Revisiting the ADRs

When posting the 2009 ADRs earlier this week, I asked what jumped out at you. Well here's some questions that jumped out at me:

1. Is Dejan Jakovic really all that good? The biggest surprise for me on the whole was Jakovic's even 3.00 rating. After winning three Benny Awards, you would have thought his rating would be among the best on the team. But in reality, a mediocre rating is probably appropriate for the leader of the United defense that gave up more goals than 10 other MLS teams.

2. Why can't we manage to secure a decent goalkeeper? Outside of Steve Cronin's quality performance at the very end of the season, the three goalkeepers that saw action for United in 2009 didn't fair too well on average. And this seems to be a continuing problem, as this is the second year in a row where we didn't have one regular starting goalkeeper earn higher than a 3.00 ADR.

3. How long will Chris Pontius stay in MLS? Pontius's 4.19 ADR led the team among regulars, and is the highest score we've seen from any player in the two years I've been doing this. Surely European clubs, as well as the USMNT, will start to take notice of his talents soon.

4. I guess Brandon Barklage should be our starting CAM next season? Well no. Reader DM pointed out in the comments section that we shouldn't read too much into any ADR with less than 5 ratings, and I agree. But Barklage's perfect 5.00 ADR from 2 ratings tells us that at the very least, he should be invited back to training camp next year to compete for a developmental roster contract (not just cut in the offseason like the team did to every one of its rookies last year).

5. Weren't Jaime Moreno and Ben Olsen supposed to deteriorate this season? Because they didn't. Moreno's 3.62 and Olsen's 3.73 are still well above average. Both have said that they want to return to the team next season, and I see no reason why not.