Alex's place. I think a lot of it right now, though, is just that
00:10:39
Speaker
If you're one of those guys that has been playing poorly, you're probably going to have a little bit of time to reverse course because right now they're just, they're kind of hamstrung. Sorry, like no pun intended. I mean, yeah, I mean, all those like new who could also, like if, if Reed Baker Whiting come, like, I think the only reason I don't put new who on the list is because I'm a little skeptical that Cody Baker is going to get starts over them.
00:11:04
Speaker
like a perfectly healthy new who, but if Reed was fit and ready to go, I could see him, you know, taking his spot. So I think it's, it's tough. I think it has almost more to do with who is the replacement than how bad is this player playing? And I, and I said, Jordan at the, as my first answer and I'll, I'll stick with it, but I also want to feel, I feel like it's important to note that I don't think Jordan has been by any stretch.
00:11:34
Speaker
the worst or even one of the worst players. Uh, I just think that he plays a position where at some point you have to just like, it's very easy to look at your stats and say you weren't doing enough. Yeah. I, I think that you do have to do that. I'm not sure that I love the process that would leave you to the conclusion that Jordan is the, is the right player to replace with, like with the way the roster is right now.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, no, right. No, I agree. I agree. It's there's got to be more. I mean, because like right now, I think Jordan Jordan to me is very secure. Like he looks I thought he looked really good on the left wing. Yeah, I just I'm just saying like if Pedro de la Vega Leo Chiu, you got a full roster of choices.
00:12:21
Speaker
You know, I could see the squeeze put on a couple of the attacking positions, but we'll see.
Sounders' Results vs. Expected Goals
00:12:27
Speaker
All right. This is from Everett Sounders. He says, what's your read on the underlying numbers for the Sounders during those windless run? Are they encouraging for us to turn things around or is it time to panic? And, and I think this is a note that I'll let you actually, this is a question for you. This is your note. I'll let you get into it.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah. Um, so I have, I have some numbers here, some of those underlying numbers in question. Um, there was a, uh, a little thread, a mini thread, I guess we'll call it from Harrison Crow of American soccer analysis, uh, on X.com, uh, the other night, which I actually logged into my account to read. Why are you calling it that? I don't know. Cause I think it's kind of funny. It is funny. I just was thinking about this today about how I don't think I'll ever in my life called that, but go ahead anyway.
00:13:13
Speaker
I would never call it that seriously, but I do think it's one of those things where I started doing it ironically so much that now it's just, it's like how I started saying no worries, ironically, like 25 years ago, and now I just say it. Anyway, so I didn't log into whatever we're calling that site now.
00:13:31
Speaker
Just to look at the thread, and basically Harrison's point was, I think the exact words he used, I couldn't click the link and look at it now, were that the Sounders have been the most unlucky team that they have seen.
00:13:47
Speaker
in the history of ASA. There must be a larger data set than he was sharing. I think so, yeah. The full tweet of the first tweet in the thread is, the Souders thus far have been one of the unluckiest teams in ASA data history. Not sure what the pulse on here is, but I can't imagine. Happy is the most immediate feeling spring into mine. I really think this is a good team even with JP and PDLV.
00:14:12
Speaker
Harrison is much smarter guy than I am. And so I was kind of happy to read this because I've been pretty consistent in feeling the same way. And I've definitely get the sense that that's not the most common way of folks are feeling. And I won't blame anyone for that. But those underlying numbers, so.
00:14:35
Speaker
We're five games and five games is generally kind of considered the point at which there's enough of an XG sample that you can start doing some more serious analysis. I like a bigger sample, but I do think you can pick up some trends from five games. And so ASA has the sounders at 7.4 XG, 6.83 XG against.
00:15:00
Speaker
um and that they have an a goal difference minus x goal difference expected goal difference of negative 3.82 so basically they have been four goals worse on the scoreboard than you would expect uh based on xg which over a sample of five games where you have not lost any of the games by more than one goal
00:15:23
Speaker
is enough to really skew things, I would say. Based on XG, the Sounders are at 7.6 expected points. I know that for myself, if they had seven or eight points right now, I'd be thrilled because I think that would be a team missing a lot of key players who are grinding on results. Right. And that's why I think all you can ask for from this team right now. And I think what you should be very similar to what they were last year. Yeah, exactly.
00:15:52
Speaker
And also, goals added, their difference is the sixth highest in MLS right now. So the underlying numbers don't love the sounders, right? I think they see them so far as a pretty middle of the road team. But I think
00:16:07
Speaker
When the gravity of the injury situation became apparent, you know, early on, I think everybody that I talked to or most people that I talked to about this stuff, which is mostly you and like it to be fair, but felt like, Hey, if we can just like, we've got some easy games in this run.
00:16:26
Speaker
We should be able to grind out these results and then we can get healthy and we're on our way. And I think that for the most part, they have played well enough to do that and gotten really unlucky. But I also think they've had uncharacteristic mistakes. I think there have been situations where they haven't done themselves any favors tactically here in terms of the team selection. So I think it's a combination of things. But I do think if you are looking for encouragement,
00:16:50
Speaker
and you're willing to get it from some of the underlying numbers of advanced statistics, there is a little kernel of it in there that this team has not played as bad as their place in the table and the number of goals they put up would maybe suggest. Yeah, and I think that's fair. It's not a team that's played awfully. It's a team that has gotten awful results. Yes. It's like a good news, bad news thing, though. On one hand, you expect this to even out.
00:17:20
Speaker
But it could go, it could go you with either way. Like they're either going to start continue playing as well as they are and the results are going to improve or they'll stop playing this well and the results will start to look like you're expecting. Right.
00:17:35
Speaker
And so there's no guarantee of which way it's going to go, but it's, I do think it's, it's fair. It's fair to point out that this team is, has played better than their record suggests. And at the same time, you know, I wrote today, this week about how, you know, uh, you are what your record says you are. And right now the record says the sounders are bad. So it's up to them to sort of change that and try to get in some wins. And, uh, yeah, but there's reason to think that that can happen, I guess is the point here.
00:18:05
Speaker
I think that sometimes there can be a tendency to conflate, here's an analysis of what I think has happened or here's what the numbers say with someone saying, actually everything is fine and you shouldn't feel bad or you shouldn't be upset. And I think that that is really a really common disconnect where it's like, you can say the numbers actually look better than the reality and there's a reason for that to feel encouraging. And also I am super pissed off about the way the season has gone so far. Yeah, yeah.
00:18:40
Speaker
So this next one is from Chico Flores, and hopefully it remains in the hypothetical category. But if Schmetzer was to be removed, who would be an ideal replacement? Someone with MLS experience or someone from outside the league?
00:18:56
Speaker
So I would say that my suspicion is that the sounders will hire someone from within MLS that has some kind of connection to the organization. Maybe not literally working here before, but has, you know, like that's sort of their MO, Craig Weibel being a great example. He was someone who was both from the region.
00:19:22
Speaker
had experience with the team, knew a lot of people in the team, also happened to have previously worked for Garth. My suspicion that's the way that this would go. I don't know. I don't know. Ideally, is that the way they should go? Should they be going outside of their
00:19:42
Speaker
They're kind of a well-worn path. Ervay Diese, who is the Tacoma Defiance Coach, is a great example of this as someone who they just really went outside their network and found this guy basically through an online application, I believe is the story I heard.
00:19:59
Speaker
And, you know, so you can definitely find interesting people that way and maybe you get more interesting candidates. And I think it will be fascinating because at some point, Brian will be replaced, you know, whether or not it's this year or next year or years from now, he's going to get replaced. And it's going to be fascinating, I think, to see the direction they go, because I think it says a lot about what they want to be as a club. And in some ways, they almost fell into
00:20:28
Speaker
Brian as their head coach, I don't necessarily think that they set out with the idea. But, you know, during Brian's time here, he really shaped what it meant to be the sounders and he sort of
00:20:41
Speaker
Crystal, he was able to distill it down into something that was a statement and that really, I think, is the ethos of the sounders. I don't know if he came up with this statement or not, but he's said it many times about how the club is the relationship between the fan and everyone else.
00:21:06
Speaker
And you know, and the media and everything. And it'll be interesting as I just think it'll be fascinating. It'll be a fascinating exploration in where this team is going long-term when they have to eventually replace them. Yeah, I don't, I don't have a lot to add to that other than I think getting Wilfred Nancy would be funny because it would be really funny to steal Columbus's manager twice.
00:21:27
Speaker
That would be very funny. Yeah. All right. This is from the list. He says, is the Montreal game a must win? Do the Sounders need to win this game to start the turnaround and how bad would it be to lose this game for the rest of the season?
00:21:40
Speaker
Is it a literal must win? Obviously not.
Must-Win Match Against Montreal
00:21:43
Speaker
There's still 27 games left after this one. 28. 28 after this one. That's right, because we've only played five. So that's plenty of time to turn things around. I think in the colloquial sense, as most people understand it, yeah, I think so. I think that Montreal is not a great team. You're at home.
00:22:03
Speaker
There were encouraging things to build off. I think in the galaxy game, they'll be healthier than they've been. And I just if you.
00:22:15
Speaker
feel like they should have ground out a result against Colorado and Austin. Montreal's better than those teams, but not, I think, by leaps and bounds better than those teams. Yeah, I mean, the Sounders should be Montreal at home. And there's only so many games where you should win them at home in a season that you can drop and expect things to go your way. Yeah. They've already dropped points on two of those. Yep, for sure. And so I think, and I also think that
00:22:45
Speaker
I believe that the concept of momentum and the mental aspect is overblown by fans a lot of the time because I think we're just looking for narratives a lot of the time, right? But I do think that losing the first, not losing the first six games, but going winless in the first six games, three of those against mediocre to bad teams at home, having trouble scoring, that cannot be good for the mindset.
00:23:12
Speaker
And it could lead to changes being made where they don't need to be made, where things that are working are changed because there's just this desire to make some kind of a change that makes things worse. There are a lot of instances of this. Very easy to go on tilt, as they say in the poker world.
00:23:31
Speaker
Absolutely. So you just gotta, you know, you gotta control the controllables, remove those external factors and beat a team that you should beat at home. And personally, I think they will. I feel weirdly confident that they're going to win this game pretty comfortably.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah. You know, it's, it's one of those games where, uh, the sounders have talked about this many times where it's like you're playing a desperate opponent and you can't really, and that's sometimes why you lose to teams that you feel like you should be just because they just have this grander sense of desperation. And gosh, you would think the sounders would be at that point now where it's like just throwing everything they have at it. Um, but anyway,
00:24:13
Speaker
All right, this next one is from Eric. In a recent podcast, Jeremiah said, and I quote, obviously the Seattle Times is the most important media outlet for the Sounders.
Media Influence: Seattle Times vs. Sounder at Heart
00:24:24
Speaker
That's an approximate quote from Eric's memory. Is that actually true? In my world, it seems like Sounder at Heart has far more impact on the Sounders. I regularly see Jeremiah influencing the dialogue, taking place at MLSSoccer.com and podcasts like the Total Soccer Show.
00:24:39
Speaker
So is Jeremiah just being humble or am I way too deep in the hype machine to accurately judge influence in the wider world? Well, I think there's two audiences that are maybe being conflated here. Yes.
00:24:52
Speaker
The audience that Eric is talking about and by the way, thank you. I will take this as a compliment and I won't, but I won't let it go to my head. Uh, but I, I do think there's sort of like a, we'll call it like the sicko, uh, sort of audience. And these are people that are really in.
00:25:13
Speaker
inside baseball you know these are people that are listening to extra time radio these are people who are listening to the total soccer show these are people who are reading sounder heart these are not necessarily the average fan these are people that are already sort of committed the the sounders already have those people's money uh and the sounders treat sounder heart as a pretty important outlet for them but i don't
00:25:40
Speaker
What we're talking about, what I'm talking about here is sort of the normie.
00:25:45
Speaker
fan, the fan who might not go to every game, or if they do go to every game, they probably aren't consuming that much about the team outside of game day. And those are the people that are probably, and the Seal Times has a huge audience. You know, Sounder at Heart has something like 5,000 members in our mailing list. That's a pretty robust collection of people.
00:26:15
Speaker
But Seattle Times has like many multiples of that on, you know, that are, that are receiving their newspaper and the sounders want to reach, those are all new. Like most, most of the 5,000 subscribers to sounder at heart are, uh, and by the way, this is not, that's not our paid subscriber list. That's our total subscriber list. Uh, just to be clear, I would love to be at that point, but, uh,
00:26:42
Speaker
Most of the people that are subscribing to Sounder at Heart are already Sounder fans that are already giving their money to the Sounders, or they were at one point, whereas virtually every reader of the Seattle Times is a potential new customer. And so in that way, I think they see the Seattle Times as more growth opportunity where Sounder at Heart is more their core audience, if that makes sense.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, I think so. I think that everyone in every field of entertainment, sports, music, TV, movies, whatever, everyone loves the hardcore fans, but that's not who makes the money. It's the more casual fans and Seattle Times just has a lot more exposure.
00:27:35
Speaker
Yeah, that's which you know, I don't I don't begrudge them at all. All right, this is from spaceman spliff. He says to the recent experiences with the end of Nico enrolls contract caused the front office to shift their thinking around if these should be five plus year commitments. That's something that Garth once said, that's my interjection into the question.
00:27:57
Speaker
If not, are we going exclusively target younger players to avoid the declining performance at the tail end of the commitment? What percentage of a DP's contract should we be comfortable with in typical decline ages?
00:28:12
Speaker
I think that the important thing to remember about Nico's contract and about Raul Rodriguez's contract is that Nico resigned in 2020, Raul resigned in 2021, Sounders won the CCL in 2022.
00:28:28
Speaker
I would guess that if they did not think that they had the core to win a Champions League that those decisions may have gone differently. Maybe they try to sell role, maybe they
00:28:43
Speaker
part ways with Nico earlier, I think that they made those decisions specifically because they thought they had a chance to win the thing that they've been trying to win for a very long time. And it worked. They did it. But I think that lots of sports history, you can look back at a lot of teams who went all in on a core to win a championship.
00:29:07
Speaker
who won the championship and ended up struggling afterwards because they had contracts on the books that were no longer productive. And I think that that's just the risk you take sometimes. And it certainly put them in a bad situation the last couple of years, right? Like it definitely has. It's hamstrung them to some degree. But I mean, they made the playoffs last year. They weren't great. No, but they made the playoffs.
00:29:35
Speaker
And I just, I think the degree to which this has been like a negative is, is kind of overstated because you're, if the trade-off is winning the Champions League, and I think it, it objectively is, right? I don't think they win the Champions League if they don't resign Nico Unroul. Yeah.
00:29:56
Speaker
So yeah, I mean, I think that it's going to be a case-by-case thing, right? Like if they've got a 32-year-old whose contract is expiring and they are a mediocre team and don't have championship aspirations, no, they're probably not going to resign them in the future, even if they're still relatively productive. But I think if they have the same decision to make, even if you could give them a crystal ball and say, you're going to win an MLS Cup or you're going to win a Champions League or you're going to go deep in a Club World Cup or whatever it is,
00:30:25
Speaker
but you might have a down year or two. They're going to take that trade every time. I also think it's worth just kind of putting yourself a little bit in the mindset of when they were resigning these players. It's really hard.
00:30:38
Speaker
for a front office to tell the player, the fan base, whatever else. We know you are coming off a really successful and productive season, but we're not going to resign you because we're worried that in three years, we're not going to be getting the same value out of this contract. Yeah.
00:30:59
Speaker
That's a tough, that's tough sell for everyone, you know, because invariably what's going to happen is that player in the first two years or whatever after they leave are going to be playing like they were playing when you had them to re-sign. What I do think though, is maybe different is
00:31:19
Speaker
I do think the Sounders are probably going to target younger players for DP contracts, maybe not always young DPs like they did with Pedro de la Vega, but I don't know that they're going to sign a 29 year old with the idea that that player is going to be around for five more years. Yeah.
00:31:35
Speaker
Yeah. And so that, that might, so I think to that degree, they are sort of changing their thinking. I, but I don't know what's going to, you know, the next time they have a Nico or Raul type of player who is entering like their age 31 season and they have to, and it's like, that's a tough year to have to, to decide on, right? Because it's, it's like, there's probably still productive, but you know, that the end of the contract, they probably won't be.
00:32:01
Speaker
Yeah. And I mean, I think both Nico and Raul were players that if you were going to guess what their aging curve would look like, you maybe wouldn't have expected it to be as drastic as it was. Yeah. It's tough for Raul for sure. I mean, I think I'm I was surprised that he.
00:32:18
Speaker
he struggled to stay healthy so much. This has been an interesting thing. There was this debate in the Discord actually about Raul and how someone said that he had a history of soft tissue injuries before his contract. It was like, well, he got that hamstring injury right before, right at the end of 2021.
00:32:43
Speaker
He really had only gotten one other soft tissue injury in his career and this was like a heel injury that cost him a handful of games. I don't even know if a heel injury is really a soft tissue. So it's, you know, I think we also have to be a little bit careful with our revisionism about the past, but anyway.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah. Also players are injury prone until they're not, and they are reliable until they're not like so much of Brad Evans career. He could not stay healthy. And then he was one of the most reliable players to sound or sad for like three seasons, three or four seasons, you know, and then, so you just, you really, you really never know. That's always Christian rolled on, uh, was an iron man until all of a sudden he, he got a few injuries and now he gets hurt just like any normal person. Yep.
00:33:25
Speaker
The next one is from bluebluered. What is your read on the front office's appetite to bring in a new number nine this summer? And would their urgency have changed at all given the product on the field these first five games? I know PayPal is probably a month or so away from return at this point, but given what we've seen, it feels naive to expect him alone to fix everything. Follow up, would they bring someone in only if there are in fact roster rule changes this summer, or do you think there's a chance they'd buy out rule to make it happen?
00:33:52
Speaker
So my expectation right now is that they will not sign a high level number nine in the summer unless they are also able to move someone. So if they can find someone to take, you know, let's just use Javier Arriaga as an example. If they can get something in return for Arriaga and open up that roster space,
00:34:22
Speaker
I would imagine that they would be inclined to go look for another player. I do think, and I don't know, I don't have any inside information on this. My suspicion though is that if they are going to go out and sign a number nine, that, you know, they have to have some eye on 2025 and the club World Cup. And I would think, I would think that
00:34:47
Speaker
they need to be open to spending a lot of money on that player. And I'm a little skeptical that they're going to do that in the summer. Even though I know that it would be a good time to do it, but I just don't see the gears moving already to go out and sign to make an eight-figure commitment to a number nine this summer. I would love to be wrong about that.
00:35:15
Speaker
I suppose it's possible that they, you know, if Raul continues to struggle, I would hope that buying him out is on the, is something that's under consideration, but I don't have any, nothing I've heard indicates to me that that's the plan, for better or for worse.
00:35:33
Speaker
I do think it's worth, I know that historically the sounders have liked to sign players in the summer, but I think that the transfer market in MLS has shifted enough. Like it's enough of a destination from enough leaves with enough talent, where you're not looking at free agents as much that are out of contract in Europe. And you're not looking at players who have fallen out of a team's plans. Like your MLS teams are actually able to go out and get
00:36:00
Speaker
players that they weren't able to do before. And I think all things being equal, you'd rather have those players preseason. So I do think that that calculus has changed a little bit. Yeah, you know, I think it's I mean, just that they were able to get a player like a Pedro de la Vega in the winter, I think says a lot about the
00:36:21
Speaker
the kind of player that's becoming more available at that point in the year. Yeah, for sure. There are, there are some interesting free agents in the summer. If they were able to, to move somebody, I could see them potentially there's maybe some attractive targets that they could get it like a tan. There was, there was the Japanese guy that they had kind of looked at before that I'm named. Um,
00:36:44
Speaker
skipping the hits. I think pretty sure he's a free agent in the summer. But anyway, this is from Interpersonal. He's actually a sender or contributor. So this is a long question. We're just going to kind of paraphrase it a little bit.
Financial Speculation: 2025 Club World Cup
00:36:59
Speaker
Basically, he was asking, there are rumors that the team's qualifying for the 2025 Club World Cup, speaking of which, may receive up to $50 million in
00:37:08
Speaker
prize money. Have you heard anything about those rumors? Do you get the sense that the Sounders are expecting a cash windfall? What might the Sanders do with such a all that cash coming in at once? So I'll leave the questions about the rumors and how plausible this sounds to you because I think you would have a better sense than I do. But I do think that the odds of the Sounders getting $50 million and spending that on the roster are
00:37:36
Speaker
Uh, extremely low, I would say, I think, yeah, they probably would definitely not $50 million. I don't think they would put all $50 million. I would think you would definitely invest some of it for sure. I think that that would be a lot of, you know, suddenly a $20 million investment on a player or players. It's much more reasonable when you have a $50 million cash infusion for sure.
00:38:01
Speaker
I am a little skeptical of that amount. That seems like an outrageous amount of money to commit to giving to every team. I mean, keep in mind, like, so $50 million is effectively the entire revenue of the sound, like, according to the various reporting
00:38:22
Speaker
or sports business publications out there, the Sounders do something like $60 million in total revenue in a year. So for FIFA to just be like, what if we just doubled that? Right. And there are clubs in the Club World Cup who are making significantly less revenue than that. Many, many, I would say even.
00:38:44
Speaker
You know, there are, there, you know, there's going to, yeah, it's, it's just seems like an outrageous amount of money to commit to teams that don't really have, like, it's one thing to say, okay, we need liver. We need real Madrid and Liverpool to make the trip. We're going to get, we're going to guarantee them $50 million. Okay. That I buy, but like, I don't know. I would love to be wrong.
00:39:08
Speaker
But here's what I will say is there was some suggestion that
00:39:15
Speaker
that the Sounders should just sort of like assume they're going to get a bunch of money and go spend it. I don't think that's how it works. Yeah, I used to do that and it didn't turn out well. Yeah, I think you kind of want to know what you're getting before you spend it. And I think part of that's practical is that if they're really getting a $50 million windfall, that's going to change the kind of player you can afford to go get.
00:39:43
Speaker
Yeah. Like, why would you go buy a $6 million player if you know you have a $50 million windfall and you can go buy a $12 million player?
00:39:51
Speaker
Yeah, you know, or three and still have, you know, 20 exactly. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't, I don't know what to make of this rumor other than it. That's a lot of money and I've seen it before. And I think we wrote about it even in Senator Hart, but we are not doing the reporting on that. I think we were just regurgitating something that we read online. I don't know. I.
00:40:15
Speaker
I guess I could have gone and found the story we wrote on it, but I guarantee it was not my original reporting. It would be cool. It would be really cool. It would also be cool if I won the Powerball tomorrow.
00:40:29
Speaker
Right. I mean, it is sort of the equivalent of that. But anyway, well, I think that's it. That's all the questions. So thanks for everyone for sending these in. I enjoyed doing these because it just gives us lots of things to talk about. So thank you to everyone sending in questions. In case you needed the reminder, all these questions come from our Discord. If you don't know what Discord is, it's essentially like a
00:40:56
Speaker
a private server where we talk about the sounders and have lots of lively discussions. There's a few hundred members in the discord. It's pretty active. Our game threads are a lot of fun. And you can get on there if you are supporting sounder at heart at the
00:41:14
Speaker
at the $80 a year level, I think is the right, something like maybe it's $85 now, something like that. But yeah, if you want to do that, we'd love to have you. And if you're a lower tier member, you can upgrade and get that access. All that said, thank you.
00:41:33
Speaker
for listening. Thank you to our sponsor, Full Poll Wines. Thank you to everyone who is a paying member. This has been a really exciting time for us. I can't get over saying that, but yeah, signing off for Aaron Campo and Lick It. I'm Jeremiah Shan. This is No Sun Yet Dis, and we will catch you next time.
00:42:55
Speaker
We love you. Let's win another one!