Francisco Calvo works out at the Earthquakes practice facility adjacent to PayPal Park. Calvo is one of four key additions General Manager Chris Leitch has made in his tenure so far. Photo credits: San Jose Earthquakes
I heard it from the message boards, and it’s not a crazy idea: how can we trust that Chris Leitch will be any different than our two failed predecessors in the GM job, given that he’d been a part of both Front Offices?
Well, we haven’t even started his first (official) season as GM, and we already have a clear answer: he would have done some things differently.
Leitch has taken four huge swings on high-priced players from the domestic market. Both players he drafted in the first round took up international spots. He has done exactly zero in the foreign transfer market and shed (and sold) a bunch of foreign player slots. He’s been hyper-aggressive at extending contracts to the highest-value players in the existing roster. With minor exception, these are all stark departures from his predecessors at GM.
As such, what I’m interested in is what this implies about his philosophy, which I’ll go ahead and describe as “Chris Leitchism.” In any competitive, zero-sum field, the organizations that win, be they in soccer or financial markets, are ones that not only correctly identify value but have some kind of edge. That means they have something they know, and trade on, that not everyone else perceives. That’s how you manage to squeeze more value out of less, which is essential in a salary-capped league.
Here are some theses, or edges, that Chris Leitch appears to be working from based on his first months on the job:
Thesis 1: International Slots are Overrated
The Quakes shed a huge number of players who occupy international slots in the offseason (5, to be specific), and have already traded away 2, with fairly easy pathways to open up more by loaning out George Asomani or getting Jamiro Monteiro a green card.
Why? Because those slots are currently trading for $250k in GAM, which is quite a lot of money. Therefore, for each international player, you need to essentially add $250k to their salary and decide they’re worth that amount since that’s their annual carrying cost (international slots are just for the year). So was Daniel Vega worth $375k? How about Lucho Abecasis on nearly $650k? Or *shudder* Andy Rios $1.1M?
Clearly, none of them. Smart organizations like Nashville have also been cashing in on their slots and leaning on their domestic-status cores.
Thesis 2: In the draft, go for the internationals who drop
In the draft, because of the value of International slots, you frequently see talented foreign players drop below lesser players based on that alone. For a team that has the 7th pick (and eventually the 13th), you’re unlikely to get major contributors, Tanner Beason notwithstanding. So instead, you pluck those guys who drop below where their talent says they should go, including Ousseni Bouda and Oskar Ågren, and significantly improve your chances of getting a genuine first-team contributor. George Asomani, a second-rounder, also fits this bill.
But, wait a second, doesn’t this seem to be in contradiction with Thesis 1? Not necessarily. First, even if we all agree that international slots are generally more valuable on the market than on the roster, that doesn’t mean that’s true in every case. It’s possible that the very same dynamics that cause other clubs to value those slots so highly they’ll dispense major GAM to get them or pass up on talented draft picks to avoid using one, are what lead to under-valued players falling into San Jose’s lap later in the draft.
As an example: due to Generation Adidas and supplemental roster rules, neither Bouda nor Ågren will count against the salary cap this year. But would you be willing to pay $250k to get a better player than you otherwise would have from the draft? Leitch’s answer appears to be yes, and I’m inclined to agree with him in the case of both Ågren and Bouda.
There’s another factor here, too: green cards for these younger players are inevitable, since they’ve already been in the US for several years in school, and you’re planning on holding them for several more years anyway. In the meantime, if you really need the slot, you can loan the player out or not register him with the first team, as they plan to do with Asomani. So while a foreign transfer would necessitate a green card for at least their first 3 years at the club, a foreign draftee might necessitate less.
Thesis 3: When other MLS teams are shedding salary, pounce
This is the big pivot from Jesse Fioranelli: scour the league for talent, and be opportunistic as hell when players become available. Players are much cheaper (in all sports) when their current teams are actively trying to get rid of them, rather than when the buyer starts the approach. This very much has been the successful M.O. of the Colorado Rapids, as I described in my previous article about how good MLS teams are built.
This is what has led to what I’m referring to as the “Class of ’22”, or those three big intra-league transactions Leitch executed this offseason, for a collective cost of just $500k: Francisco Calvo, Ján Greguš, and Jamiro Monteiro. All three are above the “maximum budget charge” threshold of $612k, with Monteiro as a true DP. All were shed by their prior teams as salary dumps. All were MLS veterans with at least 3 years of league experience and a proven track record. All were brought in on relatively low-risk contracts, with Greguš and Calvo getting 1-year deals plus an option, and Monteiro getting a 2-year deal plus an option. That’s opportunism.
You could also consider Jeremy Ebobisse a part of this class since he was also someone the club opportunistically pounced on and was very much done with this offseason in mind. The difference, of course, is that he’s younger than the prior group of three, was signed to a long-term deal, and cost quite a bit more in trade assets.
Why does this strategy make sense, if their prior clubs considered them overpaid? Well in a salary-capped league, not everyone has equal access to cap space. So if a team is capped-out and desperate for space, a team that has a comfortable amount of space can take advantage and steal talent at below-market exchange rates. Remember, of course, how much space Leitch opened up in the offseason by getting rid of the “famous 8” players that Almeyda seems so fond of messaging. This gave him a huge advantage relative to other MLS clubs in a precious resource: cap space.
I should also note that for two of the Class of ’22 (Calvo and Greguš), their salaries with the Quakes will be at (modest) discounts to their salaries with their prior clubs, meaning that the value equation gets more favorable in the Quakes direction. Minnesota may well have decided that the Slovakian’s $1M option was too expensive, but if he’s on $700k for the Quakes, they may well have got a screaming deal.
I love this thesis. It’s exactly the kind of analytical, value-driven thinking that will provide an antidote to the poor decision-making of prior regimes. That’s not to say that any of these players will entirely fulfill their promise, of course. But the market for soccer talent is indeed a marketplace, and if you never look at the sale rack, you’re never going to maximize your talent.
Chris Leitchism
This is unambiguously a new chapter in Quakes roster building. Leitch has already insinuated clear leaps forward in analytical savvy within the Front Office, he’s pivoted from the foreign to domestic markets, and he’s continued his excellent track record in the SuperDraft.
This year will tell us a lot about whether these new approaches are genuine edges, or simply interesting ideas that didn’t pan out. But they seem much more grounded in rigorous thinking than under Fioranelli, or particularly, under Doyle. That gives me a lot of hope and interest in the long-term Quakes project, whether that comes this year or in years to come.
